Perhaps a little naively, Tara had not expected inviting Erik to the sunken structure would result in intimacy. The frigid cave did little to cool them down from the exertion. After, as they re-dressed their clothes stuck to their bodies with sweat.
She was fiddling with her sash, trying to tie her belt. He refused her, tugging it and letting her fabrics fall open once more to reveal her body and reddened chest. His tunic was untied at the top. Beneath the wisps of chest hair, she noticed his skin was just as blotchy and red.
She writhed under his renewed touch, hands sliding beneath her garment and pressing into her back. She ought to be embarrassed by her sweatiness and unkempt appearance. On the receiving end of his touch, his attention, she felt all shame disappear.
She giggled at his wanton energy. Thrilled by his virility and exhilaration matching her own. So quickly after their love-making, he was ready for more. He lifted her up and pushed her against the cold wall, her legs wrapping around his waist. They went at it again.
Afterwards, bone-tired and cuddling, he broke their gaze to stare up at the stone renderings, "What did you say to those ancestors of yours? Because I really think they listened. If you wished for more of me, that is." The wicked smile across his lips earned him an elbow in the side.
"I asked for some sign that we should make up after our argument and that I should trust you and your intentions."
He grew sombre then, "And?"
She trailed quaking fingers over his chest, careful not to snag the curls. "Your patience, your effort to listen to me and do as I ask, as I do for you, got my attention. And you didn't force a kiss or... this," She quietened, "If anything, I grabbed you and forced your hand."
He caught her wrist and pulled her face close. She tried to wriggle away, embarrassed.
"You forced nothing. I wanted you to make the first move if we were to make up. I erred. You're perfect."
The comfort and compliment earned him another deep kiss, unhurried and unwilling to part. She lost herself in him and knew he felt the same, regardless of what pressures awaited him within his own Clann. They were not in his lands of the midnight sun. Perhaps they never would be. All that concerned her was his presence so near, and the gentle spirit she knew he had from the moment she saw him. She realised he was the one she would happily, desperately spend the rest of her life with. No matter the cost.
She only wished her family would see it.
✦✦✦ ✝︎✞✟ ✧ ✝︎✞✟ ✦✦✦
They parted ways that evening. Spending the rest of the day considering their options and trying to find a place for Erik to conceal himself whilst his men raged in prison. Following the revelations of their traditions, she viewed the hostages, who she had recently begun to think of as jovial men like her brothers, as disgusting brutes cold-hearted enough to breed the women in their family as bedslaves.
The discoveries still turned Tara's stomach. She felt somewhat more secure knowing Erik did not agree with it. They discussed his sisters more. His worry for them whilst abroad and yearning to get home to set them free. He reiterated his love for them was fraternal like she loved her brothers. He would never willingly cross the boundary his parents wished him to. The boundary his parents -- as brother and sister -- had crossed.
She tried to compartmentalise the horrid nature of the Sorensens, instead focussing on the plan they had for Erik. He was to forage the woodlands for food and sleep in the fairy fort until she could figure out a better sleeping arrangement. He complained little but seemed torn up over the abandonment of his men. Even though, from his own words, if he went back to the mud-hut they would kill him.
As he had a brother, he said, they would not hesitate to kill him. He was not the only heir, after all.
She left him in the fairy fort after they let the sunken structure sink once more, helped by Erik's earth affinity. She still marvelled whenever he practised it. His muscles rippling, bearing a weight she could not see, burdened as she was holding up the sky, he sank the earth.
A brief kiss was how they departed. She hurried back to her town walls, anxious to see her brothers and tell them of her news. She would be married by the end of the summer season, now on the horizon. But it would not be to that old Nob, Tiarnan.
She was betrothed to another, who matched her mind and might with his own.
✦✦✦ ✝︎✞✟ ✧ ✝︎✞✟ ✦✦✦
Perhaps if his heart was not beating so loud and so fast, he would have paid more heed to his surroundings. The unnatural stillness of the meadow.
His mind was on his Irish queen, telling her everything of his day and everything he wanted to do with her after it. He was bubbling with the exciting prospect of marrying her. Something he dare not let himself believe, that he would be hers forever.
