Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

amazed. In public, Nuada was mightily pleased and recognized the fame his silver hand brought him. But in private—well, there were issues. It repelled his wife, who did not want it to touch her. And whether he wore it or not, Nuada could not help but feelincomplete and out of balance. Despite the miracle of the silver arm, he was diminished.
    But Miach, son of Dian Cecht, felt Nuada’s pain and dared to help him. He was an extraordinarily talented and empathetic healer, who avoided conflict with his father whenever he could. But in the case of Nuada, he could not withhold help when it was in his power—and his power only—to give it.
    Over nine days and nights of chanting and ritual, he managed to regenerate a new arm and hand of flesh and blood for Nuada. The king was whole again and could return to the throne. Miach had surpassed his father, however, and Dian Cecht was not the sort of man who suffered such things in passive silence. Indeed, rather than feel pride for his son’s accomplishment and broadcast it far and wide, he was consumed with jealous rage and confronted his son with a sword.
    Miach protested that he did not want to fight and bore only love and goodwill for his father, but Dian Cecht was beyond reason. His first stroke grazed Miach’s skin, but his son healed it immediately. Such a display only drove Dian Cecht to further violence. Despite Miach’s attempts to dodge, his father’s second attempt stabbed him in the gut—but Miach healed even that. Dian Cecht became more animal than man when he saw. His third stroke cleaved all the way down into Miach’s brain, and that overcame his son’s ability to heal. He died, and then Dian Cecht threw down his sword in horror at what he had done.
    His horror was not a fraction of Airmid’s, however. Airmid, sister of Miach, was quite a healer in her own right and a powerful Druid. Her rage was such that she did not attend her brother’s funeral for fear that she would kill her father. Instead, she waited until the funeral had ended and everyone had gone home, and then she visited her brother’s grave to pay her respects. She wept forthree days and nights on his grave and sang him songs in broken sobs. She wept for love and loss and memories she could no longer share but had to keep in trust for them both, and she wept for all the memories that would never be now that he was dead. Exhausted, she collapsed next to his grave and slept.
    When she woke, a wonder greeted her eyes. Out of Miach’s grave, watered by her tears and the blood of Miach’s body, grew 365 herbs of medicinal power. Possessed with a purpose, realizing the gift before her, Airmid spread out her cloak and began to test and catalog the herbs, examining their qualities and preserving in her mind their unique properties. But before Airmid was finished, Dian Cecht, possessed by grief and guilt, came to visit the grave of his son.
    He saw Airmid’s cloak spread on the ground and the world’s medicinal herbs laid out in order upon it. He saw the herbs themselves growing from the grave in the shape of Miach’s body, and his jealous rage rose again.
    “Even in death he mocks me and renders my life meager in comparison!” Dian Cecht roared. He tore at the herbs growing in the earth, then yanked Airmid’s cloak from the ground and snapped it in the wind, scattering the herbs into the sky. Because of this deed, it is said that no one alive knows the sum of the earth’s herblore.
    It was at this point that Airmid lost her composure. Wielding a stick as her weapon, she attacked Dian Cecht, battering him about the face and body with all the strength a Druid could bring to bear, until he crumpled to the ground. Throwing down the stick, she picked up a boulder and raised it over her head, intending to bring it down upon her father’s head. But a voice from Tír na nÓg stopped her.
    “Airmid, no!” it cried, and she froze. It was the voice of Miach, calling her from beyond the veil. “For the love you bear me, do not slay our father!”
    The rock tumbled from her fingers, and she left Dian Cecht bleeding on the ground to heal himself. She picked up her cloak and walked away from the grave without speaking a word. She did not speak to anyone for nine days, in fact, and the first person she spoke to was me.
    I was in the twilight of my normal lifetime and dwelling on my approaching death. I wasn’t decrepit or arthritic, for Gaia sustains us well, but my physical prime was four