The Gift
Pairing: Maeve/Sinbad
Rating: M
Setting: Just after Season 1
All standard disclaimers apply
Her eyelashes flicker.
Oh, fucking hell, that hurts.
She inhales deeply, her body fighting every movement with a cascade of pain. Air fills her lungs and lifts her chest and belly, and her gut rebels. The muscles flutter and spasm, refusing to obey her commands. As if swimming toward the surface of deep water, the world gradually begins to draw nearer.
Cold air hits her tongue, then her lungs, and her body convulses in a paroxysm of uncontrollable shivers. Probably she's been colder in her life—as a child she lived outdoors through the worst winters Eire could throw at her, after all—but she can't remember ever feeling the cold so badly. The bitter chill deep in her bones feels like pure ice, and it forces her poor body to shiver and shake in ways her muscles are too fatigued to willingly undertake. But she can't stop it, can't control the way her torso wants to curl in on itself, conserving what little body heat she has. Her body can't, the muscles deep in her gut wildly confused and their motions outside her conscious control after the birth of her baby. Keely insists that the women she ministers to spend at least two days in rest after birth, and now Maeve knows why. She's always been able to force her body to do her will, no matter how injured she is. But not today.
"Oh, hell!" Doubar's gruff voice hovers near. "Come on, girl, wake up. I don't know where we are, it's cold and rainy, and if you don't wake up Sinbad will kill me." He sounds close to panic.
Raindrops touch her cheek, her forehead. She didn't notice until he said something, but the kiss of cold water on her skin is so familiar she pays it no mind. Instead she fights her body for another deep breath, slowly taking stock as her senses return to her. Cramping pain has set into her abdomen, and she's bleeding freely again. Keely would be irate, but Keely isn't here and there's nothing Maeve can do. Of more concern to her is the aching cold she feels inside. She hasn't felt cold like this since her retreat to Breakwater, not even when Sinbad briefly returned to the Nomad. She was cold then, but not like this.
It's Keely's spell, the magic she used to tie Maeve, Sinbad, and his bracelet together, harnessing its energy to keep her alive. Maeve knows this without a doubt. She must have gone too far, or done something else that disturbed the spell. Shivering hard, she fights to open her eyes. Like the state of her body, there's nothing she can do about it now. She had no choice but to leave him: she's the only one with any chance, however slim, of freeing Scratch's hold on his soul. Clenching her jaw hard, she lifts her hand to brush the rain from her eyes.
Wet wool obstructs her motion; she blinks, rain stinging her eyes and blurring her vision, staring at the grey cloak thrown over her like a blanket, pulled up to her chin. Except she wasn't wearing a cloak. She frowns and tugs at the material.
"Easy now." Doubar's voice sounds from her side. "Lie still a moment more. Do you have any idea how scared you had us?"
"Us?" She turns her head to squint at him and freezes as she sees the former first mate of the Nomad sitting beside her, sheltering Finleigh in his arms. Her hands flail, and she struggles instantly to rise. Oh, hell, no. She brought him with her as backup—her insurance policy. He had no right to take that child as if he owned her!
"Easy," he repeats, holding a huge hand out to her, as if to calm her frantic struggles. "You've been out for hours. The kid wouldn't stop crying, and you were so cold. I didn't know whether you were going to wake up." He hands the baby over without protest, tucking Fin under the improvised blanket with a gentle deftness that belies his size. "She's fine. I wouldn't hurt her." His face pales, and a twisting grimace crosses his lips. "Again."
Maeve curls her arms around her newborn possessively, the burst of adrenaline and fear still humming in her veins. No, she doesn't realistically believe Doubar would actually harm a living, breathing child, no matter what he believes about her parentage. She doubts he would have attacked at all had he known she was carrying, even if he didn't believe her baby was Sinbad's. He's not at heart the sort of man who violently assaults women or children—in fact, he's always been very much the opposite. But the animosity between them has festered for too long, and her automatic response to seeing her daughter cradled in Doubar's arms tells her this scar will take time to fade. This man is not physically a danger to her baby, but that doesn't mean she wants him holding her. Maeve tucks Finleigh close against her skin and kisses her, dropping her head to breathe in her soft, milky smell. Her lips glide along her newborn's cheek, the crown of her head. She's perfectly warm, soft and sweet, and she bleats softly at her mother as Maeve adjusts the blanket swaddling her securely. Fin is fine. Whatever happened between the Nomad and here, she's fine. Maeve inhales another breath of her daughter, shaky but deep. They're all fine.
But where are they? She stretches slowly underneath the grey cloak she now vaguely remembers Doubar wearing earlier. It's wet, but the wool remains warm even so, and she's not as waterlogged as she otherwise would expect, lying out in the rain. She's still freezing, however, and she wishes for Fin's sake that she wasn't. Her baby isn't complaining, but Maeve has no body heat to share.
"How long?" She clears her throat and tries again. "How long was I—"
"Hours." Doubar exhales a deep breath that sounds like relief. "I was sick as a dog and I greyed out, but I didn't go under entirely. I thought you were dead. You looked dead." His eyes measure her cautiously. "You still do."
"Not dead." Not yet, anyway. She slips Fin back in her sling, more for added warmth than anything else, and plants her elbow in the soggy earth, struggling to rise.
Doubar's big hands are on her instantly, one at her shoulder, the other behind her back, levering her upright. She's not sure she particularly wants him touching her, but she's also not sure she can make it on her own, so she says nothing. Her head swims; she ruthlessly fights through the urge to pass out again.
"I know you brought me because I'm the only one who won't nag at you for trying to save Sinbad in your condition, but—should you be up?" Doubar asks doubtfully.
"I don't have a choice." She glances at the sky. The flat, opaque gray makes it harder to judge the hours, but it's past noon, and that's not good.
At least they reached their destination. She can feel the tingles on her skin, the constriction in her heart that tells her the truth of where she is. She doesn't need to look around to know, but she does so anyway. She lies on a gently rolling plain of sodden brown and green grass, a large, sprawling hill partially covered in woodland rising before her.
