“I saw his face!” she screamed in fury. “I saw it through a window, a glimpse, passing in the dawn light, just before the attack, before I …”
She trailed off, wondering suddenly, unexpectedly, if she could have been mistaken. Had she seen the Druid as the Morgawr had insisted, when he told her to think back, so certain she would? How could he have known what she would see? The implication of what it would mean if she had deceived herself was staggering. She brushed it away violently, but it coiled up in a corner of her memory, a snake still easily within reach.
“We are Ohmsfords, Grianne,” the boy continued softly. “But so is Walker. We share the same heritage. He comes from the same bloodline as we do. He is one of us. He has no reason to do us harm.”
“None that you could fathom, it appears!” She laughed derisively. “What would you know of dark intentions, little boy?
What has life shown you that would give you the right to suppose your insight into such things is better than mine?”
“Nothing.” He seemed momentarily at a loss for words, but his face spoke of his need to find them. “I haven’t lived your life, I know. But I’m not naive about what it must have been like.”
Her patience slipped a notch. “I think you believe what you are telling me,” she told him coldly. “I think you have been carefully schooled to believe it. But you are a dupe and a tool of clever men. Druids and shape-shifters make their way in the world by deceiving others. They must have looked long and hard to find you, a boy who looks so much like Bek would look at your age. They must have congratulated themselves on their good fortune.”
“How did I come to have his name, then?” the boy snapped in reply. “If I’m not your brother, how do I have his name? It is the name I was given, the name I have always had!”
“Or at least, that is what you believe. A Druid can make you embrace lies with little more than a thought, even lies about yourself.” She shook her head reprovingly. “You are sadly deceived, to believe as you do, to think yourself a dead boy. I should destroy you on the spot, but perhaps that is what the Druid is hoping I will do, what he wants me to do. Perhaps he thinks it will somehow damage me if I kill a boy who looks so like my brother. Tell me where the Druid waits, and I will spare you.”
The boy stared at her in horror. “You are the one who is deceived, Grianne. So much so that you will tell yourself anything to keep the truth at bay.”
“Where is the Druid?” she snapped, her face contorting angrily. “Tell me now!”
He took a deep breath, straightening. “I’ve come a long way for this meeting. Too far to be intimidated into giving up what I know is true and right. I am your brother. I am Bek. Grianne-“
“Don’t call me that!” she screamed. Her gray robes billowed from her body and she threw up her arms in fury, almost as if to smother his words, to bury them along with her past. She felt her temper slipping, her grip on herself sliding away like metal on oiled metal, and the raw power of her voice took on an edge that could easily cut to ribbons anything or anyone against which it was directed. “Don’t speak my name again!”
He stood his ground. “What name should I speak? Ilse Witch? Should I call you what your enemies call you? Should I treat you as they do, as a creature of dark magic and evil intent, as someone I can never be close to or care about or want to see become my sister again?”
He seemed to gain strength with every new word, and suddenly she saw him as more dangerous than she had believed. “Be careful, boy.”
“You are the one who needs to be careful!” he snapped. “Of who and what you believe! Of everything you have embraced since the moment you were taken from our home. Of the lies in which you have cloaked yourself!”