They skirted Dun Ailinne, avoiding Balor’s patrolling warriors. Bee was sure she could deal with anything that might arise but didn’t want to waste the time it would inevitably mean. They kept cold camps so no one would come to investigate fires and stayed awake wrapped in each other’s arms. When they reached a barely visible side road, Ruirech drew rein.

  “I should check that everything’s all right at the hideaway,” he said, nodding at the path.

  “That goes to yer hideaway?”

  “Yes. Forest Haven. I’ve been away too long.”

  “Forest Haven?” Bee asked, shaking her head and grinning.

  “What’s wrong with Forest Haven?”

  “Is it not a bit… Never mind. We’ve no time, Rebel.”

  “It won’t take long.” The rebel gazed wistfully at the path, and she understood what being apart from his people was costing her lover.

  “Ye’ll be back soon, so ye will,” she told him. Ruirech nodded but said nothing, gazing off into the trees. “Ye go. I have no choice but to ride on.”

  “I promised to stay with you,” he said, digging his heels in and continuing up the road.

  As soon as they were beyond the reach of Balor’s warriors, they lit fires and spent their nights making love and falling asleep in each other’s arms, a careless disregard for their safety. Ruirech tried to explain it by saying there was a lull in whatever was happening, what he called the storm’s eye, and she didn’t feel right disabusing him. This maelstrom would swirl until it destroyed one side or the other. Her problem was that she had no notion of who or what was on which side, nor indeed where the sides were.

  We’re on the same side, at least, she admitted for the first time, watching him from the corner of an eye as they rode through the forest. She felt they were safe for now, because what was happening had a sense of predestination to it.

  Despite her sense of urgency, they didn’t ride late into the night, having other things to do after the sun left the sky. But that wasn’t all. Bee also felt that when the arrived at Breshlech, this, whatever it was, would be forced to end. Her other fear was because she hadn’t tried connecting with her brother and knew her mother would be angry, for whatever reason.

  As such, it was several days later when they finally arrived on the rise above the plains and saw Donn’s Needle pricking the early evening sky. In unspoken agreement, they stopped their mounts to survey the flatlands before the gorge and the needle. The Neit’s Maiden’s marching camp was there, where they’d left it the first time they escaped Credne, which seemed so long ago; only the tents were gone, making the whole camp visible. In the centre of the temporary retreat, a white direwolf sat on its haunches, staring up at them. Beside the wolf, a barrel-chested Higher Tuatha stood with his bare arms crossed.

  I trusted ye, Whitehead. I should’ve known better.

  “It seems we’re expected,” Ruirech said. “I thought you left Dorn in a dungeon in Sliabh Cuilinn.”

  “Aye. I did.”

  “I thought Rhiannon told you not to trust him.”

  “Aye, she did. Come on. We’ll hobble the horses outside the palisade, so they don’t take fright.”

  As they approached the pair a short time later, the wolf morphed into the naked Goddess, and Dorn threw a cloak over her shoulders. Rhiannon drew the fur-lined cover tight, shooting a hard look at Ruirech, who blushed and turned his back.

  Ah, Rebel, always predictable, Bee thought with a grin.

  “Where is your brother?” she asked, interrupting her little moment of pleasure.

  “What, no greeting? No Kiss? No, how are ye, My Child?”

  “No greeting. No kiss. No time. What took you so long?” the Goddess asked with a frown.

  “We rode as fast as we could,” Ruirech said before Bee could answer.

  “That I doubt. Again, I ask, where is your brother?”

  Ignoring the question, Bee asked Dorn, “What’re ye doing here? I left ye in Whitehead’s dungeon grinning like a settlement idiot.”

  “Whitehead released me as soon as you had gone. I came to help,” he answered, the grin she’d seen when she left him in Whitehead’s dungeon still there. It seemed that The Smith considered everything to be a massive jest. Bee thought she’d not hated any of the Gods as much as she hated Dorn at that moment.

  He thinks me a fool.

  “Ye mean, ye came to confuse the issue,” she said, turning to her mother.

  “I have done—”

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  “Spare me, God,” Bee hissed. Rhiannon placed a hand on her forearm and gave it a squeeze.

  “I know I said he cannot be trusted, Bechuille, but things have changed.”

  “What?” Bee hissed.

  “Danu and Dagda are working together. I thought someone was playing them one against the other. It seems my fears were unfounded.”

  “How d’ye know?”

  “A Master Messenger came to me with a sealed scroll. It was from them both. We can trust Goibniu.”

  “What about Credne, and where’s Luchta?”

  “The other two are more of an enigma. We do not know where Luchta is and suspect Credne is working for Dhuosnos and whoever stole the artefacts.”

  “I can’t find Bren,” Bee admitted.

  “Did you try to connect with him?”

  “Aye. All I get is gloom and fear. My brother could be anywhere, and he’s fighting the connection, as though he thinks I’m his enemy. Why’s it so important?”

  The Goddess stood for many moments, holding the cloak together, deep in thought. Finally, she turned to Bee and said, “Walk with me.”

  When her mother turned away without a backward glance, Bee shrugged at Ruirech and ran to catch her up. The Goddess led her up the gorge and climbed the palisade steps. Still holding her cloak together, when Bee arrived beside her, she said, “I have made many mistakes, Bechuille, but none so grave as this, I fear.”