Brí Leith
Even from this angle, she can see part of the ruins above, walls of scorched stone rising toward a flat wet sky. She swore to herself when she left that she would never return, told herself there was nothing left here for her. Dermott took her away from this place, from the wreckage of her childhood and all her previous ambitions, and she never once looked back. It became a shadow only, a shadow which loomed large in her nightmares, yes, but she knew even then that nightmares couldn't harm her. She let it be, kicking earth over the memories since she had no tools to bury them deep enough to forget.
She never dreamed she would return. She never dreamed she would need to.
Finleigh squirms in her sling, rooting intently, and Maeve willingly adjusts her position and lowers the neckline of her dress, allowing her to latch on. She's been without suck for too long—no wonder she was crying, no matter how warm Doubar kept her. And he did keep her warm; Maeve can feel it when she strokes her baby's cheek and pulls the soft suede sling higher around her. It's a huge relief, since her own body has little warmth to share. She shivers as the cold slap of wind hits her wet clothing, but at least Fin is warm, safely swaddled and tucked inside her sling. Newborns can't keep themselves warm and early ones especially need help, but Fin seems unfazed. She's happy, her big blue eyes fluttering as she concentrates on the task of eating, her ridiculously beautiful eyelashes fine as spider's silk. She's such a pretty thing. Perfect, as far as Maeve is concerned. She never wanted to bring an innocent child into this world, and Fin came too soon for the Protocol, but she's hopelessly in love with her anyway. She was born early and she's tiny and so, so fragile, but Maeve can already see that her spirit is as fearless as her father's.
"I am never traveling like that again," Doubar says firmly, sitting back on his heels. "I have no idea where we are, but I'm not going back your way. I'll sail. I'll walk. I don't care how long it takes. No more magic."
"My spell wasn't that bad. Better than the last time." They made it to their destination on the first try, they're all in one piece, and while she did pass out for a while, she didn't require emergency intervention from her sister and a mysterious arcane object to continue breathing. She considers that an improvement.
Doubar gives her a disgusted look. "You're not the one who spent the morning retching in the grass while trying to comfort a hysterical baby who was sure her mother was dead."
Maeve rolls her eyes. "Now you're just being dramatic. She was hungry. You throw fits like that, too, when you go too long between meals." Fin is definitely tougher than Doubar, she decides. Her kid isn't moaning about their mode of transportation. Now that she's nursing, she's not complaining at all.
"Where are we, anyway?" Doubar asks, wisely deciding not to argue this point. "I would have ducked into those woods to seek shelter from the rain, but I was in no shape to carry you up that steep hill."
Maeve is glad he didn't. Even here at the base of the rise, she can feel magic swirling around her like thick, heavy mist. That forest is dangerous, and she has no wish to be hauled into it while unconscious. Nor for Fin to be under those trees without magical protection. "This is Brí Leith," she says, staring at the ruins of what used to be her home.
Doubar looks at her blankly.
They've spoken of this place—or fought about it, more precisely—but she's not surprised he doesn't remember. Doubar doesn't tend to remember much that doesn't affect him directly. Maeve doesn't bother to correct or scold him; she has no energy to spare. "Help me up," she says instead, setting a palm on the ground and wrapping her other arm around Fin's tiny bulk.
He obeys without argument, climbing to his own feet and levering her up by her arm. His grip is cautiously gentle, as it never has been before. He's always treated her physically like any other member of the crew, hauling her around with brotherly firmness, which she appreciates. Today, though, he's touching her as if she's a lady...and, for once, it doesn't irritate her. Not only is she too tired to complain, but she's grateful for the gentleness, even from him. Were Sinbad here, he'd be treating her like glass. Doubar doesn't go that far, but his touch tells her he's mindful of her pain.
"Sinbad is going to kill me for helping you do this, whatever it is," Doubar mutters.
"You never cared about how unhappy you made him before, so shut up." She staggers, but plants her feet firmly and refuses to crumple. She has Fin at her breast and no time left for weakness. Sinbad needs her more than he ever has before, and she cannot waste any more time.
"I cared!" Doubar protests. "I knew when I fought with you it made him miserable, and I hated it! I just cared about saving his soul more than anything else."
"Which is why you're here with me now." She squares her shoulders and adjusts Fin's position slightly. Her baby whines her dislike of being disturbed without losing her latch. "Don't you start with me," she says, stroking Fin's cheek. "I have enough on my plate already." This would have been so much easier without the baby, without Doubar, but she can't do anything about that now.
Doubar tries to draw his cloak around her shoulders, but she brushes it away. She's wet through anyway, and most of her chill isn't from the air, it's from the loss of Sinbad and his fucking bracelet, the energy source that's kept her going since leaving the Nomad. She honestly didn't consider this repercussion when she left Sinbad's side, but it doesn't matter. She can't go back, and the spell may be beyond repair anyway. "I want my hands free," she says, pushing his offer away. "I don't know what's going to happen when we enter that forest, and I don't want anything in the way of my reflexes."
Doubar relents, but he doesn't look happy. "More magic?"
"How else do you propose we force a demon to let me fight him?" She's tired of standing here and wants to get moving. Tossing her wet hair cautiously behind her shoulders, she steps toward the hill. It's a slope she climbed countless times as a child, a slope she used to run up and tumble down with her fellow wards when they had free time, which wasn't often. Today, just a few steps has her out of breath, her heart racing painfully as her body struggles to circulate too little blood through her veins. Her vision greys and she's forced to pause, breathing slowly. "I failed the Tam Lin Protocol," she says, attempting to speak slowly and clearly for Doubar's benefit. "Scratch attacked my sister's library and Fin was born too soon, I told you. So there's nothing forcing Scratch to let me fight for Sinbad's soul tonight. I have to change that."
"How?" Doubar follows her as she makes her way up the hillside, step by agonizing step. All she wants in the world is to be back with Sinbad, preferably on the Nomad, engulfed in the warmth of the southern sunshine. He can yell at her all he likes; she'll gladly take it. She just wants him, the warmth of him, the firm touch of his body, his confident voice telling her everything will be okay. But it won't—not unless she succeeds in fixing this mess.
"How what?" She gasps for air, though she's not sure why. Her lungs aren't the problem, her blood is. She lost too much of it, she's bleeding still, and there's nothing she can do to stop it. But her head swims as if desperate for air, and her body feels leaden and dull, frozen and stiff, unwilling to move. She forces it anyway. Her body has never controlled her before, pregnancy notwithstanding. She refuses to let it do so now.
