Wither on the Vine: Sons and Daughters of Lir, #2

Wither on the Vine

Sons & Daughters of Lir, Book 2

Andrea Jenelle

Willow Creek Publishing

Copyright © 2024 Willow Creek Publishing, LLC

Copyright © 2024 by Andrea Jenelle

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. This includes the use of any portion or excerpt for artificial intelligence training or platforms. For permission requests, contact Willow Creek Publishing, LLC.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

For the warrior hearts and the poet souls.

Official Playlist

Eachann & Galanta's Music

Pronunciation Guide

Names:

Arianrhod (AIR EE ANT RODE) : Callum’s great aunt

Bhaltair (VAWL TAIR) : Callum, Eachann & Sabhinion’s father

Cailleach Bheure (CAL EE YUH VER) : Celtic Goddess

Cairneach (CARE-NECK) : Callum’s corrupt uncle

Callum (CAL EM) : Younger brother of Eachann

Carrig: (CARE-IK) : Callum’s best friend

Cliodhna (KLEE-NAW) : Celtic goddess of the sea

Amhran de Cogadh (OAR AWN JUH COE GAH): Song of war – Eachann’s each uisge name

Creiddylad (CRAY DUH LAH) : Callum’s corrupt aunt

Dougal (DOO GUL): One of Galanta’s stepbrothers

Eachann (A HEN): Callum’s brother

Each Uisge (EK WISK EE) : mythological name of Callum’s people

Einoringen (AIN ORE INJ EN): Brehon and scholar

Fergus (FAIR GES) : Galanta’s stepbrother

Galanta (GUH LANT UH) : the mate of Eachann

Gealain Greine (GAY LEN GREN) Gaelic for glittering sunshine, the translation of Meghan’s nickname

Iolanthe (EYE O LANT EE): Selkie Queen

Lianth (LENTH): Oldest daughter of Mairead

Lir (LEER) : Celtic god of the sea

Langihwen (LON YI WEN): Aunt Arianrhod’s ward and Callum’s distant cousin

Mairead (MAR ED) : Villager, friend of Galanta’s deceased mother

Mo chridhe fiadhaich (MAW CHREE FEE OT HIGH CH): My wild heart – Eachann’s nickname for Galanta

Morrigan (MOOR I GEN) : Celtic goddess of war and bringer of death

Morthecainn (MOOR TUH KEN) : Callum’s cousin

Mo stoirm (MAW STOORM): My storm – Galanta’s nickname for Eachann

Luathchosach (LOO AH HOSS EF) : Callum’s each uisge name

Rhona (ROWN A) : Village tavern maid and love interest of Galanta’s stepbrothers

Riordan (ROAR DAN): Each Uisge Spymaster

Sabhinion (SEV EE NEE UN) : Callum’s sister

Other words:

Bean Sidhe (BAN-SHEE): Banshee. Ancient Celtic harbingers of death.

Ceilidh (KAY LEE): a Celtic party or celebration

Geas (GACE): a form of curse, a personal obligation placed on someone by the gods or magical creatures

Kinkcough (KINK KOFF): whooping cough

Leannan (LEE UH NAWN): Scots Gaelic for sweetheart

Machair (MACK-UH): grasslands in the Outer Hebrides

Maslin (MAZ-LIN): Flour mixture used in the dark and middle ages that was a mixture of wheat, barley, rye and other grains.

Thrapple (Pronounced like apple with a thr): A charm to protect against whooping cough, made from the larynx of a goose. Curved into a small circle and filled with stones.

Tuatha de Danaan (TOO-AH DAY DAN-UN): another name for the fae or elven folk of the Celtic islands

Prologue

My stepfather told me my green darkness killed my mother. 

He said the old magic tainted my veins and must be bled out with penitence and a crown of nettles. 

I bowed my head and knelt on the cold flagstone of the village chapel. 

I swallowed the stale crust of bread the priest claimed was the body of his god. 

I’ve spent my life beaten and broken and beseeching. But my heart never faltered. It was waiting for the thunder of his hooves and the wave of his fury. It was waiting for his words and his redemption.