  Bee put a hand on Rhiannon’s arm and gave it a squeeze, a reflection of her mother’s gesture from only moments before. “What is it?”

  Staring at the tower unflinchingly, it took Rhiannon several moments to find her voice. Eventually, she said, “When you asked me who your father is, I did not respond. I am not sure why, except it might have been shame. I did not want to admit my folly…”

  “Whatever it is, Ma, I’ll survive it,” Bee said, filling her mother’s lengthy pause. Ye wanted to know, so accept whatever news, she told herself, following her mother’s lead in gazing at the needle, wondering at the stillness. It seemed strange that the Maidens defeated the dead horde and then just abandoned the tower.

  Rhiannon forced a slight smile and tilted her head, saying, “I do not doubt it, My Child. That premonition, though, does not make what I am about to tell you any easier. In earlier days, I would say in my youth, only I was no youth, so age is not an excuse. Anyway, I had ideals that greater age has proven to be follies. One of those was sympathy for Dhuosnos and his—”

  “That’s where I get it, from ye?” Bee blurted. Rhiannon raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been finding meself sympathetic to the demons lately. At the end of the last Scourge, I was almost in tears. It’s because yer my mother.”

  “Perhaps that is part of it, but I think the main reason is that Dhuosnos is your father.”

  Although she heard the words as clear as a bell chiming beside her ear, Bee asked her mother to repeat them. It wasn’t just that the news was unwelcome; it was also hard to believe. With Dhuosnos in Tech Duinn and Rhiannon in the Realm, how could it even be possible? Bee asked her mother to explain as soon as she was able to put the question into words. I am a Higher Tuatha, she realised, sweat beading her forehead at the realisation. I hate the Higher Tuatha and all they stand for.

  “It was during a Scourge,” Rhiannon said after another lengthy pause. “I was sick of Danu and Dagda bickering about his project, his kingdoms. They were the Chieftain and the Mother Goddess. They should have been working together instead of always fighting. Of course, it was before their ill-fated marriage, and I suppose I should have recognised the bickering for what it was…”

  “Which is what?” Bee asked during another pause.

  “A mutual attraction that neither wanted to admit. Anyway, none of that matters. What matters is that I left the Realm and came to Dagda’s Kingdoms to side with Dhuosnos. I thought if Dagda lost control of what he considered his creation he might spend more time on the Realm and our people. I intended to make sure the Scourge succeeded for once. I had never met the Lord of Darkness—few of us have—and I was really surprised by his wit and charm, never mind his beauty. More than surprised because I fell for him and into his bed. You and Brenos are the result of that mistake. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I began to suspect Dhuosnos had used me as a vessel. Confronting him, he admitted that he had done it to create you both, and that he had put much of his power into the seeds that were now growing in me. You were to be a weapon for him. I fled to the Realm and informed Dagda of my error—”

  “That’s the power I’ve been feeling,” Bee interrupted. “Not some monster without, but a monster within.”

  “What are you saying?” Bechuille. “You are not a monster.”

  Bee was not sure she could agree. It sounded to her as if her mother just told her she was evil’s spawn. The power, her affinity with the demons, even her dreams, now assumed a sinister aspect, one that made her want to puke, almost as much as the foetid stench in the tower at the gorge’s end.

  “That’s why I felt sorry for that demon.”

  “What do you mean?” Rhiannon asked. Instead of answering, Bee wanted to run and find a place away from everyone, a place where she could try to digest this awful news. It wasn’t just that she was the Child of Darkness. She’d also spent most of her life fighting against a father she never knew she had.

  Feeling her scar, she asked, “Ye’re telling me we’re evil.”

  “No, Bechuille. When I learned what I had done, I also gave you and your brother a large portion of my essence. I gave it to help the balance.”

  “Balance?”

  “There is no such thing as pure evil or pure good. Each of us has both good and evil within. What defines us is which side becomes dominant.”

  Is this quest a trial to see which way I turn?

  “Good to know, so it is,” Bee scoffed. “Goibniu told me Dagda didn’t create the Kingdoms. But how is Dhuosnos even here?”

  “Dhuosnos was here before Dagda moved the humans here. This was his Realm, the area surrounding Tech Duinn. Because he was Lord of Darkness, it did not mean he had to suffer darkness. Dagda stole it from him and banished him to Tech Duinn. The Scourges are Dhuosnos’s attempts to escape and steal it back.”

  “Why did ye separate us at birth?”

  “Because you are two halves of the whole. Dagda gave you to Upthog, and I gave your brother to Danu. We thought it would be better if you grew without the influence, one over another.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “You are two halves of Awen. To fight Dhuosnos, you must be united. You must be one. You felt it when you killed the wolf and fought off the crows. As one, you are more powerful.”

  Who says I even want to fight Dhuosnos? Bee asked herself. Ye’ve just finished telling me he’s me father.

  “What are we going to do now?” she asked.

  “Go into the fortress and rescue the druid.”

  “Archu’s still there? Why didn’t Whitehead deal with him?”

  “Without a coven and a High Priestess, she felt ill-equipped.”

  Or they want me to deal with the demon.