"How do you expect to convince Scratch to let you fight?" Doubar frowns. "He wants Sinbad's soul more than anything. He won't give up willingly."
"I'm hoping to get someone on my side he can't say no to."
Fin whines softly. Maeve twists the sling around and sets her at her other breast, calming her complaints. This is going to get old very quickly, she realizes. If she survives today, she may rethink her insistence not to let her sisters help with nursing duties.
Doubar mutters a string of grumpy curses and stops asking questions, which is exactly what Maeve wants. She concentrates on placing one foot in front of the other, and finally they reach the crest of the hill.
A dozen years separate her from her last memories of this place, a dozen years in which the landscape has slowly begun to reclaim what rightfully belongs to the earth. Dull brown grass and bright green moss choke stone pathways her feet trod as a child. The blackened, hollowed-out hulls of some buildings still stand, but others have collapsed or been picked to pieces as human vultures claim the stones for their own purposes. The forest, kept at bay during her time, now encroaches on the northeastern side of the ruins. If not beaten back, it will eventually engulf the whole sweeping ridgeline, hiding the shattered remnants of what was once the finest library in the western world, erasing this piece of history from visual memory.
Doubar pauses beside her at the edge of the ruins. A small bark of surprise leaves him as something in his head clicks. "You lived here," he says, and she can feel his eyes on her. "This was your home."
Something in her rejects that word vehemently. "The Nomad is my home." Her full mouth thins as she takes another bracing breath and very deliberately enters the remains of Brí Leith.
"Sinbad is going to kill me," he repeats.
"His soul is all I care about, and all you've cared about for moons, so that shouldn't matter." She picks her way around fallen stones and clumps of grass, making for the edge of the forest. Doubar doesn't contradict her. Each step threatens to send her to her knees, but whether that's physical weakness or proof of just how much she does not want to enter those trees, Maeve doesn't know. She hopes it's the latter. She has no time or patience for her body's complaints. She doesn't really expect to see tomorrow's dawn, but if she does, she can rest then. Not before. If she and Sinbad both make it through today intact, he can coddle her and treat her like a queen as much as he wants. She'll let him. She'll gladly indulge in every luxury she'll rightly have earned. But not before.
"You're still white as a ghost, and shaking like a cabin boy in his first storm," Doubar says, frowning at her. "I'm the babysitter. Why don't you let me carry the kid, at least?"
"She's nursing. Leave her be." Maeve touches her baby's wrapped head. She's not afraid Doubar will hurt Fin, but she's not interested in handing her over. Her baby can suckle while they travel, sheltered by the soft sling. Maeve denied her time to bond when she was first born, which she deeply regrets, though she acknowledges she was in no condition to mother her at the time. She cradles her gently now, the tiny weight against her chest and shoulders comforting. Sinbad took care of Fin when she could not, and their daughter didn't suffer. But she's unwilling to let go now.
Doubar exhales a slow, miserable sigh as they pause near the edge of the forest. "Look. 'Sorry' will never be enough. I know that. But—"
"Stop." She tries not to look at the charred remains of the buildings she used to inhabit, streets she used to dart along. She can't deal with Doubar's bumbling attempts at apologies right now. It's too much. She's trying to fight back the ghosts that rise in her mind, figures she can picture so well, gliding amongst the wreckage. People who left her that night, in the fire. Her fellow wards, the other children who fell and never rose, whose cries she can still sometimes hear, so many years later, in the deepest hours of the night. Stop, she pleads again, but this time not with Doubar. With the ghosts, or maybe just herself. At some point, mustn't ghosts sleep, too? Isn't it time? "I don't have energy for this right now, and I don't want to hear it." Her words are for Doubar, and also not. She has no energy for any of it anymore. It's time to put it down, time to focus on the future.
"Maeve, I—"
"No." She turns and looks at him. He looks older than he did before she left the Nomad, more haggard, aged too swiftly in too short a time, just as she and Sinbad have. Tired gray eyes stare dully at her. "Tomorrow, if we live to see tomorrow, you can apologize all you want. You can promise whatever you please, explain all you like. Not today. I already know most of it, anyway—more than you do, probably."
This is Doubar. The first mate of the Nomad, Sinbad's brother and closest companion. This man was the hardest to win over when she joined the crew, but after that her most steadfast friend and ally. He takes it upon himself to crack the skulls of men who harass her, despite her own capability, because it happens a lot and he knows it gets old. He's her drinking buddy, her partner in crime for schemes Sinbad is far too straightlaced to approve of. They've been through hell together.
Does all of that make up for the hell he put her through alone? The hell he put Sinbad through? Maeve doesn't know, and she has no energy to puzzle this out. All she knows is that, today, Doubar is her ally again. He's here to take Finleigh back to Sinbad or Keely should it become necessary, as she suspects it will. And she can't stand the defeated, hangdog look on his face.
"Scratch was goading you, Doubar." She stills her steps and cradles Fin's tiny body in her arms. "Listen to me. He told me so himself. He was whispering to all of us, in our heads. Telling us things that weren't true, provoking us to do things we otherwise wouldn't. He made me run one night. I don't know that anyone except Sinbad knows that. I tried to leave the Nomad, and probably would have died in the attempt, except Sinbad stopped me." She swallows hard. "He saved me from myself. But he wasn't there to save you." Whether Scratch chose his timing well or it was mere bad luck, Maeve doesn't know, but Sinbad was up in the rigging with Firouz when Doubar attacked her, too far away to stop the encounter from spiraling out of control.
Doubar stares at her, struck dumb by this revelation. She watches as he struggles to slot this new shock in line with his memories, fitting it to what he remembers of the past moons. His ruddy face turns pale in the dismal, rainy daylight. "What…" He trails off, fighting for words, unable to continue.
"I know. It was a jolt when he confessed to me, too. But it makes sense. This is what he does. He can't attack people outright in this world, so he has to work in the shadows by manipulating us, making us work against each other. I thought I was smart enough to recognize his tricks, but he spoke in my head, in my own voice, and I never questioned it." She grimaces. This is the part that still galls her about Scratch's declaration—how easily she was manipulated, even though she knew better. He told them exactly what he was going to do, and she fell for it anyway. They all did.