The demons never leave me. They’re borne of the blood I’ve spilt and they writhe beneath the surface of my skin.

When he wrapped his arms around me, I didn’t feel the welts on my back or the scars in my heart. I was wholly his and he was wholly mine.

A golden prince of the sea and a witch with the forest in her veins. We were destined to be mortal enemies but fell in love instead.

I don’t know how I’m still alive. Not after carrying around his absence for a thousand years. Not after recovering his broken body and giving him the princely burial he deserved. Not after losing our child and myself to blood and sorrow. 

My green darkness killed him too.

When I first saw him, I thought the prince was like the dark sun that made people either tremble at its power or bask in wonder.

All the shiny parts of him flickered in his eyes.

Instinctively, I knew he was my enemy. It was the way he held himself. Apart and watching. The double sword hilts that rose from behind his shoulders confirmed my theory.

None of that mattered.

From the moment I met his eyes and saw the icy blue fury of the sea, I wanted nothing more than  to hear the rumble of his laughter in my ear.

I wanted to know if it sounded like the fractured echo of the tide or the cold gleam of distant stars.

I sensed no danger in my heart, and my wild magic spiraled and bloomed, calling to his.

And so I rose to my feet and opened the door to my kind’s greatest enemy.

This is the story of how we found and lost each other. And found each other again.

Chapter One

Galanta

Outer Hebrides Islands, 962 A.D.

Once upon a time, I counted my life in summers.

Now I count my life in winters. The winters that have passed since I took the oath of my family. The winters that have passed since I lost my mother. The winters that have passed since my magic was silenced and bound. The winters that have passed since I first felt the lash of my stepfather’s strap on my back.

I am a cunning woman. Like my mother, and her mother before her, I serve the goddess Morrigan. Her service is not for those who lack courage. She brings me dreams of darkness and death, of drowning in salt and sea, of fire and blood. For thousands of years, the women of my family have taken her protection and practiced their craft. We are born with her stamp on our skin – a birthmark just above our breast. My mother compared mine to the wings of a raven.

I see the runes in the leaves of the trees and know when the blackthorn winter will bring howling winds and bitter cold. I see the ripples in the scrying pool within the sacred grove of rowan and birch and know when the wolves of famine and want and sickness will descend on our village.

I am the last of my kind.

When I seek my own fate, the scrying pool shows only fire and darkness. My mother’s last words were ones of warning. She told me I was born of joy and tragedy, that it shaped the walls of my soul and the chambers of my heart. She told me my obstinacy and rebellion would make my journey hard-fought and hard-won.

The ancient pendant became my burden to bear when I was barely a woman. The quartz is dusky gray with age, something powerful and primordial. When my mother slipped it over my head, she admonished me to keep its light hidden. She said the flickering I glimpsed within its depths should be banished from my mind as something perilous.

The quartz warms to my touch when I cup it in the palm of my hand. The flickering lights become more visible every day, as if an entire storm is trapped within it. There are other omens of things to come. The dreams that are never gentle. The ravens that roost in the tree at the village crossroads and flap in my wake as I pass.

My mother taught me all the curings she knew. Those of herbs and nine knots and midwifery. I loved her as much as I feared her. She was the only parent I knew until she wed my stepfather. He and his sons moved into our cottage and brought the black smoke, hot iron smell of their forge.

I know the magicks to heal. Or harm if need be. I’ve never used those darker spells – not because I don’t have enemies. I haven’t used them because they are dangerous. According to my mother, wielding those spells will throw open wide the door for the eldritch god. He wrestles against his imprisonment, and the crystal I wear around my neck is the only protection against loosing his wrath upon our island.

When she gave her life for mine, she left me alone with my newly acquired family. They are blacksmiths and hunters and have their own kind of mastery over nature that calls for conquest rather than communion. They bend the elements to their will instead of honoring the circle that binds us all together.

They tolerate my presence in their home because otherwise they would starve and wear nothing but rags. My stepfather has claimed his capacity for love lies in the village churchyard and my stepbrothers are churlish louts who are too fond of ale.