It was because of all these roaming thoughts he did not know he was moving towards his doom.
And then, crouching down and entering the fairy fort, too late he realised the bouncy red curls in there did not belong to his love. Too late to rally any sort of defence, to fight off his attackers before his world went dark.
✦✦✦ ✝︎✞✟ ✧ ✝︎✞✟ ✦✦✦
Tara ambled up the grasses to the fairy fort, legs quickening to reach him faster. She was elated. Thoughts of another secret evening together, just the two of them relishing in each other's company and the thrill that always came with it.
Her brothers were off on some hunt, said their servants. She had no popportunity to proclaim her arrangement with Erik. It did not matter. They could try and stop her but they would fail. How could you prevent two people as powerful as her and Erik from being together? She would gladly give up the torques to marry him and in return get the chance to roam abroad. Free.
She was running now, her thoughts egging her on faster. Clambering up the hill, she wandered through the familiar trail amongst the weeds, pulling on roots to leverage herself up. Reaching the hole in the ground, she slid into the ancient chamber beneath the soil.
But Erik was nowhere to be seen.
"That's curious," Her eyes adjusted to the dark. There was no space to hide in and scare her, but she looked anyway.
On the earthen bench Erik had formed, she found a clue. Whittled crudely out of wood was a tiny tree, an oak. It was not as beautiful as the usual workings that he often modelled for her during their nights in dreams, but she assumed he was in a rush.
"The great oak forest," She murmured to herself as she left. "He wants to meet me at the great oak forest."
The excitement was quickly turning to concern, her stomach sick with anticipation. She hurried to the woods, losing daylight fast. The great oak forest had charmed him. That was understandable. It fascinated her too as a child and comforted her whenever she wandered it.
But it was not as concealed as a hidden fairy fort, and her sensibility did not like the thought of meeting Erik anywhere they could be caught. As newfound betrothals, they were not supposed to meet up alone, but her rank and desire dismissed that.
As hostage and captor, they were not to meet up alone at all but her lovesickness dismissed that, too.
It was not a long journey from the fairy fort to the woods, but it felt like an age because she was stressed. She knew when she saw him he would tease her for worrying. She would see his false-serious face before it melted into a grin.
She did not know where to meet him but guessed the clearing amongst the oaks would be his spot. He mentioned his love of the clearing, awash with wildflowers and the living, beating heart of the forest critters. With summer well on its way, the meadow was a cacophony of insect noise.
But something was wrong.
Making it to the clearing, the familiar sounds of life were absent. An unnatural stillness quieted the air. Tara shivered, unexpectedly cold. Rather than a romantic evening in the meadow, she shook amongst the flowers, the eeriness ruining the mood.
Tara's senses were on high alert, alarmed at the silence and lack of Erik. She wished to call his name but did not want to oust their rendezvous.
A twig snapped behind her.
"Tara."
It was not the meeting she had hoped. Instead, Conn and Cuán stood at the tree line, hands tucked inside their cloaks. Both seemed taller, different with matching dour expressions.
This was a joke. A surreal scenario only saved for nightmares.
Her mouth opened before she thought, "What are you lads doing here? I-I was just going to-"
"To meet up with the savage? Your consort, isn't that right?" Cuán chimed in nastily.
Her body went cold. A ringing in her ears began wailing, blocking out the obscenities Conn added. Their faces, cruelly twisted to expressions of grim satisfaction, scared her. She had never seen her brothers look so mean, not when addressing her. They saved these harsh tactics for enemies. She was their blood.
"Wh-wh-what do you-"
"Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh." They mimicked her stuttering, snickering.
It lit an ember of wrath in her, shock giving way to fury. Why were her brothers out here in the woods, laughing at her like they knew all she had done? Why were they here in the great oak woods, the place she was to meet Erik?
"Where is he?"
"Who?" Another snicker. "Your boyfriend? Sure, you know exactly where he is, mo Rí."
She flinched. The way Conn addressed her felt like a smack in the face. It was against his character to demean the kingship of their Clann, another factor in this evening not making sense. She was utterly bewildered.
Moving towards them, to soften the tension and seek mercy for her lies, she noticed a glinting object. Her movement caught the moonlight differently on whatever stood near her brothers.