"My head…" Doubar rubs at his bristly hair. "Firouz said that was my conscience speaking."
"Oh, Doubar." She shakes her head slowly. "That was the furthest thing from a conscience you'll ever hear. Scratch has none."
Doubar looks...as if she's broken his heart. Maeve isn't sure why. She thought knowing this would make him feel better—absolve him of at least a little guilt, maybe. Yes, he treated her horribly for moons, culminating in a physical attack that nearly cost her her daughter. That was his choice. No one forced his hand. But he was goaded by a master manipulator, a demon able to con far more intelligent men into despicable actions. She firmly believes that, while Doubar would still have been furious with her on his own, it wouldn't have been as bad without Scratch's meddling. The anger was Doubar's, fanned by Scratch into a simmering rage which only needed whiskey and her own irritated spark to light. Without the demon, it's possible Doubar would have listened to Sinbad's reasoning. Without the demon, it's possible resentment might not have erupted into violence.
They'll never know now, and Maeve is too tired to ask these questions she cannot answer. They all survived—that's what she has to remember. She's on her feet, and Fin nestles close to her heart, where she belongs. They may have failed the Protocol, but she will not fail Sinbad. He loves this little girl, and Maeve will not allow her baby to grow up without her father.
"I didn't—" Doubar swallows hard.
"I know." Maeve turns away. "But process on your own time. Sinbad's is running out."
Doubar follows her obediently as they pick their way closer to the trees. Maeve watches where she places her feet, wary of what might lurk in the tall, dead grass. Dermott didn't let her linger once he found her and she doesn't actually know what happened to the bodies left behind once the flames retreated. Did the few survivors comb the wreckage for human remains, removing every trace for proper, respectful disposal? Or were there simply too few living, too many dead, to complete this task? She has no wish to tread on any forgotten bones, potentially disturbing ghosts not laid to rest.
Fin suckles contentedly as they near the forest, her skin still sweetly warm when Maeve touches her cheek. She's glad—she's still freezing, but at least her baby isn't. One hand hovers protectively close to her child, her eyes on the trees. She collected firewood and herbs in these woods as a child, but even then she was always wary. Her teachers warned her: the hill and the forest are the dominion of the Tuatha dé Danann, mystical beings who inhabit a different realm and rule the hills under which their arcane doorways reside. To offend them, she was cautioned many times, means death—or worse. It's best not to attract their attention.
Well, today she intends to attract that attention by any means necessary. She has her sword at her side, all the magic Dim-Dim and Cairpra have been able to teach her thus far, and Doubar to protect her baby should she incur the wrath of her semi-divine former neighbors.
"Why won't you admit this was your home?"
"Because I had no home before the Nomad," Maeve snaps, unhappy that Doubar has returned to this topic. "I lived here, aye. For a time. But it was never my home." Home is a state of mind as much as a physical place, and it's something she never knew until Dim-Dim left her among Sinbad's men. Such an act could have been disastrous, considering how haltingly she trusts. Instead, it turned out to be the greatest gift she's ever been given.
Doubar does not argue the point further. Maeve is glad. She looks at Fin, whose sweet eyes flick up to her, soft and adoring. Fuck, she melts every time this kid does that. Whatever happens after today, she hopes she's allowed to at least watch as Fin grows up. She aches to know what this little girl will become. A sailor, like her father? A fighter? Or something else entirely? Watching Sinbad try to raise a girly little princess would be amusing, but somehow Maeve doubts this is what the child she holds will want. Her instincts tell her otherwise.
"You can be whatever you want to be, little girl," she croons in her mother tongue. "Tá tú cibé rud is mian leat a bheith, mo chailín. That's your mother talking. We may not have much time together, but I want you to remember this, no matter what."
Doubar stumbles on a loose paving stone and curses. "I didn't think you had a home," he confesses. "I figured you were some vagrant Dim-Dim took pity on."
"You were right." Maeve doesn't mind his assessment of her. She's never been one to take offense at the truth. She inhales slowly, the cold air painful to her lungs, and steps into the shadow of the forest.
"No," Doubar says quietly as he follows her, "I wasn't." He shudders as the dripping darkness of the trees envelops them. He's not a sensitive or intuitive man, but even he can sense that something about these woods isn't normal. There's an uneasy, shifting quality to the silence that Maeve remembers well, as if the very earth under her feet were alive. Watching. Waiting.
"I mean," he continues, "you say you had no home. But what's that back there?" He motions to the ruins. "And that library, the other one, where your sister is?"
Maeve shrugs this away. "Brí Leith was my school, if you like. Not my home. And you saw what happened to it. This is no one's home anymore." Only whatever ghosts linger, unable to move on.
"And your sister's place?"
Maeve exhales an impatient breath from her nose. She doesn't want to talk about this. She doesn't want to talk at all. She just wants to focus on the task at hand, the child now falling asleep at her breast, which Keely warned her she shouldn't let her do, but she really doesn't care about her sister's parenting advice at the moment.
"Breakwater belongs to the ruling council. They entrusted it to Keely and me as the only children to come through that fire alive. But I never really lived there, and I never intend to. It's Keely's home, not mine." By the time the council bequeathed Breakwater to her, Dermott was already cursed. She had her quest; there was no turning back. "Why are you suddenly being so nosy?" she demands, casting him an irritated glance. "You never were before."
"I…" He clears his throat, spots of embarrassed pink appearing high on his cheeks. "I realized I know next to nothing about my brother's wife, my niece's mother. And that I may not get another chance." He pauses. "You plan to die today."
"I'm not Sinbad's wife," she growls, "and I never will be." Anyone who says she has to can get fucked. Marriage is a contract of ownership, and no one can own a Celt. She refuses.
To her surprise, Doubar does not argue this point. "Even so," he says. "Don't lie to me, please. Not today. You mean to die."
"Mean to?" Maeve looks at him cautiously. She doesn't remember actually saying that, and Doubar isn't usually good at picking up nuance. She figured she was safe enough being vague about her plans.
