Flame of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online

to take you in if you’d prefer that.”
    “I’ll wait with you, my lady.”
    Doran favored my handmaid with a smile. “Are you back for good, Lady Maeve?” he asked me.
    The tightness moved up to my chest. I could explain about Swift, of course, and why I’d finally come back after so long, but that was not a real answer to this question. I had better prepare one, since it would be asked over and over. “I’m not sure yet,” I told him.
    We waited, and while we did so I played a game: picking out anyone I could recognize, or half-recognize, in the circle down the hill. The torchlight added to the challenge, painting each face with a moving pattern of gold and shadow. I looked for my little brother first, as there were only a few children there. Finbar was seven; he’d be bigger than my cousin Fintan’s children back at Harrowfield, and his hair would either be red like my mother’s and mine, or dark like Father’s. Was he that lad putting up a hand to cover a yawn? Or the one bending to tie up a shoe that had come loose? The others were all girls, or too small…But wait. A boy was standing very still beside a figure in a long robe, perhaps a druid. Indeed, the child was unnaturally still, like a rabbit frozen in the fox’s stare. A white face; a mop of dark curls. Shoulders very straight. Hands behind his back. I could not see his features clearly, but that stance was all unease. Perhaps this was the first deathFinbar had experienced. I felt a jolt of recognition, unexpected and not entirely welcome. My brother. My little brother.
    The druid who was conducting the ritual stretched out his arms and intoned a prayer. Fragments were carried to us on the evening breeze: “Fly with the west wind…Swim with the mysterious beasts of the ocean…Rise with the flame of renewal…” Ciarán , I thought, my skin prickling with the power of the words. Even if I had not recognized my other uncle, Conor’s half brother, by his dark red hair and his imposing height, I would have remembered that voice, full of dignity, deep and sure.
    “They say Ciarán will be chief druid now Conor’s gone,” Doran murmured. “He’s very much respected, both within the brotherhood and elsewhere.”
    “Maeve,” whispered Rhian, who was staring in fascination at the folk down the hill and had evidently forgotten we were not alone, “is that lady one of your sisters?”
    The lady in question was of short and slight build. Her hair was concealed under an elegant veil and she held her head regally high. Her arm was linked with that of a rather grand-looking man in a blue cloak. She was a younger version of my mother. “It must be Deirdre,” I said. “I don’t think any of the others would be here.” And as Doran confirmed that it was indeed Deirdre and that the man beside her was her husband, my father stepped out into the middle of the circle and passed something to Ciarán, perhaps marking the end of the ritual.
    Ten years. Deirdre had changed in that time and so had I. I had grown into a woman. I had learned hard lessons about myself and the world I must live in. I had become brave because the alternative was unthinkable. Now, as I gazed on the familiar, well-loved figure of my father, the wounded child within me stirred uneasily. I had been too sick to take in much during the time after the fire, when my eldest sister, Muirrin, was tending to me in the keep, before Aunt Liadan came to fetch me away. Day and night had been a blur of pain and terror: Muirrin’s white face and red eyes as she did what had to be done, changing the dressings, making me move my fingers; Mother’s voice, murmuring, It’s all right, Maeve. You’ll be all right , as if by repeating the words she could make them true; my sisters’ shocked, disbelieving faces when they were finally allowed in to see me. My cousin Fainne’s tight, closed features. And my father, overcome with grief and guilt, for he had rushed to the rescue, had saved my life, but