Twixt Firelight and Water by Juliet Marillier Page A

druids pale with horror. I would shout and scream my story to the treetops, I would sit by the pool and let my tears fall into the still water, one and two and three. I would whisper her name to the wind, I would teach it to skylark and thrush, to sparrow and nightingale, and they would sing it abroad, an anthem, a lullaby, a love song, a dead march. Oh, if I had my voice again, there would be such a tale to tell. And in that tale, perhaps I would be hero and villain both.
     
    I glimpsed her first ’twixt lake and fire
    My heart took wing; soared high and higher
    Lóch was her name. The moon above
    Smiled down, pale witness of our love.
     
    Ah, that night! She stood reed-slender, the fire’s glow warming her face, and behind her the bright moon danced on the waters of the lake. My heart gave one great leap and I was changed forever. But I get ahead of myself. First I must tell of a day some years earlier: the day when I watched my mother bringing her new son home to the Otherworld.
     
    I was hiding. At thirteen, I was in more fear of her than I had been as a little child. By then I’d begun to understand the darkness she carried within her, a weight of bitter resentment so tightly woven into the fabric of her that it was plain nothing would ever shift it. She’d been away. Three years it had been, three wonderful, peaceful years without her. I’d spent them making verses, practising the harp, and hoping beyond hope that she’d never come back. With her gone, folk had begun to befriend me. I had started to believe it might be possible for one of my kind to follow the paths of light. Yes, even a son of hers.
     
    I was hiding high in the cradling branches of an oak. I watched her pass below, every part of me on edge, willing her to be only a phantom, only an evil memory. But she was real, as real as the little boy she carried in her arms, a red-haired mite of perhaps two summers. I knew at a glance that he was hers. Her son. My replacement.
     
    It was her habit to summon me after one of these trips out into the human world, and her summons came as soon as she’d left the child with a pair of local cottagers, then returned to our own realm. She stood in the shadow of the oaks, eyes cool as I approached. ‘Conri,’ she said. Her tone hardly differentiated me from a grain of dust under her foot.
     
    ‘Mother.’ I knelt before her, since that was the way she liked it, making my voice respectful.
     
    ‘I don’t suppose I can hope you spent the time of my absence working on the elements of your magical craft.’
     
    It was not a question, and I did not offer an answer, merely gazed at the ground, wondering how she would punish me.
     
    A sigh. ‘I’ve had a reversal, Conri. A serious reversal that needs attention. Look at me!’ Her voice suddenly sharp as an axe. I raised my head. She was young today, auburn hair cascading over her shoulders, figure shapely in a gown of soft green. Her mouth was set tight. Her eyes probed deep inside me. I could think of nothing to say that would please her.
     
    ‘You’ve wasted the time fiddling about with your music. Yes?’
     
    ‘Yes, Mother.’ I set my jaw firm and held her gaze as my belly twisted in fear.
     
    ‘Pah!’ An explosion of annoyance, then a click of the fingers. Pain shot through my arms and hands, crippling, crushing. I crumpled, screaming. Around us in the high trees of the Otherworld, a host of birds echoed my cry. ‘Stupid boy! With your parentage, you could have amounted to something. You are useless! Useless! A weakling!’
     
    I forced myself back up to my knees. The agony was fading. I glanced at my arms, half-expecting that every bone would be broken, but they looked much as usual. My breath wheezed in my chest. I said nothing at all.
     
    ‘Never mind that.’ Mother’s tone had changed again. ‘It’s of little account now. Despite the reversal, I have not returned empty-handed. I have a weapon. A fine weapon. Or so it will become, when