"You wouldn't have brought me if you didn't." His eyes are tired, his face drawn as he watches her. "You were right, you know. I'm the only one who loves Sinbad enough to let you do whatever you have planned. Even Dim-Dim wouldn't. And I'll get that baby back to Sinbad one way or another, I swear it to you. But I don't have to like it."
"No," she agrees. "You don't have to like it." She tilts her head to the side slightly as she regards him. She didn't expect him to catch on so quickly, or at all, really. And she didn't expect him to look at her with such quiet regret.
"It's a fitting revenge," he says softly, turning his eyes away. "To make me let you die. Watch you sacrifice yourself to save my brother, then return his motherless daughter to him. You'll save his soul. And he'll never forgive me for letting you."
Maeve's feet freeze. She stares at Doubar, her arms tightening around the baby now asleep in her sling. She'd never considered it from that perspective before, and now that Doubar has, she does not like it. She's not cruel. This was never meant as revenge. All she wants is to free Sinbad from Scratch's clutches, so he can be reunited with Fin permanently. "I—it's not revenge." Her delicate brows furrow. All she needs is backup. Insurance. Fin cried, anxious for her mother, and would have roused the house. Maeve had to bring her, or else she would never have slipped away. But Doubar is right. There's a twisted sort of ruthlessness to her demand of him, from his perspective, and a sick sort of retribution. He attacked her because he believed she didn't care about Sinbad, was willing to let his brother lose his soul. Now, she's forcing him to witness just how much she does care, the lengths to which she'll go to win this fight. He can try to stop her, but he'll damn his brother if he does. Or he can help her, knowing it may mean her death. And if she dies when Doubar could have prevented it, Sinbad will never forgive him.
He's going to help her. Maeve knows it. They both know it. He will willingly let her sacrifice herself to save Sinbad, knowing he's exiling himself from his brother with that choice.
"I'm sorry," she says finally. "I wasn't looking at it that way. But I need someone who won't stop me."
He acknowledges this with a deep, respectful dip of his head, almost a bow. "If our roles were reversed, if I could fight for him, you wouldn't stop me, either."
No, she wouldn't. She'd mourn the necessity, but she wouldn't stop him, just as he won't stop her today. And, as twisted as it sounds, that knowledge is all she needs to forgive him.
"Sinbad won't forgive me anyway," he says, inhaling a shaky breath. "I hurt you. I hurt his kid. He won't care that Scratch was in my head. It's still not forgivable."
Maeve doesn't know whether this is true. Sinbad's hurt still simmers just below the surface, hotter than hers ever was. With enough time, and his daughter's safety ensured, she thinks it may be possible. But not if Doubar lets her die today, and she refuses to give the man false hope.
But she can give him something else.
Slowly, her hands achingly gentle as she shifts the sleeping child, she withdraws Fin from her sling. Handing the newborn over guts her, but she forces her hands to remain steady. "Take your niece," she says gruffly. "Her name's Finleigh. Fin." She watches warily as Doubar takes her.
"Fin." His unsteady voice cracks. "Like Sinbad." He places emphasis on the first syllable.
She acknowledges this with a small nod. That wasn't the reason she named her baby, but it's a nice bonus.
"She's so small, Maeve."
Maeve folds her arms over her chest. She doesn't like having Fin out of her grasp, but she's going to have to get used to it. "She was born a moon too soon, maybe a little more," she says defensively. She doesn't care how little Fin is. She's strong, she knows she is, and as far as Maeve's concerned, she's perfect.
To Maeve's shock, and deep discomfort, Doubar bursts into tears.
"I'm sorry," he blubbers, bringing the baby close to his barrel chest, shifting his arms so he can cradle her. His bulk swallows her tiny self. "I didn't know. I didn't know anything."
"I know." It's all Maeve can say. She's uncomfortable with tears, her own and anyone else's, and she has no idea how to deal with a grown man sobbing at her side. He's not begging for forgiveness, at least, which is a relief. She's too tired to hash all that out in words. She never felt Sinbad's fury toward him in the first place, for whatever reason, and now they stand united, but how to say so, she doesn't know.
At the noise and jostling of her weeping uncle, Fin wakes. Her cries join with his, and Maeve curses loudly. "Lovely. Will you both quit that? We don't have time for this."
"Don't cry." Doubar bounces the baby gently, so gently for a man of his size. "Oh, hells, she weighs nothing, I swear. Sinbad was twice her size when he was born." He laughs through his tears. "Don't cry, little princess. Your uncle's here. I won't ever let anything hurt you."
He means it, too; Maeve can hear the steel behind his vow, even as he coos it. He has always been his brother's protector, and in this moment he becomes his niece's as well. So long as he lives, she'll never lack a knight—albeit in dented armor. Maeve inhales a slow, deep breath, nodding quietly to herself. Yes. Yes, this is as it should be. The rest is for Sinbad and Doubar to work out later, once she frees his soul. Right now, she has a demigod to find and a demon to fight.
The little paths through the forest created when humans inhabited Brí Leith have long since disappeared back into the undergrowth. Maeve moves slowly, hindered by both pain and caution, but she knows where she's going. She can feel the magic of this place thrumming just under her feet, alive in the earth, the trees, calling to her—beckoning. There's something ominous about it, but utterly lovely as well. It feels...energizing. Warm and sweet, lush and soft, like a perfect green meadow on a summer morning. She would happily plunge herself into the source of that magic if she could. It feels as if it would cure and replenish her fully, if she could only reach it.
They pick their way through the bracken and brush, dodging denser thickets, angling their way toward the steepest part of the hill. Maeve feels the tension inside her drawing tight as a bowstring as they near the spot where she and Keely hid for three days inside an old fox den, too terrified to move. The den itself will be long gone, but her bones know the spot where she lay inside the earth, entwined with her sister. Her soul knows the energy of this place where their lives intertwined, never again to be unraveled.
Doubar follows just behind, letting her set the path and the pace, obedient to her direction. "What exactly is the plan here?" he asks, his voice still raw. "I won't stop you. I promise. But I'm tired of surprises, Maeve."
This admission strikes her heart. She's tired of them, too—so fucking tired. "What makes you think I have a plan?"
