Finn leaned over the side of the wagon, his eyes trailing the abandoned road as it disappeared into the dull grey wall of dead tree trunks. He couldn’t remember the last time a forest had appeared more drab than the overcast sky above it.

  “Here you are,” Rory said to Maeve and Niall. “The road turns northwest toward the Red Tower. Don’t turn right; it will merely take you back to Uargal.”

  “You’re certain splitting up is the right move?” Fergal said.

  “I understand your hesitation,” Rory said. “The last thing anyone moving on that tower needs is getting pinned in between two waves of attackers. Let us worry abut the dearg due and anything else that rushes to their master’s aide.”

  “We thank you for the escort,” Niall said.

  “You’ll want to stash your horses early,” Rory said. “For your stealth and for the horses’ safety.”

  “About that,” Finn said. “Someone sent my horse away."

  “Quit your wailing,” Maeve said. She twitched her head toward the back of her horse. “Get on.”

  “I’d rather walk.”

  “Codding aside,” Rory said, “with one horse sent home and the other in recovery, walking is your only other option.”

  Maeve winked at Finn and patted the horse behind the saddle.

  “You’re not helping,” he said.

  “You’d suspect me if I were,” she said.

  Climbing onto the back of Maeve’s horse was awkward, and Finn regretted not waiting for Rory and the Fianna to leave first.

  “You can hold on to me if you want,” Maeve said. “But no liberties or I’ll make you face backwards again. I’d almost hate to see Gavin clatter you in a jealous rage.”

  “If he’s given the facts, I’m certain he’d see my side of things,” Finn said. He caught Fergal’s smirk. “Don’t encourage her.”

  Fergal’s smirk spread into a grin. “In earnest, sir, I’m just happy to learn the way she treats Brigid and her brother is her normal manner of behaving.”

  “So it is,” Finn said.

  Niall dropped his face and rubbed it with his gloved silver hand.

  “What is it?” Maeve asked. “Are we missing something?”

  “I’m just making a silent wish that this nonsense will go away before each of you reaches thirty. Can we pretend for a moment that this isn’t a run to the market we’re undertaking?”

  One of Rory’s warriors leaned in and said something to them. Finn couldn’t hear it all, but he caught the words “Maybe,” “shouldn’t,” “them,” and “alone.”

  Rory waved their man off without looking back at him. “Good luck to the four of you. May your stealth outperform your wit.”

  Maeve pointed a finger at him. “I’ll have more of the latter for you upon our reunion.”

  Rory flicked a hand toward Dóchasach and the Fianna rode west without another word.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Maeve said. She kicked her legs and urged her horse into the dead forest. “Don’t assume we’re free of harm until we reach the tower.”

  The party walked down the abandoned road for two miles, surrounded by rotting wood and silence. On several occasions they had to leave the trail to bypass a tree that had fallen across it.

  Maeve’s head shook. “Isn’t the Otherworld meant to be perfect?” she asked in a soft tone. “Beautiful? This is not what I imagined.”

  “For starters, you’d be ignoring the possibility that The ávertach’s presence—or even curse—caused this,” Finn said, just louder than a whisper. “Beyond that, the tales often refer to this as a ‘second’ life. An ‘other’ life. Some lands are painted with a more colorful brush than others. Perhaps too many people lump the Otherworld in with Heaven. Maybe they’re mistakenly translating ‘magical’ for ‘perfect.’

  “I don’t know if I feel better or worse after considering that,” Maeve said.

  “It’s barely starting, is what it is,” Finn said. “What is ‘life’ without ‘death?’ Do people here live forever? Do they not age, or do they age at a rate too slow to perceive? What happens when people from here—not mortals like us—die?”

  “Alright, Finn,” Maeve said. “You’re—”

  “—Come to think of it, what happens to mortals who die here? Do we get sent to Tech Duinn, or do we get sent back home? Time passes differently in both worlds, so what kind of world will return to? Will we return as a baby? The questions—”

  “—Must stop!” Maeve yelled. “Please. I’ve never regretted anything more than starting this conversation.”