A growing horror, the curved object was large. The size of a man and made of metal, refracting the light. Hammered metals, ribbed with a grate on top where a man's face would be.
"What is this?" Hurt clouded her mind, skewing thought. Surely, they had not brought the iron casket for her. That sordid torture device druid Ernmas had wheeled into their counsel all those moons ago.
A wide grin, Conn retorted, "What d'you think?"
Her older brother's face was pinched and contorted in an expression she was not familiar with, leering at her. He was enjoying her torment.
"You can control the weather, little sister," Cuán's voice, usually the mediator, was harsh and equally as foreign. A tone he saved for his slaves, "But you cannot control your brothers. No more than we could control you being our sister."
The meaning of his words took a moment to register. Her jaw set, trying desperately to stifle tears. Her fingers curled tightly to dig into her palm. She would not give them the satisfaction of crying.
"It's time to be honest, Tara. Envy has poisoned our hearts. Any love we had for you as kids was eroded by the years we watched you make a mockery out of father's throne. We're sick of it."
"If I am so loathsome," She bit out, "Why pretend for so long to respect me?" Slowly, sickeningly their ruse was beginning to make sense to her.
Both shrugged, bemused. Rage bubbled inside.
"You cleaned up the mess with the Naithí and Tarrachta clanna. We didn't have to lift a finger, our darling sister murdered man, woman and child for us. Then we awaited the opportune moment to strike and gather unrest amongst our people. This love affair of yours provided the perfect reason. No Blood's going to respect a whoring traitor to the Clann. Not with one of those savages. They should've died long ago. The people still rage about not seeing each Northman burn."
Oh, she had well and truly had enough. She raised a hand to silence them, letting it block her face so she could allow herself to be as visibly crestfallen as she felt.
Then, squaring her shoulders and facing her brothers, they sneered at her like starved foxes.
"Well, I suppose there is only one more thing I need from you then; where is Erik?"
They shared a look, lips creasing to suppress laughter, immediately making her regret her question. They sniggered spitefully.
"Lads!"
She heard the struggle of pack animals. A cart and the unwelcome sight of Oisín stoking the mules on roamed into the awful scene, laden with unfamiliar objects. The night obscuring their devices from view.
Of course, Oisín would be in on this. His broad frame and face looked less twisted and nasty than her brothers, but he certainly gave her no friendly welcome. The heavy cart halted, wood creaking with the pressure. As it stopped, an auburn head languidly peeled up as if savouring the reveal, "Hi, love."
Nausea descended on her.
"Ethne?"
She pushed herself from the cart as her brothers gripped ropes to pull whatever else was atop it. "Hello, Tara. So sorry we have to see each other under these circumstances."
She felt truly defeated, betrayed by everyone she held close. She surveyed the four in front of her, her closest friends she would wager, now transformed to her bitterest enemies.
And for what?
"Why?" Her voice broke. She did not care. "Why are you doing this to me, y-you're supposed to be my friend, Ethne."
The girl in question busied herself with the large sack laid out on the cart, flippantly saying, "Well the birds, of course. The birds tell me everything you do, always have. I've been far friendlier with Conn than you for years. When he found out, as a little girl from a local Irish tribe, that I could talk to birds, control 'em, he knew he had to have me in his Clann. I'm useful. How else did you think I secured a Connacta warrior for my husband? With no big dowry. You were just too naive to notice."
Tara rubbed her stomach. Ethne's words like a blow to her guts. If her horror was not growing so steadily, she would have dissolved in a fit of tears. But a numbness descended over her, eyes searching the cart and its contents as a new level of horror appeared.
Ethne needlessly went on, "When the birds told me of your secret tryst with the earthshaker, and the further shame you brought our Clann, I had to tell Conn. Like bringing that foreigner to the sunken structure of the Dark King and Tailtiu? Despicable," She motioned for Oisín to help her lift the sack, heavy with some unknown object, "Pure treachery, and all so secret! Not divulging one word to your poor brothers. Oh well! At least we'll now have co-rulers who will be nothing but transparent with us. And reward Oisín and me for such loyalty."