"I mean—" His words cut off abruptly. "Well. To tell the truth, I guess I got a little too used to Rongar's command. He's good at planning. You're more like me."
Maeve grins wryly as she skirts a muddy patch of ground. "Maybe not as bad as you. But Sinbad's better, and you're right, Rongar's better still. All I know is that the Tuatha dé Danann have the power to compel Scratch to let me fight. They're not—not safe," she says, struggling to explain this to Doubar. He sees the world in black and white, and explaining shades of gray to him is difficult. "Not like kindly gods. But they do grant boons from time to time." And usually demand payment for doing so, though she does not say this out loud. "All I want is my right to fight. I don't know what else to do but look for aid from the only beings I know are strong enough to give it." She shoves irritably at a glossy green bush, receiving a shower of raindrops in return. Her body shudders at the spill of water. Fuck, she's so cold. So tired. She sways, but refuses to call a rest. She's running out of time.
"You say they're not safe. Are they good?" Doubar asks doubtfully.
"No." Maeve turns to glance not at him, but at the child cradled in his meaty arms. Fin seems peaceful wrapped in her blue hand-me-down blanket. She's not complaining, sucking gently at her fingers as she sleeps. "But they're not evil, either. They just...are."
Doubar scowls. "I don't like that. How do you expect some mystical strangers to help you when they don't even fight for good?"
Maeve's mouth twists wryly, but she turns away so Doubar can't see it. Cairpra didn't ask. Cairpra knew. Abruptly, she steps close and kisses her sleeping baby. Fin is warm under her lips, soft as only a newborn can be. Something inside her spasms as she acknowledges she may have spent more time holding her newborn nieces and nephews than she'll ever get with her daughter.
"Do you want her back?"
Yes. Always. But Maeve looks at the giant, how his hands swallow Fin's minuscule form. Her baby sleeps contentedly in her uncle's arms. She won't disturb her for now. It's fine. "We're close," she says instead, forcing herself to step away.
"Close to what?"
To where this long road began. Maeve takes in the scent of the wet, dripping forest, moss and dark earth, aged trees twisted with years. She gathered deadwood in this forest as a child, but no one from Brí Leith dared cut these trees. They knew better. Magic hovers close, warm and alluring. All of this is so familiar, but the years separating her from the memories have turned them into something foreign, too. This was her homeland, this hilltop her home, no matter how much she tries to deny it. Her bones remember. But her heart yearns for something else—for the salt-sweet southern wind, dry and hot as it bakes her skin, the deck of the Nomad solid beneath her, rocking gently with the tide. She wants the lilt of Arabian voices, the musical trill of their beautiful language, the vibrant color of a southern world she's willingly embraced as her own, no matter how much she knows she will never be fully accepted in return. It's fine. She can be a stranger in a strange land, so long as she has her sworn brothers beside her.
And Sinbad.
Her mouth tightens as she steps forward, drawing near to the little rise along the hilltop, the gentle slope where she and Keely dug into the earth, scrabbling to force their human bodies inside a hole meant for sleek little vixens, not awkward little girls. She was not physically born here, in this forest, but in a way she was reborn, as Keely used to insist when they were children. This was where one life-path ended, the path which would have seen her become a scholar and a sorceress of her people, her life dedicated to the arcane arts and the betterment of her northern brethren. That future went up in flame, put to the torch by men convinced no god but theirs could ever be permitted to thrive.
But a new path was born from the ashes as she lay entombed or enwombed in the earth, entwined with Keely like unborn twins, shuddering with fear, afraid to emerge yet unable to resist the inexorable tug of fate. They rose from the earth like sprouted seedlings, and like seedlings, utterly transformed from what they were when they entered. They ran from the fire as strangers and emerged as sisters, united on a path they would tread together. Though now physically separated, their blood still beats in unison. They bore Dermott's curse together, and Keely would have gone south with Maeve to hunt Rumina, had she allowed it. But Maeve knew better. She loves her sister, but this was a path meant for her alone. Keely's responsibilities tied her to the land and people of Eire: the library, the sìthichean, her family. Maeve had a further destiny calling her onward. Or was it always calling her back here, every winding step? Is this always where she was meant to return? She's never been a believer in fate, so she doesn't know. Maybe Dim-Dim could tell her. Probably he would refuse.
She can feel the magic swirling brighter here, as she pauses close to the spot where she and Keely hid as children. There's no sign of the abandoned fox den, lost to the shifting forest and the years, but her bones know. Maybe her soul, too. Maybe the pain of two small children left an invisible scar on the forest, something she cannot see with her eyes but senses with something deeper. She doesn't want to be here. But Sinbad deserves to keep his soul, Fin deserves to keep her father, and the world deserves its hero back. That won't happen without some sort of sacrifice. Considering everything at stake, Maeve is more than willing to let that be herself.
"What now?" Doubar asks softly.
Maeve doesn't answer immediately. She's so tired, but this journey has barely begun. Bending slowly, every inch of her body protesting the motion, she draws the hidden dagger from her boot. "Now," she says, blinking away the static which threatens to overtake her vision, "we draw some attention."
Doubar watches but does not stop her as she wraps her left palm around the razor-sharp blade. She keeps her steel honed; the sudden wound doesn't light with pain so much as heat, a thin line of warmth as blood blooms against her pale skin. She smears the red wetness very deliberately along the flat of the blade, then kneels and drives the knife firmly into the earth.
The forest stills. Birds quiet. Wind dies. No noise surrounds them, save the soft dripping of the rain. "Oh, that's creepy," Doubar mutters.
Maeve slowly straightens. The nape of her neck prickles, the downy hair on her arms rising like a dog's hackles. They're being watched.
Doubar fishes a bit of rag out of his pocket and hands it to her. "You might have warned me. I know I'm just the babysitter, but I could have done that instead of you. You're white as seafoam."
She wipes her palm and wraps the dirty rag around it. "I'm fine. And I don't think they'd pay any attention if you did it. You're just a foreign man." She's Celt born and bred, raised on this hilltop. More to the point, she's a beautiful young woman, and a new mother besides. That's the sort of thing that catches immortal attention, at least in stories. She's not sure it's enough to compel an answer, but she can feel how closely the forest watches her, the magic of this place concentrating, swirling like mist around her ankles. It licks at her, tasting her, catching her scent like a hunting hound nosing the wind. The forest is paying attention. It's interested. She just doesn't know if that's enough. She'll risk more if it isn't. Digging into the hillside is a sure way to force an altercation if the stories are true, but she doesn't want to offend anyone. She just desperately needs help.
