Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online

waking moment? I wished he
     
    would explain. But that was never his way. If there was a puzzle to be solved, I was expected to do it myself.
     
    "We might start sooner than planned, I think. As soon as Dan's folk are away we'll take the next step. You can have one day's rest. You've earned that much; we cannot afford more. Use the day wisely."
     
    There was no choice in it; there never had been. "Yes, Father," I said, and as we made our way up the cliff path and into the dark tunnels of the Honeycomb, I let the Glamour slip away and was once more my limping, clumsy self. I had done what my father asked. Why, then, did I feel so unhappy? Hadn't I proved I could be what I pleased? Hadn't I shown I could make people admire me and bend them to my will? Yet later, lying on my bed, I stared into the darkness and felt an emptiness inside me that bore no relation whatever to spells, and enchantments, and the mastery of the craft.
     
    It was a night of restless dreams, and I awoke before dawn, shivering under my woollen blanket, hearing the howl of the wind, and the roar of the sea as it pounded the rocks of the Honeycomb. Not a good day to be abroad. Perhaps Dan Walker and his folk would decide to stay a little longer. But it never did happen that way. They were as true to their time as birds flying away for the winter, their arrivals and departures as precise as the movement of shadows in a sacred circle. You could count your year by them. The golden times. The gray times. It seemed to me the voice of the wind had words in it. I will sweep you bare . . . bare ... I will take all. . . all. . . And the sea responded in kind. I am hungry . . .give me. . .
     
    I put my hands over my ears and curled up tight. It was supposed to be a day of rest, after all. Might I not sleep in peace, at least until the sun rose? But the voices would not go away, so I got up and dressed, not sure what the day might hold, but thinking I would make myself very busy indeed, and try to ignore the sick, empty feeling in my stomach. It was as I pulled on my boots that I heard, very faintly through the blast of the wind, another sound. A note or two, fragments of a tune over a steady, solid drone. The voice of the pipes. So, they were not gone yet. Not stopping to think, I grabbed my shawl and was away, out of doors and up the hill toward the standing stones, my hair whipped this way and that in the wild weather, the
     
    sea spray pursuing me as far from the cliffs as its icy fingers could stretch.
     
    Darragh stopped playing when he saw me. He'd found a sheltered spot among the stones, and sat with his legs outstretched and his back to the great dolmen we called the Guardian, not disrespectful exactly, just blending in as if he belonged there, the same as the rabbits. I stumbled forward, pushing my hair back from my eyes, and sat down beside him. I clutched my shawl closer around me. It was still barely dawn, and the air held the first touch of a distant winter.
     
    It took me a while to catch my breath.
     
    "Well," said Darragh eventually, which wasn't much help.
     
    "Well," I echoed.
     
    "You're abroad early."
     
    "I heard you playing."
     
    "I've played up here often enough, this summer. Didn't bring you out before. We're leaving this morning. But I suppose you knew that."
     
    I nodded, sudden misery near overwhelming me. "I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I've been busy. Too busy to come out. I—"
     
    "Don't apologize. Not if you don't mean it," said Darragh lightly.
     
    "But I did want—I hadn't any choice," I told him.
     
    Darragh looked at me straight, his brown eyes very serious and a little frown on his face. "There's always a choice, Fainne," he said soberly.
     
    Then we sat in silence for a while, and at length he took up the pipes and began to play again, some tune I did not recognize that was sad enough to bring the tears to your eyes. Not that I'd have cried over so foolish a thing, even if I'd been capable of it.
     
    "There's words to