Icefall

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  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  For Elizabeth Garrett, who gave the clann a home in exile.

  And always for Lucy and Jamie Philip.

  THE SITHE AND THE FULL-MORTALS

  (THE STILL-HERE AND THE LONG-GONE)

  Kate NicNiven: Queen of the Sithe, by consent

  Seth MacGregor (Murlainn): Son of Griogair and Lilith; half brother to Conal

  Jed Cameron (Cuilean): Full-mortal; half-brother to Rory

  Rory MacSeth (Laochan): Seth’s son and Jed’s half-brother

  Hannah Falconer MacConnell (Currac-sagairt): Conal MacGregor’s daughter

  Iolaire MacEarchar: Once Kate’s fighter, now Seth’s; lover of Jed

  Leonora Shiach: Witch, mother of Conal and bound lover of Griogair

  Griogair MacLorcan (Fitheach): Father of Conal and Seth

  Conal MacGregor (Cù Chaorach): Son of Griogair and Leonora

  Lilith: Kate’s right-hand woman; Seth’s mother

  Stella Shiach (Reultan): Half-sister to Conal; daughter of Leonora

  Aonghas MacSorley: Bound lover of Stella/Reultan

  Finn MacAngus (Caorann): Daughter to Stella and Aonghas

  Eili MacNeil: Lover of Conal

  Sionnach MacNeil: Eili’s twin brother; Seth’s best friend since childhood

  Liath & Branndair: Wolf-familiars of Conal and Seth

  Faramach: Raven-familiar of Finn

  Gelert: Grian’s hunting dog

  Gocaman & Suil: Watchers at the otherworld watergates

  Orach, Braon, Carraig, Sorcha, Fearna, Oscarach, Diorras, Sgarrag, Fraoch, Sulaire (cook), Grian (healer): Fighters of Seth’s clann

  Cluaran MacSeumas: Kate’s Captain; Iolaire’s foster father

  Gealach, Alainn MacAleister: Two junior captains of Kate’s clan

  Glanadair: Clann Captain of Faragaig

  Leoghar: Glanadair’s lieutenant

  Nils Laszlo: Full-mortal Captain of Kate’s clann

  Cuthag, Gealach, Darach, Raib MacRothe: Fighters of Kate’s clann

  Langfank: A Lammyr

  Lauren Rooney: Hannah’s Other Cousin

  Sheena & Martin Rooney, Aileen Falconer, Shania & Darryl: Hannah’s Other Family

  Miss Emmeline Snow: A kindly stranger

  The Wolf of Kilrevin: Not a very nice man

  You who are given to me to time were given

  Before through time I stretched my hand to catch

  Yours in the flying race.

  —Edwin Muir, “Love in Time’s Despite”

  On desperate ground, fight.

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  A plague on both your houses.

  —Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

  Prologue

  He’d never slept well in the city. It was not the noise that kept him wakeful, the distant wail of a car alarm or the clatter and shriek of drunken students below the window. It was the light, the humming glow of streetlamps or the sudden fleeting glare of headlights across the thin curtains. Carraig flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray and flung his arm across his eyes, but the low-level orange glare leaked in no matter what he did.

  I’ll go back north, he thought. Tomorrow.

  North is darker.

  Streetlights and the city had to be better than the alternative, didn’t they? Sometimes he wondered. Sometimes he wondered if no life might be better than half a life. Three years out of his hundreds, he’d spent this side of the Veil, and he knew he hadn’t been missing a damn thing. The cigarettes he could live without; it was just that they passed the time.

  Carraig lit another.

  Tomorrow he had work to do, a minor rewiring job in that nursing home just out of the city. And that was another positive, wasn’t it? He liked electricity; it had always felt to him like a kind of odd telepathy. He liked to sense it, feel the thrum of it as he worked with it. He’d taken to it straight away and learned it fast, fascinated by its invisible beauty and strength and the danger that lay in it. Predictable danger, if you knew it, but never to be toyed with, because treated with disrespect it became capricious. On the Veil’s other side he’d always thought Murlainn’s turbines and generators a frivolity. Now, if they ever returned—and yearning churned inside him at the thought—now, he’d happily take over the maintenance.

  He needed to spend less time pining for home. Swinging his legs off the narrow hired bed, he walked to the window and pulled aside the thin curtain, then yanked on the sash frame. It stuck fast when the gap was no more than an inch wide.

  Swearing under his breath, Carraig retrieved his dagger from his overnight bag, and prised out the rusty nail that restricted the window. He tossed it out onto the street and hoisted the window wide, letting icy air flood the room.

  The smell of the October frost was tainted with beer and vomit. Leaning out, he gazed down at the kid throwing up in the hotel doorway. A shout, and the hotel owner was barging out to shove the youth away into the road, where a passing car braked and swerved and shrilled its horn. It narrowly missed Carraig’s own car, parked below, feathers of thick frost settling on its roof.

  North, he thought. North wasn’t his true home but it felt closer to it. He missed his clann. He missed his Captain and he missed the boy he no longer referred to, even in his head, as Bloodstone. Because those days and hopes were gone and there was no point. Rory MacSeth was all the boy was; that and Laochan, though young champion he would never now have a chance to be.