The forest tenses, the invisible mist of magic halting its gentle caress.
A physical door does not appear, opening into thin air or the earthen side of the hill. There's no shower of sparks, no bright burst of light, nothing obscenely showy or flamboyant. One moment Maeve and Doubar stand alone in the dripping forest, the giant slowly rocking his newborn niece, sheltering her from the rain with his cloak. The next moment, a tall, well-built man has joined them.
He looks as if he's always been there, like a statue amongst the trees, and for a moment Maeve's mind isn't sure he hasn't. Like a forest creature well camouflaged, he could have been watching them from the shadows since they arrived. But the shift in the flavor of the forest's magic tells her firmly that this is not the case. This may be his forest, his hilltop, but he was not here a heartbeat ago.
He's lovely, she notes offhandedly as she watches the man with caution. Doubar hasn't sighted him yet; she wonders how long it will take. She doubts he can sense the invisible web of magic woven through this forest, humming under this hill. He'll see the man when he moves. Not before. With a mother's instincts, she very much wants to take her baby back, hold her safe and protect her herself, but she resists the urge. Doubar has accepted her. He'll protect her to the death now, no matter how much he would have preferred a nephew. Rejecting Fin will cost him any chance of Sinbad's forgiveness.
The stranger watches her, a flicker of wry amusement flashing over his features. Can he read her mind? Maeve doesn't know; the stories contradict each other on that point. Sìthichean cannot, but the Tuatha dé Danann are not sìthichean. They're something else, something more than mortal and less than divine, and that makes her wary. The man before her looks almost as if he's made of air or water, not firm flesh. His leather boots make contact with the ground but he also seems to hover above it, or flow along it, instead of anchoring solidly to the earth as she and Doubar do. His skin is pale, lacking the pink flush of a Celt, with an odd silver sheen that glimmers in the wan, wet daylight under the trees. His nose is long and straight, his mouth thin-lipped and his high cheekbones prominent. He's lovely, but that face isn't one Maeve feels inclined to either like or trust. There's too much of the other world about him.
His gaze, when he meets her eyes, sends a cold shiver down her spine. No, this is no mortal. Even Doubar will know it once he sees those eyes. His pupils are not black, as they should be, but fine molten silver, alight with cold fire. The dark irises surrounding that silver are black as the inside of a mountain. Above those molten eyes, his plaits of golden hair seem ridiculously mundane.
Maeve eyes the man levelly. She makes no move to bow or kneel, though she knows perfectly well who and what he is. This is Midir, a king among his kind, powerful enough to steal the wife of the high king of Eire without lasting repercussions. She's a peasant-born human orphan of no account, but her pride will not let her prostrate herself unless he demands it. Besides, she fucking hurts.
Midir shifts, and takes a slow step toward her. The movement is very deliberate. He means to gain Doubar's attention. His body flickers as he moves, like a beam of sunlight disturbed by breeze-tossed leaves.
Doubar sucks in a swift breath as he finally sights the man, his arms tightening around his sleeping niece. "By all that's holy!" Maeve hopes he remembers he's here only as Fin's bodyguard. Doubar's usual irritated muttering probably won't go over well with a supernatural monarch.
Midir observes all three of them with no expression on his face, at least none Maeve can interpret. Like a statue, his features do not shift and flow. His eyes flick from her to Doubar and back. They settle, finally, on the child nestled in her uncle's arms. Silence stretches between the three adults, fragile as molten glass spun from a blowpipe. Maeve can feel how tenuous the moment is as tension whets the air.
"That," Midir says finally, his voice bursting the bubble into crystalline shards, "is not your child's father. Is he aware?" His voice holds the flavor of soil, of mines, of the frozen darkness deep within the earth.
"He is her uncle." Maeve meets his eyes squarely, refusing to drop hers in deference. "Her father's brother, and her sworn protector."
"Is her father dead, then?"
"Not yet." Maeve faces Midir fully, lifting her chin and tossing her hair back in a gesture somewhere between pride and defiance. She needs this man's help desperately, but she will not win it by creeping to him on her knees like a supplicant to a god.
Something that looks very much like interest rolls across Midir's face for the briefest of moments before the statue returns. His features move not as she's used to, but as sand flows, slowly, with gathering strength.
"Indeed? Then why is he not here, protecting his treasures?" Midir tips his head slowly to the side, further than any human would while awaiting an answer, looking almost like an owl as he stares intently at her.
"My duty is to protect him." Maeve can't help the disgusted look that flashes over her face. "Mortal and immortal men are all exactly the same, I see, always assuming it's the other way around."
Doubar chokes loudly.
Midir laughs. It rumbles through him like thunder, neither entirely pleasant nor unpleasant. "Well spoken, little fire spirit!"
She frowns at the man. "Are you making fun of me?" Even in Eire redheads aren't always tolerated. Neither are women who speak their minds, for that matter.
"Ah, no, my fiery beauty." Midir chuckles, and his hair ripples as he moves. Several thin plaits adorn the long, loose strands, gold as summer wheat. He's dry, she realizes abruptly, though rain continues to filter through the trees and she and Doubar are soaked through. "Just quite intrigued. I did not expect to ever see you again. I am glad to see that the human world hasn't tamed that spark."
Despite her resolve, Maeve feels her body take a very deliberate step backward, away from the laughing man. "I don't know you," she says, scowling at him. "I've never met you before in my life." Her chin jerks, and apprehension flows like a river through her blood, cold as the earth in Midir's voice. Sweat pricks her palms, the back of her neck, though she's still freezing. Blood throbs at her temples, her wrists.
"No," he agrees. A touch of amusement gilds the corners of his mouth like painted gold. "But I have seen you. You were smaller then, not yet ripe, but that spark refuses to be forgotten." He rights his head and steps forward, beginning to close the distance between them. Maeve allows the first step, but not the second. She breaks, turning for Doubar, pulling her daughter from his arms. Yes, he'll keep her safe, she knows he will. But she's still bleeding from birthing this kid, and her instincts won't let her remain still with a potential threat so close. She tucks Fin up against her collarbone and cradles her protectively.
