Fin
A really long fucking time ago…
“Fuil ár gcuid fola…” the old man droned on, but Fionnbharr stopped listening on the third pass through the incantation. Gathered on the dark knoll, they waited for the last flicker of the sun’s rays to sink into the west, consigning the earth to the longest night of the year. The bitter wind cut through his cloak, but the warming spell kept it from doing more than cool his cheeks.
Not all of his companions were so lucky. The older ones might not survive the vigil, but if the goddess wanted to take them this night, then to the crone they went and a beloved journey would they be wished. For the most part, Fionnbharr just wanted the sun to set so they could light the bonfires and open the mead.
There were many fine lasses waiting in the town. Waiting to stream out to find the druids and the vates. Pleasure in the darkest night of the year promised that warmth and light would come again, and he’d like to be balls deep in a few of those lasses and get on that sowing of seed.
There’d been a particularly fetching young maid just arrived from Europe as part of the new lord’s retinue. Interesting sort, they’d hosted a feast for the surrounding villages, plied them with wine and rich meats, then offered plenty of work and protection.
Fionnbharr had attended, but had avoided consuming anything. They were the hosts. He was the guest. The law of hosting protected him, but in refusing their gifts, he kept his wits about him, even as the villagers and the other druids drank themselves into a stupor.
It was how he’d found himself in deep conversation with the lord, one he and Aelfraed had then continued each evening through the autumn. The new lord and two of his retainers would be in attendance after the bonfires were lit. Another reason Fionnbharr was eager to get on with the dirge to the sun’s death and eventual rebirth.
He enjoyed those conversations, but he enjoyed the fine cunt on a lass far more and it had been some time since he’d been in one.
“Beannaigh dúinn an oíche seo…trí fhilleadh an tsolais a dheonú.”
Finally, thank the gods. Fionnbharr flicked his fingers towards the huge pyre, with its wicker shaped effigies of the gods wreathed in dried flowers and fruited offers. The spell for fire rippled through him, and the sparks jumped from his fingertips to light the kindling. Even the stiff and steady breeze couldn’t extinguish the flames as they began to cascade upward.
A mile or two away, on another knoll just like this one, the bonfire lit. Then another. Soon, the ring of light would blaze across the whole of the isle. Even in rain, they would keep them burning until the sun was reborn with the dawn.
Until then…
“And now we drink!” Fionnbharr called, and laughter raced through the assembled. Even the greybeards gave him a wry shake of their head as they chuckled. Popping the cork on the flask he’d brought for the occasion, he took a deep drink.
The solstices were the optimal time for visions. As a vate, Fionnbharr’s gifts extended well beyond the earthly, and he needed strong spirits and stronger herbs to keep his mind grounded here.
Too many vates let their visions consume them, and he refused to be one of them. It wasn’t long before the merriment poured out of the villages and toward the hills. Torches came to life in the towns as they would everywhere this night.
Everyone would be tasked with holding back the shadows and the darkness. For these long hours, they were alone in the battle until the sun god could be born once more. The crone spread her cloak across the land, and it was into her care that they consigned themselves. But the crone had a wicked sense of humor, though Fionnbharr suspected that he’d at least earned her amusement if not her favor.
Leaving the circle of the fire, he made his way down the hill, avoiding the natural trek of the road. The first girl on his list would be waiting for him in her warm cottage, her body naked and her legs spread. She’d asked for the blessing of the crone this night, and he would do his best to see it delivered.
It was the least he could do.
Another swallow of the mead in his flask, and the world shifted.
Fionnbharr paused. He was nowhere near the hill nor the village. Instead, the woods rose up before him, and he swore.
“Not tonight, dammit!” The boon he’d asked should have been granted, but a haze draped everything. The clay flask seemed impossibly heavy in his palm, and his hands went numb. The woods elongated and stretched before his eyes, and the darkness in them rushed out.
In true dark, away from any man-made sources of light, the world wasn’t that dark at all. The sliver of the crone’s waning sickle hung low in the sky. A glimpse of what could be.
The stars themselves twinkled overhead. So many stars, the jewels of the gods scattered across the sky and draped in their finery.
Turning in a slow circle, he staggered, and the clay bottle fell from his now nerveless fingers. It broke on some rocks. His heart thundered, the rush of his blood, and the world kept swaying as the earth shifted beneath his feet.
This time, he was deep within the virgin woods, untouched by the malignancy of man. The trees were dense, but instead of being trapped among them, he stood in the center of a clearing of a grove of old trees twining together to create an impenetrable wall.
“Fionnbharr,” a voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere. He sank to his knees. Poison in his flask.
That was why he saw the shadowlands.
That was why he was here.
Irony, the longest night of the year, the night he would spread his seed to a new generation, and instead, he would die here.
Alone.
The crone always did have the wickedest sense of humor.
“Are you truly this dark and dramatic, or are you trying to impress someone?” The husky voice dragged his watering eyes upward, and he found the most beautiful woman in the world gazing at him. Her hair was the perfect color of the fire he lit, and her eyes a deeper green than the promise of spring. “I have to tell you, this really isn’t a sexy look on you, Fin.”
His name was Fionnbharr.
“Really? Pretty sure when I’m screaming as you drill your cock into me, Fin does just fine.”
A laugh wheezed through him, and he choked on air and blood.
“No,” she ordered, catching a hold of his face and forcing him to look at her. “You don’t get to die, Fin. You promised me.”
“Cad a gheall mé duit, Álainn?” At the moment, he would promise her anything. Give her anything. But his life faded. The shadowlands were there, and she was the bridge the goddess sent to him?
Maybe he could embrace his death.
“Drink, Fin,” she whispered. “You’ve lost too much blood.”
The strength in her arms cradled him, and he pressed his mouth to her pulse. Oh, he would die a happy man right here.
“You’re not dying,” she told him. “Do you understand me? You are not allowed to die. I did not come all this way to save you, only to have you die. You promised to put balm on my ass after Alfred and Rogue tan it, and what will Maddox do without you?”
Fionnbharr frowned and lifted his head. The vision of her splintered, and it was Maddox leaning over him. “It’s poison,” he said. “I can smell it.”
Aelfraed replaced the knight—no, Maddox was no knight. This close to death, Fionnbharr could read the flames in his aura. The beast within him flared against his eyes. Rogue knelt on his far side, and the coolness of his hand eased the fever burning in Fionnbharr’s blood.