  “Ah,” Finn said. “I didn’t think you all would find it boring.”

  “I’m not saying that it’s boring,” Maeve said. “I’m saying that it’s messing with my head.”

  “Truly?” Finn asked. He looked at Fergal.

  “Hai, it’s unsettling,” Fergal said.

  Finn craned his neck around Maeve and pointed down the road. “Maybe that will settle you.”

  A grove of birch and oak neared on the right side of the road.

  “Hai, it is a pleasant change of scenery,” Fergal said.

  “No transition to it,” Maeve. “No thinning or dying trees between them.”

  “What does that mean?” Fergal asked.

  Maeve shrugged. “Likely nothing. It’s just odd.”

  “So, normal for this place, then,” Niall said. “The crossing Rory mentioned is on the other side of this bit of green. Let’s hang back and watch a bit for patrols.”

  “Patrols?” Finn asked, the corners of his mouth curling upward. “The creatures run in formation now?”

  “Indeed, patrols,” Niall said, his tone sharp. “Dya’forget the ‘formation’ they ran in back in Mag da Cheonn?” He canted his head. “I’m surprised at you, lad. This thing ahead of us exerts its influence over the land, its beasts and some of its people. Underestimating it is something I’d expect from your brother—when he was younger.”

  Finn dropped his face. “Niall, I—”

  “—almost died back there? Is that what you were going to say? Because that’s what almost happened.” Niall pressed his lips and exhaled through his nose. “You’re my family too, as much as the one in front of you. I don’t need us simply to succeed. I need us all to survive, but I don’t know if that’s possible under the best of circumstances. Catch yourself on, Fintan, and do it now.”

  Finn had no other response save for a solemn nod.

  Niall responded in kind. “We move,” he said. “Quietly.”

  Maeve looked at Fergal and flicked her head forward. Fergal acknowledged her signal and fell in behind Niall. The men turned left, away from the lone patch of green in the bleak landscape.

  “I can hear you,” Maeve said in almost a whisper.

  “I said nothing,” Finn said.

  “Sure you didn’t, but I can hear your inner voice screaming at you from out here,” she said. “You MacLaughlin lads never travel light, do ya?”

  “I suppose not.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Well, give your head some peace. He’s just worried about you. You were unconscious for a worrisome amount of time, after all.”

  “I’m sorry to do that to you all,” he said. “Thanks, Maeve.”

  “Don’t mention it, cousin.”

  He smiled and poked her in the back. “Dry up.”

  “Up there,” Fergal said. “On the right. Is that it?”

  A drab shade of red crested over the dead branches.

  “I think we should assume so,” Niall said.

  Finn couldn’t see Maeve’s face but took her silence to mean she was scanning it with her uncanny eye.

  “I didn’t think they’d be so literal with the name,” she said. “That’s definitely the roof of a building.”

  “Let’s get off the road, then,” Niall said. “So far that we can’t see the road. We’ll leave the horses there.”

  “Which side?” Fergal asked.

  Niall looked at Maeve, who studied the forest on each side of the road.

  “Left,” she said, “though there’s not much difference between the two sides.”

  The group dismounted and weaved their way between the trees. Only when no sign of the road’s clearing was visible did Niall stop the group.

  “Here’ll do,” he said.

  “Tie them up anywhere?” Finn asked.

  “No,” Maeve said. “If something comes through here, we should give them the chance to escape, even if it means we walk back.”

  “That’s fair,” Finn said.

  “Grab your weapons and as little as you can carry,” Maeve said. “Leave as little of a trace as possible.”

  Maeve led the three men back to the road and they continued northwest toward the tower. More daylight slid through the cracked, empty branches; the forest was thinning.

  “Hang on,” Maeve whispered as she flung an arm into both Finn and Fergal’s chest. “Something’s coming.”

  “Do we fight?” Finn asked.

  “We hide,” Niall said. “We observe.”

  “Isn’t this a way we can thin their forces?” Fergal asked.

  “Usually that’s true,” Niall said. “But if it’s a lock of those dearg dues, then we risk another drawn out fight and them screeching for more help.”