Though I’ve never spoken of what happened in the grove on that day, my stepfather blames me for her death. I have the scars on my back to prove it. When he grows bored of tormenting me, he delivers me to the priest for punishment of the wickedness he claims I harbor. The priest, Father Mulcahy, is only too eager to banish me to a cell with no sustenance for days on end and flay my skin open. His instrument of torture has a spiked end and makes the blood in my veins rise and bloom from below the surface.

I know I will never escape this place. The sea beckons me to surrender and leave it all behind, but I refuse to give those who want me gone the satisfaction. Day in and day out I resign myself to my fate as I sit at my loom and weave stories in my head of a life more charmed than mine.

I am only invited over thresholds out of necessity. Father Mulcahy and his church have sowed seeds of distrust and suspicion. My fellow villagers only turn to me for help when they have exhausted the limits of prayer to no avail. That is when they consent to my use of cures and simples.

My mother instructed me in the use of the family grimoire, and she paid the price for my arrogance and ignorance. When my quest for more power and knowledge wakened the eldritch Forest Lord, she slit open her wrists so I wouldn’t be taken. I watched the blood leak from her veins, like dark ink, seeping across the bed of brittle leaves and strewn needles.

I have denied my heritage and squelched my magic since that ill-fated day. Even though the grove whispers at moonrise, begging me to untether the depths of my power, I ignore it. Those whispers are perilous because they ignite something within the depths of the crystal that pulses against my skin. If I succumb to the temptation of those whispers, death and destruction will follow. No one else need pay the price for my covetous nature.

Every night the crystal burns a hole through my woolen shift. It’s speckled like I’ve stood in the wake of sparks from my stepfather’s forge. I feel the claws of the eldritch king around my throat, like the roots of his trees, dragging me to my grave.

Chapter Two

Eachann

It is time you wed. We need to secure the succession. Your mother and I have waited long enough for you and your brother to give us bairns.

I carefully lean away from the table. I’m not averse to marriage. I just haven’t met the right woman. I want a true mate, not someone who bears my sigil because of what being aligned to our family will bring them. Surely you understand why I want the kind of love story shared by my parents.

You must abandon your affinity for the bard tales, Eachann. I have spoken to the selkie queen. Her eldest daughter is of age and we both desire a more formal alliance between our kingdoms. Your mother and I began our love story as enemies, and who’s to say you will not find what you seek with this princess?

We’ve had a fragile truce with the selkies since we took back the southern islands three hundred years ago. Are you trying to arrange my marriage, Father?

Well over a thousand years ago, I laid down my harp and exchanged it for a sword and scepter. But the music is still buried somewhere deep within my soul. I know it will brazen its way to the surface if I ever meet the one destined for me. My father isn’t wrong - the selkie princess could very well be my soulmate. We were acquainted with each other in our long-ago childhood, but those visits ended when our kingdoms sought out the same hunting grounds. I remember her aversion to attention, and the peek of her white gold hair from behind her mother’s skirts.

If she is not the one who will awaken my music, it will stay hidden. As each uisge, vows made during the sigil ceremony are exclusive and binding. Those who violate the bond have a history of meeting terrible ends. We are encouraged to explore our sexuality in all its forms, but once we are wed, any liaisons outside of that union are strictly discouraged if not outright forbidden. Even if we meet the one that is destined for us.

By all accounts, she’s a lovely woman poised to rule her kingdom when her mother sails to the west.

The soothing words soften the sudden blow, and I am grateful to my mother for her interjection. I know I am just another unintentional, but necessary, casualty of my father’s blunt political manipulation.

I ruefully shake my head. Even if the princess and I are complete opposites or cannot bear to be in the same room with one another, my father will push this union. If I mate with the selkie princess in her human form, he’ll get what he wants. An heir and access to their vast realm of influence. Our hunting grounds will expand, and more territory will be within each uisge control. Invite them here so we may become better acquainted.

He throws me a sharp nod and a benevolent grin before he turns to my mother.

Callum chuckles quietly beside me. Ye seem disconcerted, brother.

His eyes are creased with mirth, and I wish I could see him squirm on a hook like this. Should I have suspected this was in the making?

He’s wanted an alliance with the selkies for eons. But ye cannae have predicted this. I dinnae envy ye being commanded to wed a lass neither of us remembers.

