Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online Page B

cup. "You certainly haven't lost your touch,"
    I said. "You needn't worry. I know how to gather that herb and how to use it."
    "A powerful combination, Daughter."
    I glanced at her, and she looked straight back.
    "You know, don't you?" she said softly.
    I nodded, unable to speak. I placed a cup of the healing tea on the stone sill beside her and my own near me where I worked.
    "Your choice of herbs is very apt. But it is too late for such cures to do more than provide a brief respite.
    You know this too." She took a sip of the tea, screwed up her face, and gave a little smile. "It's a bitter brew."
    "Bitter indeed," I said, sipping my own tea, which was plain peppermint. I managed to keep my voice under control, just.
    "I can see we have taught you well, Liadan," said my mother, regarding me closely. "You have my skill with healing and your father's gift for love. He gathers all around him under his protective shade like a great forest tree. I see the same strength in you, Daughter."
    This time, I did not risk speaking.
    "It will be hard for him," she went on, "very hard. He is not one of us, not truly, though we forget it sometimes. He does not understand that this is not a true parting but simply a moving on, a changing."
    "The wheel turns and returns," I said.
    Mother smiled again. She had put the tea down almost untouched. "There's a bit of Conor in you as well," she said. "Sit down awhile, Liadan. I have something to tell you."
    "You too?" I managed a watery grin.
    "Yes, your father told me about Eamonn."
    "And what did you think?"
    A little frown creased her brow. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I can't advise you. But—but I would say, don't be in too much of a hurry. You'll be needed here for a while."
    I didn't ask her why. "Have you told Father?" I asked finally.
    Mother gave a sigh. "No. He will not ask me, since he knows I will answer with the truth. I don't need to put it into words. Not for Red. His knowledge is there in the touch of his hand, in his Page 20

    hastening home from plowing, in the way he sits by the bed, thinking me asleep, and holds my hand, looking into the darkness. He knows."
    I shivered. "What was it you were going to tell me?"
    "Something I have never shared with anyone. But I think now is the time to pass it on. You've been troubled lately; I've seen it in your eyes. Not just—not just this, but something more."
    I held my cup between my palms, warming them. "I get—sometimes I get the strangest feeling.
    As if suddenly everything goes cold, and—and there's a voice . . ."
    "Go on."
    "I see—I feel as if something terrible is coming. I look at someone and sense a—a sort of doom over them. Conor knows. He told me not to feel guilty. I didn't find that particularly helpful."
    Mother nodded. "My brother was about your age when he first felt it. Finbar, I mean. Conor remembers that. It is a painful skill, one few would wish for themselves."
    "What is it?" I asked, shivering. "Is it the Sight? Then why don't I go into convulsions and scream and then go limp like Biddy O'Neill down at the Crossing? She's got the Sight. She foretold the great floods two winters ago and the death of that man whose cart went over the edge at Fergal's Bluff. This is—different."
    "Different but the same. The way it takes you depends on your own strength and your own gifts.
    And what you see can also mislead you. Finbar often saw true, and he felt the guilt of not being able to prevent the things from happening. But what his visions meant was by no means easy to inter pret. It's a cruel gift, Liadan. With it comes another, which you have not yet had cause to develop."
    "What's that?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Wasn't one such gift, if gift it could be called, more than enough?
    "I can't explain it, not fully. He used it on me once. He and I—he and I shared the same bond you have with Sean, a closeness that lets you speak mind to mind, that tunes you to the other's inmost self. Finbar had greater skill