The Sword and the Song Read Online Free PDF

lecture me on my habits.” She softened her words with a slight smile. “Can I ask you a question?”
    Riordan nodded.
    “Can we win this fight? Or are we just holding off the darkness for as long as we can?”
    He didn’t answer right away, a sign that he was actually considering the question rather than giving her the reassuring answer he thought she wanted to hear. “I have to believe we can. I don’t think Comdiu has brought us this far just to have us give up.”
    No empty reassurances or platitudes, but there was a quiet confidence in the words that somehow buoyed her spirit. When Comdiu had sent his son, Balus, to visit her in that place between life and death when she’d nearly drowned in LochEirich, He had told her it would not be easy. He had told her there would be a price to be paid. But He had also told her not to despair.
    “I think I’ll rest now,” she said, standing with her bowl. “Thank you.”
    “Of course.” Riordan rose with her and gave her a warm smile. “Sleep well, daughter.”
    The use of the word put a warm glow in her chest. Both her parents were dead, her brothers and sister likely murdered at the taking of Lisdara. She’d begun to think that Conor was all she had left, and Riordan knew it. But he had reminded her that he was her family too, as strange and strained as his relationship with his son might be.
    She retreated to their chamber and undressed automatically, then sank down into the cushioned chair by the window with Shanna’s journal. Unlike Daimhin, the queen had dated her entries. That alone gave Aine hope that Shanna had recorded information for posterity rather than to work through her own thoughts.
    The first several entries contained much of the same information as Daimhin’s, though she had some interesting insights into the feuding clans, just nothing about runes or wards or anything beyond common statecraft. Had she been overconfident about this solution to their dilemmas?
    Hours passed without any sign of Conor, and Aine’s eyelids slowly drooped. She closed the journal and blew out the candle. But once in bed, her mind refused to settle. Maybe it was her conscience bumping up against all the things she wanted to communicate but hadn’t yet spoken aloud.
    She threw off her blanket in frustration and wrapped her shawl around her. Then she slid her feet into the soft silk slippers she had brought back with her from Forrais. This late,Carraigmór’s halls were deserted but for the occasional man on watch, half the torches extinguished until morning.
    Inside the Ceannaire’s office, a single lamp burned, illuminating Conor’s familiar form bent over a book spread across the desk. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said quietly. “Were you planning on coming to bed tonight, or should I just bring your blanket down here?”
    Conor looked up from his book, and his shoulders fell in defeat. “I’m sorry, love. I got wrapped up in this and lost track of the time.” When she circled the desk, he pulled her down on his lap and nuzzled his head into the space between her neck and shoulder.
    “And what is so interesting that it could keep you from my bed?”
    Conor pulled back to smile at her. “Nothing that interesting, I assure you. Just my own . . . distraction.”
    She twisted around to catch a glimpse of the old-fashioned script in the book and realized it wasn’t in the common tongue. His education shouldn’t surprise her   —after all, her own had been relatively extensive   —but this language she didn’t even recognize.
    “Ciraean?”
    “Hesperidian. It’s an account of the Hundred Years’ War between the city states of the southern peninsula. Have you heard the story?”
    Aine shook her head.
    “Well, it’s bloody and depressing, hardly a bedtime tale. But there are certain battles that were won against incredible odds.”
    “And you’re looking for ideas.”
    “I’m looking for something to show the Conclave that victory is