  “That log,” Maeve said, pointing to a fallen tree forty yards off the road on the left. “We hide there.”

  The group laid prone behind the log. Maeve laid near the end of it with her head clear and her chin pressed against the forest floor.

  “It’s them, alright,” she whispered. “Five of ‘em.”

  Finn laid his face flat. The ground was leafless and covered in moss, another reminder that the woods in which they traveled weren’t just seasonably barren.

  “Do you mean for us to lie here the whole time?” Fergal asked.

  “We’ll run parallel to the road once when they’re almost out of sight.” Maeve said. “It will increase the distance and keep us hidden, in case another group is following them.”

  Maeve led the group northwest. The road remained out of Finn’s view as they tiptoed over dead boughs and twigs. Fergal struggled more than the rest to avoid crunching branches beneath his feet but Maeve and Niall never scolded him for it.

  “Drop!” Maeve whispered. “Something’s approaching from the road!”

  Outlines of three humanoid forms grew and filled into shadows, revealing shaggy torsos.

  “More merrows?” Niall whispered.

  The creature on the left jerked its head to the left as if it heard Niall, revealing the profile of its head.

  Finn jiggled his hand to get Maeve’s attention. He shook his head and mouthed the word “fuath,” exaggerating the movements of his lips.

  Maeve dipped her head down and raised her eyebrows.

  Finn smiled and nodded. He was sure.

  Niall elbowed Fergal. The elder moved his hand back toward the hilt of his sword and nodded. Fergal couldn’t mirror his movement as his poleaxe was too unwieldy to prepare from a prone position. Still, the innkeeper tightened the muscles in his arms and legs, ready to fire up into a battle stance.

  “Can we afford to fight yet?” Finn whispered to Maeve.

  “Honestly?” she asked. She narrowed her eyes toward the tower. She looked back at Finn and shrugged.

  Finn slid a hand in front of Niall. “Wait,” he mouthed. He pointed at his wrinkled nose and shook his head. He relaxed his face and nodded as he pointed to his ear. Finn pushed a flattened hand at the men, pointed to his right eye and extended that finger toward the fuath.

  The fuath on the left advanced two more steps and twisted its head in the other direction.

  You better not make a liar out of me, Finn thought.

  A screech sounded in the distance to the right. All three fuath turned toward it. They shared guttural sounds with each other and disappeared behind the trees on Finn’s right.

  “That was the dearg due we heard, hai?” Finn asked.

  “It would seem so,” Fergal said. “I hope that we’re hearin’ a squabble between them and not a fight with our people on patrol.”

  Onward they stepped through the woods. They encountered nothing else over the next mile until they reached the point where the forest’s edge, the seaside cliffs and the road met. Niall held them ten feet from the clearing to assess what lay before them on the peninsula ahead.

  Finn muttered in awe as he studied the castle. “Do they come bigger than this?” he asked Niall.

  “Not many do, lad,” Niall said. “Not where we come from.”

  There were no curtain walls. No baileys or bawns. No halls or barracks. Not a single outbuilding. A large rectangular keep with three tall floors extended to meet the road. Two secondary wings, each a square half the size of the primary structure, extended from its rear half. A neglected stable building occupied the otherwise empty area between the western wing and the front of the keep. Crumbling walls on the other side of the keep’s front obscured an open area.

  The wooden roofs covering the wings were worn but remained intact. The roof of the primary keep was built of stone and bounded by four square watchtowers at each corner. A newer addition extended upward from the watchtower on the keep’s farthest corner. A wooden staircase, free from wear and rot, ascended from the roof to a door halfway up the new tower. An open-air platform wider than the tower walls capped the structure, shielded from the elements by a steep roof built from red timber.

  “What are the chances the master of the house lives here by himself?” Fergal asked.

  “I can’t imagine the fuath, hags and dearg due make for good tenants,” Finn said, “but I’m not eager for a stroll up to the front door, either.”

  “There’s not nearly enough cover between here and the castle,” Niall said. “Got something for that, Finn?”

