Tír na nÓg Trilogy, Book II: The Rising Dark

Luglochta Loga

This was just what Emery needed. If she ever wished to be with Cullen, she'd have to remember who she was so that she could become that person again, and the only chance she had at remembering Emer was to try to place herself where Emer used to be, to return to the place she'd grown up, to Luglochta Loga. Whatever risks the trip brought would be worth it if Emery could just remember. And she wouldn't be entirely foolish; she'd bring the walnut Cathbad had just given her. If she and Oonagh needed help, he'd come!

Emery pulled on her breeches and slipped into a fresh tunic, allowed Oonagh to wrangle her thick, damp hair into a fat braid, cleaned her muddy feet, and slipped into her leather boots. (She was certainly not going to go after the Converse she'd left outside Cullen's door.) Then she strapped on her wide leather belt and tightened its laces, adding her sheathed dagger and a little pouch with Cathbad's walnut in it, and swung a warm but modest sheepskin cloak around her shoulders, lifting its hood to disguise her face. During all these preparations, Emery tried to distract her thoughts from centering on what had just happened with Cullen by talking incessantly to Oonagh, who was surprised to be out-talked. Emery assumed, reasonably, that her friend had somehow acquired passage out of Dun-Dealgan for them. She didn't know how they'd get to the horses without being noticed, but she figured Oonagh knew what to do, as she'd announced her plans with such enthusiasm.

But when Emery noted that she was ready and headed for the door, Oonagh stopped her. "Wait! Where are you going, then?"

Emery smiled uneasily. "Well . . . don't we have to get horses? Or are we going to walk?"

"Neither!" admitted Oonagh, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. The girl fastened her own cloak at her throat, adding secretively, "I never told you this, as it's private information, but I trained with a druidess--my grandmother--for several years, and while I sadly didn't learn much before she passed on, I did learn the basic transportation enchantment."

Emery's eyes widened. "What? And you never told me?"

"Shh! No! I'm not mad, am I? If everyone knew, they'd be asking me to send them all over the place now, wouldn't they? But this is different, Emery. It's something you need--I know it is. Tess spoke to me of it, and it's only natural that you want to see your old home. I figure, with the night being young, we can go and come back by tomorrow late morning, well before you'd be missed. And I've told my mother as much. It's all settled!"

Perhaps, had Emery been thinking more rationally, she may have questioned whether night was the best time to go to a castle in disrepair, where forest had begun to claim the ruins. She might also have wondered more at Oonagh's sudden ability to transport them. But in that moment, Emery was concerned only with what she believed she needed, and that was to know who she was, so she could be that person for him.

Much as Cathbad had done the several times he'd transported Emery, Oonagh enveloped her in her cloak and whooshed them away instantaneously to a dark, damp field. It was too cold and wet for crickets, but the grasses were high, almost up to Emer's knees, and the earth below was spongy when she moved her feet. It was not raining here, though; in fact, the moon shone white and round in the clear, starry black sky, casting a pale green sheen on the forests off to their right and the hills rolling up in the distance. Emery's breath condensed in the chill air as she observed their surroundings. Oonagh, next to her, held her arm.

"I've not been here," Oonagh practically whispered, as if their voices would break something. "I'm not sure where to go."

Emery was unsure, as well. Turning about, she saw no tower or structure of any kind on the horizon, but then she recalled that both Cathbad and Cullen had told her that the forest was beginning to claim the building, so she looked toward the treeline, and there, as she narrowed her eyes, she thought she could make out against the dark forest what might be a mound of stone. "There!" she whispered to Oonagh. "Come on."