"You trespassed with a little earth-spirit at your side, when I took note before," Midir says, watching her motions impassively. "Without the gift of life," he nods to her dagger embedded in the earth, "you dug and crawled your way into my domain."
Maeve has no idea what to say. They feared retribution from the beings under the hill, that night, but they feared the pope's soldiers more. Faced with the choice, they took the only hiding place they could find. "I'm sorry," she says now, holding Fin against her skin, forcing herself to meet Midir's molten eyes. "If I said we didn't know what we were doing, I'd be lying. We were running from the slaughter of our people. We didn't know what else to do."
He inclines his head. "My Étaín told me as much. She said to let you be, despite the slight. Not often do I witness earth and fire hand in hand, and it suited me to withhold retribution from children who reeked so of fear and blood." He stares at her, and the intensity of that liquid silver gaze unnerves Maeve. Is he like that with everyone, she has to wonder, or is there something about her, personally, that catches his interest? He likes pretty redheads, if the stories are true. Étaín is one, and he moved the earth and defied multiple kings to keep her. But that can't be the only reason he's staring at her so intently. Eire is full of beautiful women, and he is not known for collecting them. Only his Étaín.
"I am not sure I quite like how this boon played out," he says now, taking another slow, deliberate step. Maeve forces herself to hold her ground. Fin lies awake but quiet in her arms, where she can best protect her. They've offered no offense to the king, so by rights he has no reason to hurt them. But the Tuatha dé Danann are capricious. They act on whimsy, and Maeve does not know the inner workings of this man's mind. "I am not sure I don't like it, either. On the one hand, I gave you your lives partially because the union of such strong, disparate elements is so rare. Yet here you stand before me, holding the half-breed child of a foreigner, the little tree-spirit nowhere in sight. This greatly displeases me. On the other hand, that child intrigues me greatly."
Maeve's arms tighten around Fin.
"Fire does not play well with other elements, little flame spirit. Were you aware?" Midir's mouth quivers with amusement. "Yet you have entered my domain twice, once with a young tree in tow, now bearing a child of both fire and water, a thing I did not previously believe possible. Suppose you read me this riddle, lovely flame? What is she? And what are you, a spirit of fire yet able to bend?"
"Why do you keep calling me that?" Maeve scowls. Something is going on here, and she hates her inability to understand it. "Keely's a little tree, yes, fine. Everyone knows there's something off about her, the moment they meet. But I'm just me."
"Do you really think so?"
Maeve is very cautious as she considers how to answer this question. It's more dangerous than it seems; she can tell by the way he says it. "No one's ever told me any differently," she says carefully. "And magic's never come easily to me, as it does to her. I had to be taught."
"You must be taught because you fight," Midir says. "You have the ferocity of flame inside, my bright beauty. If things come easier to the little tree-spirit, it is because, like a tree, she adjusts to fit her environment. Like a vine, she is flexible."
Keely doesn't seem very flexible to Maeve, but she refuses to tell this man so.
"If you question what you are, all you need do is look to your daughter." Midir glances meaningfully at the child in Maeve's arms. "Too early and too small to be out in the cold and the wet. She should be fretful at best, dead at worst. Yet she remains contented and warm, does she not?"
Maeve cannot answer this. She doesn't know how. She stares at her baby, who blinks back at her sweetly, two tiny fingers in her mouth. She's warm and content, just as the man says, though Maeve realizes now that maybe she shouldn't be. Bran and Declan often cried in the cold as babies, before they had a home, and they weren't born early and small, with so little flesh on their bones and such fine, translucent skin. Fin has complained loudly about being jostled around, and disturbed when she wants to nurse, but not about the temperature. She sucks contentedly on her tiny fingers and nestles close, her sweet eyes fluttering closed.
"This is not a gift from a foreign father adapted to unrelenting heat. Her protector there wouldn't last a night in the open at midwinter." Midir chuckles. "See yourself for what you are, my lovely, and what you've handed down."
Maeve struggles. She's human—fully human, unlike Keely, who bears a trace of dryad blood, confirmed by the ruling council and almost every authority they ever sought for answers to Rumina's curse. None could help Dermott. All commented on Keely's hair, her eyes, her ability to heal things, make things grow. No one mentioned anything about Maeve. She's always been content with who and what she is—a beautiful woman, skilled with book and blade, but also a peasant orphan with no bloodline, no clan until she and Dermott created one. Magic flows in her blood, but it has never come easily to her. She fights for every new skill in a way Keely never had to.
"But the water in your child's nature—that comes from elsewhere. Fire and water are inimical, and until today I believed could never exist together in a single soul, human or otherwise." Midir's molten eyes gleam.
"That's her father." There's no question about this. Maeve knows it as surely as she knows her own humanity. "His name is Sinbad. He's a sailor, and a hero. And I'm here to save him."
"The choice of a life on the sea does not leave the mark of water on a soul," Midir says. "That one," he motions to Doubar, "stinks of the waves, yet he holds no spark."
"Sinbad is different," Maeve says firmly.
"So you say. You also call him a hero, yet he is very much absent right now."
Maeve struggles to keep calm. She needs Midir's help, she reminds herself. If Fin and Sinbad are ever going to be successfully reunited, she needs someone to intervene on her behalf with Scratch. She can't alienate the man by snapping at him as she'd like to. "This is my battle," she says, stroking Fin's tiny back. "The arch-demon Scratch laid claim to Sinbad's soul. We chose to try the Tam Lin Protocol to save him. He named me his champion, but Scratch meddled and my daughter was born too soon." She inhales deeply, holding the baby just a little tighter. "I came seeking aid."
"The Tam Lin Protocol?" Midir's chin lifts as he eyes her intently. A sharp, cruel smile flickers like the beat of a bird's wing across his mouth. "Is that what this is about, my lovely?"
"I'm his champion," she insists. "All I want is the chance to fight."
"Then I'm afraid you must get used to disappointment. The Tam Lin Protocol does not exist."
A/N: That's the plot twist I promised. :-)