  “Not for all of us,” Finn said. “You?”

  “Strictly imbáulad,” Niall said.

  “Maeve has to have something,” Finn said with a look to the ranger.

  Maeve’s eyes dropped to the ground and she scratched the back of her neck. “I suppose I might. Wait—I don’t think—”

  “—What good was your training at Norroway if you won’t use it?” Finn asked.

  Her eyes raised to meet Finn’s, and she glared at him from under her eyebrows. “Fine, then,” she said. “Gather round. Hands on each other’s shoulders. Two of you put a hand on my shoulder.”

  Niall and Finn rested a hand on Fergal’s shoulders and closed the circle by resting their other hands on Maeve.

  “Quiet, now,” she said. “I have to remember something my mam taught me.”

  Maeve closed her eyes. Her mouth moved by fractions, punctuated by even smaller head shakes.

  “Did it work?” Fergal asked.

  “Whist,” she said. “Grand, I think I have it. Ar nglúasa?t a ceilt.”

  Fergal nearly broke the circle as his, Maeve’s, and Niall’s feet faded away. “Where did you three go? Your magic didn’t work on me. Is it because I’m not sílrad?”

  “That can’t be it,” Finn said, “because I don’t see you, Fergal. I only see myself.”

  “Calm down,” Maeve said. “My mam did this twice with me as a child, but it was just the two of us. We were together as one when I cast the spell. If I did it properly, you won't be able to see each other, but you’ll be able to feel each other when they’re nearby.”

  “That’s some grand work, Maeve,” Finn said. “I didn’t know this manner of magic existed.”

  Maeve squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t go running off yet, MacLaughlin. This spell is effective as long as your focus is hiding and sneaking around. Once your mind and body start swinging weapons and magic about the place, my spell breaks. Understood?”

  Finn could feel the circle around him sway.

  Maeve sighed. “I can’t see your nodding, eejits.”

  The men grumbled in acknowledgment.

  “Grand, follow me as best you can. Whisper if you feel us separating.”

  Maeve released Finn’s shoulder. Only when he squeezed his eyelids close together did he see slight ripples ahead of him. Her footfalls caused just the slightest amount of disturbance on the ground and no sound.

  True to Maeve’s word, he felt his comrades behind him. Fergal immediately followed him. Finn only knew this because Fergal was whispering, “Hide. Hide. Hide,” with each step.

  “Ferg, I don’t think you need that,” Finn whispered. “Just sneak around like you would in any situation. The rest should take care of itself.”

  “And the magic will work, even if I’m not like you?”

  “Sure look, you need to realize that you are like us. No one comes on this journey without being ‘like us.’”

  “I meant—”

  “—Hai, I know what you meant,” Finn said. “And I think the spell is equally effective on sílrad and non-sílrad alike.”

  “Thank you,” Fergal said. “For both.”

  Someone crept up and walked even with Finn.

  “What do you see?” Niall asked Maeve.

  “Nothing in the old stables,” she said. “Shadows crossing the windows on the second and third floors.”

  “And the tower?”

  “Can’t tell.”

  Finn stood straight—not that anyone else could tell. “How are we getting in?"

  “We shouldn’t assume there’s an entrance through the stables,” Niall said. "Even if there were, it likely isn’t the best way in.”

  “Is there a ‘best’ way in?” Finn asked.

  “No one would expect us to enter through the rear,” Maeve said.

  “That’s because the castle sits at the edge of thon cliff,” Finn said. “And it’s likely that no one would expect us to enter through the front, either.”

  “Both plans are uniquely thick,” Niall said.

  “Still, searching for an entrance behind the castle is our best bet,” Finn said. “They wouldn’t hang it at the very edge, after all. They’d leave at least one foot between the walls and a perilous drop into the sea.”

  “Perhaps you’re forgetting some of our feet take up more space than others,” Fergal said.

  “That leaves us with two choices,” Maeve said. “We either go slow and let Fergal cross behind the castle on the tips of his toes, or we use the remaining half-mile ahead of us to come up with a better plan.”