Tara's ears were ringing, Ethne's words missing their mark. All the little rí could focus on was the shape of the sack, thrown to the ground and roughly untied.
There was a man in there.
When her brothers noticed her eyes settling, Cuán sauntered over and pulled a crumpled form free.
It was Erik. Bloodied and limp.
She froze, petrified.
Cuán and Oisín, with ease, threw his unconscious form into the iron casket inlaid with nails. Tara's mind was blank, utterly overwhelmed by everything uncovered and the outrages committed against her. She was in emotional agony, betrayed by family and dearest friends. Alone, and now watching her favourite person shoved into a prison of death.
And then her brother clamped down on the door latch, shutting the iron casket closed completely.
The noise flickered something inside her. Her face and whole body began to burn. A roar left her body so guttural and foreign she did not believe it was hers.
She realised it was not her voice, but Erik's.
Inside the iron spiked cast was Erik, his watering eyes the only confirmation it was him. A familiar blue. The pain in the small section of his face she could see reverberated through her entire being. Her skin burned with nail piercings as if she was trapped in that coffin with him.
"Oh, savage..." Conn sang musically. Delighted more than his sister had ever seen him. "It is not over yet. Do not cry for yourself, for what about your dear men? Your compatriots so sadly left imprisoned?"
He motioned to Oisín and Ethne, pulling another sack stained and soaked through with blood. Tara's dread mounted. The blood was light, iridescent even, only the blood of a-
Oisín pushed wooden stakes into the sodden earth. His cruel wife pulled the sack open and relished in the brutal sight.
From his coffin, blood dripping down his face, his wide eyes bulged further as they saw the sack's contents. Again, yet this time not for his fate, Erik roared in agony.
Sigtrygg was the first decapitated head they pulled from the sack, gripped by his long, knotted hair. His eyes were permanently opened, bloodshot and in agony.
With a sick squelching sound, Oisín skewered the head on the pike, shimmying it side to side to secure it.
Ethne pulled another head out and passed it to her husband, her expression matching the twisted glee on Conn and Cuán's face. Now, their ruse was up. It must have been exhausting to act all that time for Tara, to keep such a ploy going.
With each head forced on a stake, Erik wailed from his iron prison. Tara, fighting to remain standing, felt great pressure build in her mind. Her skin still burned as if buried with the same nails embedded in Erik, slowly killing him.
Eight heads for eight of her nine hostages. The other, voice hoarse and life energy ebbing, awaited proper execution in the casket.
"Now, dear sister," Conn moved to her lover, hand outstretched towards the contraption, "Before we lock you up to use your powers for the land, would you like to do the lightning-frying one last time? Or shall I?"
Her reality could not get much worse, stock-still and yet trembling. The agony she felt for Erik had realised itself, for she felt as stuck and bloodied as he, her skin burning with the pain of a thousand rusty nails.
Now, to mock her, they asked her to burn him alive as if she ever could. As if she could move her hand, call lightning and with a mere thought ruin everything that had made her life worth living for the past year.
All their hopes and dreams were as cut to pieces as the Soren men now encircling her on pikes. She did not realise she was wailing until her brothers ridiculed her further:
"Aw, poor little Tara. Are you upset we've done away with your paramour? Or perhaps it's more to do with losing the torques? What do you care, now you won't have to marry that old man Tiarnan. Instead you'll befriend the rats in the hut prison and keep our skies clear. Maybe we'll even send Tiarnan down to you or any of the men that ask. You can entertain them like you did this savage. For as long as we allow."
Ethne and Oisín joined in their scorn, laughing at her heartily. None of this made sense to her, nothing in the universe made sense anymore.
And yet, slowly patterns emerged in her head, things that, at the time, were senseless. Her relationship with Erik, all the sneaking around had gone so well. It had all been so easy. Too easy.
It was because, throughout it all, her brothers knew everything. They knew she pined for the fairest of her hostages, that she would not kill nor ransom him. That she would never marry Tiarnan, the elderly lord they threw at her. All because her confidante had betrayed her, and Tara had allowed herself to be played the fool. Blinded by her desire to escape the mundane reality of her Clann, yearning to stop and talk and fall in love with the earthshaker who washed up on her shores.
