Free Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier Page A

tool, part of the means to an end. Tomorrow I'll begin to explain what that end is. You've quite a task ahead of you, granddaughter. Quite a task. Now, off to bed with you, you'll need all the rest you can get."
    That night, alone in my chamber with a candle for company and the ocean roaring outside, I opened the wooden chest and brought out Riona. She seemed a little crumpled from being squashed under blankets, and I thought I detected a trace of a frown on her neatly stitched features. I untangled her yellow hair and refastened the ties at the back of her gown. Tonight, suddenly I did not feel so grown-up anymore, and as I blew out the candle and lay down on my bed I kept Riona by me, something I had not done for a long time.
    "Is it true?" I whispered into the darkness. "Is that all my mother was, a stupid girl who blighted my father's life? Is that why he doesn't want to talk about her? But he said he loved her. If he would talk about her, then maybe I would remember her. Maybe I would remember something. Some little thing."
    Riona did not reply. Her presence by me was comforting, nonetheless. My fingers touched the strange woven necklace she wore, stroked the cool smooth surface of the white stone threaded on it.
    "Perhaps it's best," I said, to her or to myself. "Perhaps it's best that I don't know. She was one of them, the human kind, the family of Sevenwaters. I am of the other kind; I am my father's daughter. Best if I never know." But my hand brushed the soft silk of Riona's skirt, and as I fell asleep I was seeing my mother's fingers, the swift flash of the needle as she sewed the little gown with tiny, even stitches. A gift for her daughter, to remember her by; a small friend to comfort me in the darkness when she was gone.
    The next morning Grandmother set things out for me.
    "Now, Fainne," she said, watching me very closely as I stood before her in my plain gown and serviceable shoes, my hands clasped behind my back. "Why do you think your father wants you to go to Sevenwaters? Is not that the one place he longs to obliterate from his memory, yet cannot? Why would he send you there, his only daughter, into the heart of his enemy's territory?"
     
    "I am the granddaughter of a chieftain of Ulster," I told her. "Father said the folk of Sevenwaters have a debt to repay. He thinks I must learn to move in that circle, since there is no real future for me here in Kerry." A shiver went through me. It occurred to me for the first time that I might never return to the Honeycomb. The thought terrified me. "I trust my father," I went on as steadily as I could. "If he wishes me to travel to Ulster, then that must be the right thing."
     
    Grandmother grimaced, awakening a network of deep wrinkles in her ancient skin. "Your confidence in Ciaran's judgment is touching, my dear, if ill founded. His decision is sound enough, it's his reasons that leave something to be desired. I put that down to his druid training. That wretch, Conor, has a lot to answer for. He and those brothers of his robbed my son of his birthright, and muddled his head with foolish ideas, so he doesn't know what's what anymore. They should never have survived what I did to them. But that's beside the point. Your father only told you half the truth, Fainne. Ciaran's sick. Very sick. He's sending you away because he sees a day, quite soon, when he'll no longer be here to provide for you."
     
    I felt the blood drain from my face. "What?" I whispered foolishly.
     
    "Don't believe me? You should. I'm in the very best position to know this. Ciaran won't leave his precious little apprentice here with the fisherfolk, to become another wife with a gaggle of squalling brats at heel. He can't leave you with me; I come and go as I please. So he's left with only one option. Your uncle, Lord Sean of Sevenwaters; Conor, the archdruid; the elusive Liadan; those are the only family you've got. Your father sees no alternative."
     
    "You mean—you mean this cough, this