On Imbolc at dawn she left Dun Scáth—musty as it was with the closed breath of winter, when they dared not air its halls for fear of losing all the warmth of fire and bodies to the ice winds that howled outside—and stood on the hill to watch the sun rise. Patches of snow like spread cloaks covered most of the ground yet, but the snow was wet beneath her feet, the ground soft with the first flush of the coming thaw.
She drew her cloak around her against the teeth of the wind, and watched the dark sky lighten, turning from black to grey, grey to gold. Below her, in the valley, she could hear the bleating of ewes heavy with their lambs. Now their teats would begin to swell with milk for the lambs they would drop in a hand of days or perhaps two. She remembered her own breasts aching, swollen with milk, ready to feed the daughter who was then not yet born . . . who was now a woman grown, or nearly so.
"Your daughter, but not truly your heir," said a voice behind her—sweet and fierce and smooth as good mead in the cup, and Scáthach knew who it was immediately.
"My lady," she said, and turned to greet Brighid of the Bright Flame.
She could not have been mistaken for any woman born. Her skin was bright as candleflame, her hair shone like a bonfire. She smiled, but there was an edge to her, as dangerous as anything that burned. "She is more mine than yours, I think. I more easily see you giving devotion to the Morrigan, perhaps, dark one."
"Shadow isn't the same as night," Scáthach said. "And every shadow must have a flame to cast it."
"Clever words," Brighid said, her smile blazing. "Nevertheless. Your legacy will not be one of your own flesh, I think." Brighid's eyes fixed over her shoulder, and Scáthach turned to look, knowing full well that when she turned back, the goddess would be gone.
As she had half-expected, it was Cú Chulainn, his cheeks flushed with the cold. "Master," he said when he reached her side, and bowed his head. He was not at all winded, though it was a steep climb to the crest of the hill.
"Sétanta," she said.
"The first of the ewes has lambed," he said. "On Imbolc. It is a good omen, I think?"
"Indeed," she said. "We shall have to set a watch on it, lest hungry wolves or wildcats steal it away. The shepherds will be busy with the other ewes in lamb."
"I will," he said, immediately, as she knew he would: and she thought, as the dawn-light rose and spread over the hills, Hound of Culann, I am eager to see what you will be when you are a man grown.