But there were things her family and friends did not know.
They did not know of the dreams Tara and Erik shared.
The endless nights discussing their past, present and proposed future. How perfect the pair were for each other. How, truly, stars aligned for everything to happen the way it had. So that Tara and Erik would meet each other. Discovering worlds so apart from their own, and determined to create another, wholly different future for themselves.
Her eyes met his, rolling and bloodied in the torture device.
The fool-hardy future they planned would not come true. Not only because family forbid it, but because no one, not even a queen who can control the weather, can control the future.
She widened her stance imperceptibly, feeling renewed strength in the earth that her lover could control. Too blinded by pain, physical and emotional, he could not control it now. But she would overcome her mind and harness the sky.
Cuán, understanding the newfound glint in her eye, turned to tell her brother. Yet, Conn's arrogance made him blind to her strength, his mind thinking his actions too awful to muster any defence.
Too late.
The sky opened, but not with thunder to give away her attack, nor rain to barely harm them. In a split second, an incredible arc of lightning cracked open the sky and fell to earth, not only burning the victim but completely eviscerating them. All signs of their form gone. Then the thunder announced its attack, too late.
The blackened scene was ablaze in white-blue light, shouts resounding from every one of her new enemies as they all panicked, thinking they were the ones hit. When the light ebbed away, they searched their bodies and then that of their friends and realised who was struck.
Oisín howled, crumpling to his knees as the place where Ethne once stood was marred with black cinder and nothing more. His love -- Tara's best friend, now foe -- was no more.
Before anyone could retaliate, she punched the air thrice; Conn flew backwards, head hitting a tree with a resounding CRACK!
Cuán flipped uselessly behind a fallen log, the air knocked clean out of him. Oisín, a crumpled easy target, flew out of sight. The sound of his body hitting a boulder was almost satisfying.
Tara rushed to the iron casket, unable to bear the sight of his brothers' decapitated heads on pikes. The smell of death was intense and she fumbled with the latch to free Erik.
Eventually, her shaking fingers pried it open. His heavy, bloodied body fell straight forward and it took everything in her to catch him before he smacked into the ground. She lowered him, groaning from the weight and weeping from the pain and sight before her eyes.
She flipped him over, using her sleeve to wipe the blood and grass from his face, muttering the entire time, "Erik, Erik, Erik."
Her hands shook uncontrollably, his eyes were closed and gathering him up, she rested his head on her breast. She pressed her ear to his mouth. Straining to hear a breath, anything at all, any sign of life.
But, hollowly, no breath was found. His chest, deflated, did not rise up nor down. The blood coating his body was too much, too severe of a loss to survive. As she wiped the blood from his face away, she noticed a deep gash. A horrible head wound, undoubtedly sustained when Oisín and Ethne captured him.
Her ears still rang, yet slowly, amongst the din, she heard a rising sound. A screech so awful she wished to holler at the culprit to shut up.
Stop, godsdamnit, could they not see she was mourning? Grieving the death of the most precious boy in the world? A gentle soul who paused to take witness of the beauty around him, the astounding surroundings of nature, whenever possible? Who noticed in her a kindred spirit? Who, even when a hostage, never disrespected or showed cruelty?
The screech pierced her hearing and made her wince, and at once and all of a sudden she realised she was the offender. She, heartbroken and alone, was wailing.
"ERIK!"
But it was no use. His life had left him. He could not hear nor answer. Her life, uselessly, remained and in her hands the body of her beloved. Cold, soaked through with blood and silent.
She sobbed over him, guttural and rough, for an undetermined amount of time. High-pitched keening came next, holding his corpse close and rocking him gently side to side, comforting herself and himself with the familiar movement. Her mind was a dark void. Her thoughts could not turn to what just happened-- nor to happier times, for fear the pain would swallow her whole. Mind, body and spirit.
Eventually, amongst the disquieted woods, she heard footfall and the sound of her brothers rousing. She knew they were coming for her. Coming to finish the job and neatly tie up the loose-ends to proclaim themselves rí.
All this horror. All this brutality for greed. It was all so utterly pointless, so useless it maddened her.