  Carraig’s spine tensed instinctively and he lifted his gaze and frowned at the overground railway. A late train clattered across the arches, its grimy windows a long illuminated patchwork that faded, echoing, towards the central station. Shadows in this world were unreliable, but he could swear something had moved in the underpass, in the blackness of the central arch.

  Carraig blew out a lungful of smoke and tossed his fag end to the street below. Its glowing tip shrivelled and died against the cold pavement. Going very still, Carraig leaned forward and reached out with his mind towards the darkness.

  Nothing moved in the emptiness now, no hostile block scratched against his searching mind. How could he trust instincts that regularly lied to him in this alien place? It might have been rat, cat or homicidal enemy, but it was gone now. Spitting, he backed away from the window and shoved down the sash with an echoing clunk.

  His Captain too was forced to skulk in this otherworld, and Carraig had no right to think himself worse off than Murlainn. He had no right to think he knew better than his Captain, or felt it more. Unless a wounded and bleeding soul took the edge off it, he thought sourly. More than three years Murlainn’s soul had been slowly haemorrhaging, and Carraig could not help but wonder when it would be too late. Perhaps, for Murlainn,
it already was, and that was why he had resigned himself to lifelong exile. Perhaps the man no longer cared. Perhaps his life was already reduced to nothing but the blood that throbbed in his veins.

  Carraig shivered with pity. Sometimes he was glad he had no child, that there was no connection for a witch-queen to sever. Even though Murlainn was bound to another witch himself, there was nothing she could do about it, any more than the rest of them.

  Still, Caorann’s witchcraft might be negligible, but she had plenty of influence with Murlainn in other ways. Carraig grinned to himself. He liked Caorann. She knew how it felt to be on the sharp end of Murlainn’s lousy moods. She wanted her lover safe, but she knew as well as the rest of them did that however safe the otherworld was for the clann, there was no safety for Murlainn, not with his soul bleeding and draining away.

  If he spoke with the others, if they went together to Caorann, maybe she’d intercede. Maybe she’d talk sense into their Captain. The mere thought of it lightened Carraig’s heart. Better to die fast in battle with the queen than rot slowly in exile, and surely Murlainn knew it in the depths of what was left of his soul.

  Carraig stuffed his spare shirt and his iPod into his overnight bag, leaving only his wash kit and his car keys to grab in the morning. He found he was smiling. A half-decent night’s sleep suddenly seemed a real possibility, and then one last job. And after that, a long drive north, to a sky with visible stars and to the sympathetic ear of his Captain’s witch lover.

  Caorann. We’ve had enough. Take us home.

  * * *

  She lifted her head, creasing her eyes against the silver glare off the sea. For long moments she held her breath, her heart slowing and thudding. But the voice was no more than a scratch against her consciousness; something overheard or half-imagined. There was no-one close enough to call out to her; if there was, she’d be dead by now.

  With one more furtive glance over her shoulder, Finn relaxed. The broad white beach was deserted, but for the gulls and the skittering crabs and a single eagle, high up above the crags. She’d very much have liked to plunge right into the summer sea, but it would have felt unfair, like stealing an entire world for herself. She wasn’t supposed to be in this one anyway. She’d go back soon.

  Soon.

  Kicking off her shoes, she walked into the sun-spangled waves. She wriggled her toes into the yielding sand. Sometimes the time-slip cheered her; summer was long dead on the other side of the Veil, yet here it lingered. Why would she be in a hurry to return to winter? Especially with the bone-deep chill still lingering in her marrow. The chill, and the tugging summons that had called her here.

  She glanced back at the cave that was no more than a smear of shadow against the cliff. There was deeper shadow inside, darkness that the sun would never touch.

  Finn shook off the memory of it. If she waited for the sun to penetrate as deep as the cold had gone, she’d never get home. And she had to go back.

  Soon.

  Sea-light caught dunlin-wings as a flock of them skittered onto the wet sand on the shoreline. Above the deeper, bluer sea, a gull rode the air current.

  This isn’t fair on the others.

  There were birds here, and sky, and sunlit waves warming the skin of her feet. There was more to this world than the darkness in the caves.

  I have to go back to the otherworld soon. But I’ll tell the clann what’s here.

  Not everything. She couldn’t tell everything about what she’d seen and what she’d done. Not ever.

  But I’ll tell Seth about the watergate. Maybe. At the right moment.

  The sun beat warm on the nape of her neck, and the breeze smelt of salt and summer grasses. Above her the eagle circled higher into the shimmering blue, scanning a moor that she knew was empty for miles. She had time. Five minutes more, letting the horror drain from her bones, and she’d go back. And then she’d pick her moment to tell Seth. Tell him what she’d found, and perhaps half of what she’d done.

  Soon.

  * * *

  The winter sun hadn’t yet risen, but there was a paleness to the edge of the world that hinted at dawn. Carraig jerked the shabby hotel’s door shut behind him and sidestepped the vomit of last night, then paused on the pavement, playing his car keys through his fingers.

