Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(19)

She filled the bucket, walked back to dump water in the trough. It took another two trips, and by then Mallick had removed both saddles and was toweling off his gelding.

“What’s his name?” she asked as she got a clean towel to rub down her own horse.

“He’s Gwydion, named for a powerful wizard and warrior.”

“She’s Grace, for the pirate queen. The lean-to is much newer than the cabin.”

“I built it only a few months ago.”

“It looks sound,” she said, picking out Grace’s hooves.

With the horses fed and watered, Mallick took up his own light pack. Fallon shouldered her heavier duffel and the food her mother had packed.

The cabin, a square and squat structure, included a narrow front porch up one short step.

Beside the step, in a pool of pebbles, stood a rough stone figure. Female, Fallon judged.

Mallick paused to open his water flask, and trickled some water over the pebbles.

“In tribute and respect for the goddess.”

“Does she protect or bless?”

“She may do both, at her whim. She is Ernmas.” He sighed a little when Fallon only frowned. “She is a mother goddess, she is of the Tuatha de Danann, as you are. You are of her blood and bone, Fallon Swift. Do you know nothing of your ancestors?”

“We had some books on mythology, mostly like the Romans and Greeks. You don’t seriously expect me to believe I’m related to some goddess? Because, you know, mythology.”

“Your ignorance does you no credit.” He walked onto the porch, flicked a hand at the door. It opened with a rush of wind. “Do you think power—the light, the dark—has no source? Has no history or purpose? You owe what you are to all who came before you. To their bounty and their battles, their cruelty and their compassion.” He shook his head. “That the fate of the world rests with a girl who knows so little.”

As he walked inside, Fallon rolled her eyes behind his back. She looked down at the goddess. “How am I supposed to know what I don’t know?”

Insulted—she was not ignorant—she stomped in behind Mallick.

Inside, the main area consisted of one open room with a fireplace on the north wall and a kitchen in the back—windows east, she noted, to overlook the creek, and catch the sunrise.

A big—and ugly to her eye—couch in some sort of black-and-brown plaid faced the TV over the fireplace. They had a TV at the farm, and once a week they had movie night with the DVDs.

She loved DVDs almost as much as maps, as both took you to other places, other worlds.

Two chairs, that same plaid, a table with a lamp with a black bear climbing a black tree for a base, an overhead light fashioned from some sort of cart or wagon wheel and a round wooden table with four wooden chairs filled the space in what she considered a really ugly way.

She took the food pack to the counter covered in a muddled gray over white, set it down.

“Your room for the night is on the left. Start the fire, then put away your things.”

He wasn’t the only one who could show off, she thought. She turned away, tossed a glance at the logs in the stone fireplace. They burst into flame.

“I’m not stupid.”

“Ignorant,” he corrected. “I’ve heard the expression ‘you can’t fix stupid.’ It may be true. But ignorance can be educated. Put your bag in your room, then you’ll need to bring in more firewood before dark. There’s plenty out the back of the house.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to have a glass of wine before we share what your mother kindly provided.”

When she stalked away, he looked at the fire, the bright, hot light of it, and smiled.





CHAPTER FOUR


Pure stubbornness mated to insult tempted her to lock herself in the dumb room with its two sets of bunk beds—covered in plaid again, this time red and black. But she was hungry, and she had to pee.

So she’d pee, and she’d eat, but she didn’t have to be friendly. She didn’t see why she had to be polite, either. He’d called her stupid—oh, excuse me, ignorant. Just because he was old didn’t mean she had to be polite to somebody who called her ignorant.

A bathroom stood directly across from her room. She did lock herself in there.

She tested for running water by turning the handle on the faucet over the wall-hung sink, and was almost disappointed when it ran. She supposed Mallick had seen to that, so she had no reason to test her powers there.

The toilet rocked a little, but served its purpose.

She took a moment to study her face in the mirror over the sink. She hadn’t slept well the night before—or the night before that, she admitted. It showed in the shadows under her eyes, a paleness to her cheeks.

Though she didn’t care about looking pretty, she did care—a lot—about looking strong. So she did a light glamour.

Not ignorant, she told herself, and not weak.

She strode out, sailed straight by Mallick as he sat near the fire with his glass of wine. She didn’t slam the door on her way out for wood, but shut it with a solid snap.

As dusk fell, a soft gray sliding through the trees, the air carried a sharper chill. And the smell of the smoke, of the galloping fall.

The firewood would be welcome, she thought, but she wanted a walk first, wanted to stretch muscles tight after the hours in the saddle.