If they had asked for the kingship, had just told her long before this betrayal necessary, she would have relented. She would have relinquished all authority for any hope of a life with Erik. A life of adventure beyond the boundaries of her stupid lands.
When their footsteps neared, called out by breaking twigs, she laid Erik down, kissing his cold lips. Brushing his ash hair aside, as white as his skin, firm in corpse pose. Laying his hands and arms out peacefully, she stood to face her brothers.
It was then she realised it was raining, pouring really.
The wind howled as it whipped wildly through the trees, the cold doing little to bring any feeling to her body. She was not responsible for this weather. She would never harness the weather in these lands again. Now, true Mother Nature was at work. A storm hitting Connacht as it did all other lands in the West at that moment. The natural weather was returning.
Conn and Cuán stumbled out, dirtied and fuming. She cried out,
"All this?! All this pain just to be rí?"
Cuán, shockingly, was the one to respond, "You know nothing of what we want. Nor all the indignities we have had to endure because a woman leads our Clann. No more."
His pathetic words and ridiculous excuse made the pain Tara heaped on him all the more deserving. She raised them both in the air, caught their hulking forms on a passing wind and with her hands curling, bending, gnarling unnaturally she made two trees, parallel with each other, bend inwards.
On the right tree, with swine cord from the sacks and belts of her brothers, she tied Cuán's right arm and his right leg. Fastening each tie with their Clann's brooches. She repeated the same for Conn. They both snarled curses at her, their limbs useless in the air under her power. She ignored them.
With more cord and belts, she tied their left arms and left legs to the opposing tree, groaning underneath the weight of two men and one woman's authority over the air.
She moved back, assessing her work. The wind slapped her face but nothing mattered anymore. Only vengeance-- no, only justice.
The trees bent towards one another, vibrating under the force, their desire to straighten. Each held one side of both brothers. The right tree the right sides. The left tree the left sides.
"No," Her voice, hoarse and gravelly, carried above the storm, "None of us will be rí. You will be torn apart, limb from limb, as you have torn me apart."
Their curses died on their lips. With a flick of the wrist, she released her hold on the trees. Watching mutely as they bounced back, straight and separate. The branches flinging back into the air. Taking opposing limbs with them, with such force as an oak tree possesses, tearing her brothers in half.
Once the trees settled, and the torsos and heads of her brothers went gods-know where, her eyes returned to the earth. Glancing over to Erik's corpse, she found Oisín, paralysed with fear.
His face was ashen, no longer the swaggering warrior of her Clann. Now, petrified of her power, he fell to his knees and laid prostrate before her. Begging mercy.
"You will go back to the Clann and tell them all you saw here," Her voice was alien to her ears.
"You will go back to the Clann and tell them every member of the Connacta family is dead. You will tell them the line of Dorcha is over. You will tell them they are now left to starve and defend themselves against nature. The true elements. You will tell them, never again, will they have a goddess of abundance, and never again will their land provide them crops nor their rithe protection."
He shook before her and acquiesced, nodding vigorously.
She sunk to her haunches, hand slick with Erik's life-blood. Slowly, she began to inscribe a sigil on the ground. A blood curse. With each mark she etched, words came forth of their own volition.
"The Connacta will never rise again. The land will become barren, as will the women. The warring neighbouring tribes will defeat you and take everything you own. The land of Connacht will see famine, pestilence and death. No more will Connacht conquer but shall be conquered. No more will the Irish make war but shall have war brought upon them. No more will you take slaves, but instead be made slaves of a rival power."
He quaked but nodded again. She pushed her hand deeper into the earth, cementing her words with Erik's blood. Using the last life energy to avenge him and herself and the awful things that had happened to them. The Connacta Clann was undeserving of her aid. They were undeserving of everything she ever gave them.
"Go," He stood and dashed off through the woods, tripping in his haste.
Surrounded by the dead Sorensen men, alone and unwatched, Tara finally sank to her knees and found Erik once more.
He was even colder now. Even wetter. His blue eyes were forever closed, his lips stripped of colour. She grieved loudly. Mourned everything about him until, finally, she began to dig her beloved a grave, and beside it, eight more.
A/N
The Epilogue has also been uploaded and the first chapter of Blood Bound. Thank you for reading.