  On the brink of day it wasn’t so bad, not if he closed his eyes. Even the city was freshened by the chill of the night just gone, and the hour before morning was sharp with smoky frost. The street lights were dimming as the strip of daylight pearl widened between the buildings.

  Remembering his promise to himself, his gut twisted with longing and nerves. One last job, then, and after that: north. The roof and windscreen of his car were patterned thickly with ice but it was fine, he had time to warm it up and listen to the morning news as he waited.

  The streets lay in such calm stillness, Carraig was almost reluctant to turn the key in the ignition. And it took him three tries before the engine coughed, and purred into life. He turned on the Today programme, the volume low, and sat back in the driver’s seat, his breath clouding the inside of the windows.

  One of the presenters laughed at a comment from the sports reporter. He’d missed it. Carraig leaned forward, turned up the volume. He glanced at his watch, impatient. He rubbed his palm across the condensation on the window. The sooner he got going, the sooner he fixed the wiring in that bloody Merrydale place, the sooner he’d be driving towards his clann.

  He sighed, shook his head, and pressed his foot on the accelerator.

  Carraig knew electricity. He had time to sense it now, and somewhere in his blood and bones he understood the gentle movement of the tilt switch, the moment of completion as the current closed.

  He understood, he had time for that, but there was no time even to take a breath to scream. The fireball exploded with the speed of thought. Carraig’s last moment was light and heat and a crushing blast wave, and a crystal rainstorm of shattered glass.

  PART ONE

  Hannah

  The sound was so soft, I’d never have heard it if a breeze had stirred. The faintest whisper, like leaf against leaf, or steel against leather.

  I hesitated, glancing behind me, hitching my backpack higher on my shoulder. I was probably imagining it. I had things to do, books to read, prospectuses to study. This was my final school year and I was impatient to know where my life was going. I didn’t have time for getting spooked by shadows.

  All the same.

  Turning, I scanned the street. Broad autumn daylight. Cool and overcast, it was true, but weak shafts of sun filtered through onto cracked concrete and corrugated iron. This was the dingy end of town, the deserted end. No reason that alley between the warehouses should look so dark. No reason, except my imagination.

  Except I was fairly sure that was a footstep.

  Nothing moved. Shadow leaked out of the alleyway, pooled between a parked car and a lorry: so very dark, when there wasn’t much sun. I couldn’t even hear a gull. Late afternoon and even the shabby corner pubs were quiet. Weird. Like being sealed in a capsule of stillness and fear.

  I shrugged. Sniffed. Walked on. Stopped again.

  The silence wasn’t empty. There was something inside it, something that could think and hate, something that could move. Something that would move, when it chose to.

  I stood quite still. I could feel the cold fear in my spine, now, trying to make me run. I mustn’t run.

  Too late to call Rory. And anyway, did I want to? If this was anything more sinister than some suicidally ill-judged piss-take from cousin Lauren and her pals, I might only draw him into a trap. He was the one they mustn’t have. I was dispensable. In the long run.

  Not that I thought much of that idea. In the short run.

  I showed my teeth. There was still the chance this was only Lauren, and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Didn’t want to overreact or anything.

  I didn’t think it was Lauren.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  My
words echoed off blank walls.

  ‘I said come on. If you’re hard enough.’

  That was fine. That was fine, my voice had come out steady. It wouldn’t do that again, not now that a figure had stepped out of the alleyway. A woman, I guessed from the silhouette moving forward: tall, and kind of elegant. Yes, a woman: pale hair twisted into a braid, mouth curved in an apologetic smile. Sword held lightly, almost casually, and now she flipped its hilt so that the blade was held high, and drew it to her face in salute.

  Lovely, I thought. Honestly, very graceful. With luck she’d do the whole thing as beautifully as that. Fast and painless.

  Of course, I’d rather she didn’t do it at all. Letting my backpack slip from my shoulder, I swung it in a threatening arc.

  ‘Hannah Falconer McConnell.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘Yeah? And?’

  ‘Come along, now,’ said the pale-haired woman. ‘Don’t make a fuss.’

  ‘I will, though.’

  ‘Please don’t make this any harder.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Right.’ I lashed the backpack at her.

  Pathetic. The bag was heavy, the movement clumsy. Stepping neatly back, the woman swung her sword, severing the strap. Lunging, I snatched it as it fell and raised it like a shield. Even more pathetic, but I’d like to have heard a better suggestion.

  ‘You’re being very silly,’ the woman told me.

  I didn’t dignify that with a reply. Anyway, I only had time to thrust the bag forward to catch the swinging blade. It thunked through canvas and into textbooks and notepads and glossy university brochures.

  Homework has always had its uses.

  Sucking her teeth in exasperation, the woman tugged her sword loose as she grabbed the backpack with her free hand and wrenched it from my grip.

  ‘Now, shush. Let’s get it done. Quickly, I promise.’

  I stumbled back as my bag was flung to the ground. I don’t know what was stronger, the disbelief or the terror. This had happened so fast. I’d been walking home, pissed off at the thought of having to study at the local redbrick next year because you can’t leave here, not on your own, you’re not going out of our sight. And now I was never going to take a degree anywhere, because I was going to die.