The Realm of the Sun

The Confrontation

           The stunned crowd began to break off and separate, buzzing with speculation and suspicion. Eirainna slid out of the room like a spectre. With alacrity, she walked down the corridor and up the grand staircase. Her heart leapt in her throat and she tried with each step to swallow it again, to breathe evenly and fully. If she could just make it to the silence and solitude of a nearby common room before anyone spoke another word to her, she would be fine.

          Her stone mask began to shatter with each step until she finally reached the closest room. Leaving the door carelessly ajar, she rushed to the chair by the window and breathed in the cool spring air. She forced herself to inhale and exhale deeply a few times, though she was unsure exactly what about the news had induced her panic. Having hundreds of people in one room all simultaneously acknowledge the man she had loved so intensely made him seem almost tangible. She felt as though she would be sick.

          "All you all right?" came a voice. Eirainna stood from the chair, tremendously startled to see Maeve standing in the doorway.

          "What? Yes, of course I'm all right," Eirainna replied, returning to her chair and her stoic front.

          "I noticed you slipped out of the room. You seemed distressed," Maeve's expression was her finest attempt at warm and sympathetic.

          "You noticed me out of the hundred people in the room?" Eirainna gave her sister a skeptical smile, proud of herself for being a little difficult.

          "You were the only one whose face drained of all colour at the mention of his name." Eirainna's momentary confidence deflated. They looked at each other for a moment, unsure who was going to speak next. Maeve stepped inside the room; the sharp sound of her heel hitting the stone could surely be heard throughout Tara. Eirainna jumped in her seat as the door of the common room closed, separating them from the commotion of the corridor.

          "What are you doing?" she asked the queen, opting for an innocent inflection.

          "You were relieved to hear about Connor mac Nessa, were you not? His being alive, his 'triumphant return.'" Maeve walked about slowly and deliberately with her hands locked behind her back.

          "What can you mean by that?" Eirainna replied, turning back around to face the curved grey wall as if to dismiss Maeve's accusation as ridiculous.

          "I think you know perfectly well what I mean." Maeve's gaze could be felt like the unforgiving rays of the midsummer sun.

         "Maeve, look, I swear I don't know what you're getting at," Eirainna stood calmly and started for the door, "But really I must be getting back to Lady Caoimhe. She and I were discussing the—"

          "No games, Eirainna. Don't pretend like I wasn't clever enough to know you had feelings for him. Maybe you could hide it from everyone else, but not from me. You should've known better," said Maeve with a sick note of delight in her accusation. Eirainna stiffened, her spine locking one vertebra at a time. "I thought maybe after all this time, that childish admiration you had for him would've faded. But it's still there," Maeve whispered, relishing each word, "Isn't it?"

          "Maeve," Eirainna tried to dispel it once more, simply amazed that Maeve could have known all of this. Her fingers rolled slowly into her palms without her knowing, and her face began to radiate heat.

          "Now, don't be cross. I feel for you, Raina, I really do. All this time, what has it been—sixteen, seventeen years? You must've thought he was dead."