Chapter Fifteen: Fionn
Two hours before Tai’s call, I was back in the water and heading upriver.
I’d gone out there expecting an hour’s search for Faerd, if not more. But I was met before I’d been longer than twenty minutes afloat.
‘Fionn of Cuath-Tor,’ came a voice out of the shadows. ‘Faerd summons you.’
I dislike being summoned, for it assumes a degree of authority over me that I don’t choose to acknowledge. But since I’d wanted to find Faerd anyway, and I assuredly needed his help, I kept my dislike of this terminology to myself. ‘Then I’ll follow,’ I told the wispy asrai messenger, and I did, though not without difficulty; she was fast, and agitated. Even, perhaps, annoyed.
‘Something troubles you?’ I said, after a few minutes’ silent forging upriver. The intense blackness of the