She liked building things in the sand and cried when the tide washed them away. It was the only time she left the shelter of her mother’s skirts.

I remember. The starfish ye found and presented to her finally stopped her tears. He stands and clasps my shoulder. We’ll find out soon enough what she’s truly like.

Should I procure a gift?

He cocks his head and guffaws. A gift? Like the starfish? Don’t be so ridiculously sentimental, brother. Don’t all women love gems? Just give her one of those. We have plenty of them in the treasury to choose from. Why expend additional effort for a bride ye needn’t woo?

Callum never indulges in courtship. He keeps his liaisons free of expectations and teases me for what he calls my serial monogamy. She’ll expect me to woo her. And she should. Even if it’s an arranged marriage. I should give her a gift that results from my own endeavors, not something I choose from the kingdom’s coffers.

So ye’ll waste the effort and woo her? Even though she’s a sure thing and like ye willnae have a choice in this?

A woman is never a sure thing, brother. You know this, despite all your escapades. And the wooing isn’t a guarantee. That’s not what wooing’s about. It’s to convey respect and appreciation. Doubtless of the reason, Father will give me no choice. He and her mother will expect me to woo her.

Mother won’t let him pressure ye if there’s no possibility of love. Or if she sees the union will make ye miserable.

I sigh. You know that’s not true. She only holds so much sway over him. I’m to be the pawn of the throne in this.

He shakes his head. Ye’re wrong. Though he wears the crown, ye know who holds the power behind it. He’d do nearly anything to make her smile. And he lives in fear of her glares and tears.

The grandest love story ever told. We chorus in unison.

Our mother was a hostage and the daughter of my father’s greatest enemy. After she bested him in a swordfight and slapped him on the ass with the flat of her weapon, he fell in love. Or so he likes to recount with a fond smile and eyes full of stars.

I’m just glad ye’re the one he picked and nae me.

My twin brother avoids emotional attachments to his lovers like the plague, so I’m not surprised at his relief or lack of sympathy. He’s stoic when he’s not fucking and is a trifle arrogant about his responsibility to protect our kingdom.

There are so many ways I can give him his comeuppance, but his unholy fear of spiders is the one I inwardly cackle over.

Your day will come sooner than you expect it to. I wouldn’t be so cavalier about my impending nuptials.

Better ye than us, Cailin Ban.

I throw a chunk of bread in Carrig’s direction. When he and Callum want to annoy me, they call me that. Golden girl. It’s their way of poking fun at the way women swoon over my hair.

Will ye make a braid for her to climb up to yer window?

I glare at Callum. It’s not that long.

"Mayhap he’ll let her plait it herself. He won’t even need to woo her; he can just blind her with all that glorious sunlight." Carrig simpers the last two words.

Your day will come too. I remind him with a glower.

He crosses his arms. But my union won’t be arranged, and I’ll have my pick.

He won’t have his pick if our sister has any control over his choice. Sabhinion is a prickly subject with Carrig. Callum and I know she’s always been infatuated with him, but he seems oblivious to it. He’s weirdly protective of her, even though she’s a wee bean sidhe, and he speaks of her as if she’s his sister as well.

She grumbles about it constantly. She’ll definitely confront him if he chooses anyone but her.

Aren’t you fortunate?

He frowns. Likely because he hears my sarcasm. I’m not bound by the same duties, but I have my own legacy to live up to.

Callum and I exchange a knowing glance. Our friend is the illegitimate son of the Kraken King. A king who has no sons other than him and no one to leave his throne to. He’s yet to acknowledge Carrig.

There was a flurry at court when his parentage was revealed. The seers didn’t even think a kraken and each uisge union was possible. His mother was the last female born to an each uisge before Sabh. She wed one of our grandfather’s younger brothers, but for hundreds of years their union was infertile. When she became round with child, the kingdom was overjoyed.

All seemed well until Carrig transformed into his beast form for the first time. He not only had our fearsome hooves and eyes full of cold fire, but his body was also covered in tentacles, like vines. His mother confessed her adultery and his sire, the man he’d been raised to believe