Donal’s biggest problem at the moment wasn’t his insomnia. It was that his brother wouldn’t wake up. He nudged Finn three separate times, taking care not to draw Siobhan’s attention. Patience waning, Donal pinched Finn’s nose with his left hand and covered his brother’s mouth with his right. Donal tightened his arms as Finn stirred so that the older brother’s flailing would go undetected by the driver of the cart.

  Finn jerked awake and glared at Donal from the corner of his eye. Donal clenched his teeth and rounded his mouth to mimic a shush. Finn raised his right arm and drove his elbow into Donal’s diaphragm, driving the air from the younger brother’s lungs.

  Donal’s body flooded his brain with dozens of messages, all telling him the same thing: he couldn’t breathe. He held his body still until the waves of information rolled away and waves of air rolled in. Balance regained, he looked at Finn and found his brother’s teeth clenched and lips rounded into a shushing expression.

  Donal hissed at his brother, “Arse!”

  “Why the devil did you wake me?” Finn asked. His face cooled as the surprise of it all subsided. “Is that Shadow thing keeping you awake again?”

  Donal wrinkled his face. “What? Naw!” He wobbled his head. “Well, it is keeping me up, but that’s not why I woke you.”

  Finn ignored Donal’s second sentence. He shifted into the role forced upon him nearly four years ago: his younger brother’s guardian. “What’s it doing to you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that right now,” Donal whispered.

  Finn drooped his eyelids and glanced to the side. “Donal—”

  “—It’s not like that!” Donal said, struggling to keep quiet.

  “What is it like, then?” Finn asked. “What is it blaming you for?”

  Donal sighed. His brother wouldn’t let this go. “I keep seeing the boy’s face,” Donal whispered. “When he thought the fuath I killed was a woman. Shadow keeps telling me that if I had done things differently, the farmer wouldn’t have run to his cousin and the town wouldn’t have turned against us.”

  “Had you done things differently, that thing likely kills the weins,” Finn said, placing a fatherly hand on Donal’s near shoulder.

  “I know that!” Donal said, swiping his brother’s hand away. “I’m handling it, Finn. I assumed the fact that I can even talk about it shows that I’m handling it. Shadow won’t get me. Not on this one. Can we move on?”

  Finn showed Donal both of his palms and nodded.

  Donal glanced up to the front seat and confirmed their conversation was still private before speaking, “I’m worried about—” He pointed to Siobhan.

  Finn’s confused look faded as he looked upon his partner. She hunched over the reins, her elbows dug into her thighs. Her mouth sank into her cheeks, her darkened eyes locked on the road ahead. The unfamiliar eye might mistake her countenance as road-weary but Donal and Finn knew better.

  “Right,” Finn said before he sat up and climbed into the front seat. “Howya, Siobhan?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  She knitted her brow. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” she asked. “We’re going to need you to drive later.”

  “I’ll get my share, don’t you worry,” he said. “Looks like you’re doing enough of that as it is.”

  Siobhan leaned in. “I don’t want to wake your brother,” she said.

  “Not a problem,” Donal said.

  “Donal!” Siobhan said. “You of all people need your…” She turned back and cupped his chin. “Oh, you poor thing. Shadow keeping you up again?”

  Donal exchanged a nervous look with Finn, “I—I—hai, you’re right,” he said. “It’s a pretty bad one I’m going through right now.”

  Siobhan clicked her tongue, ran her hand through Donal’s hair and patted the back of his head.

  “You know,” Donal said, “it looks like you’re fighting a war of your own. Maybe if you talk about what’s eating at you it will help me as well.” He caught Finn’s grin in the corner of his eye and fought every inclination to smile.

  “You think so?” Siobhan asked.

  Donal dropped his chin and eyed Siobhan from under his brows. He locked his mouth shut to prevent any smirking. The flexing of those muscles created a bit of a pouting expression. Don’t you lay this on too thick, he thought.

  “Fine,” she said after a slow exhale. “Let’s talk.”

  “What’s wrong?” Finn asked.

  Siobhan shrugged. “What’s right? Aside from defeating those fuath and stopping their spread, it went about as badly as it could.”

  Finn canted his head. “And aside from being dead and buried, my grandfather is the picture of perfect health.”

  A quick laugh slipped out of her. “You know my meaning,” she said. “It wasn’t just the fuath we were supposed to take care of. We needed to put a good foot forward. And we needed to meet to meet Niall’s man in Donegal.”

  Finn nodded. “We did, but I’m failing to see what we could have done better, given the circumstances.”

  Siobhan threw her hands up. “Find the tomb faster? Maybe those things don’t spread as far if we stopped them earlier.”

  “I agree,” Finn said. “That’s why we started at the tomb closest to the ocean, seeing how fuath love the water so much. There are at least six tombs that we know of around Killybóthan, and we found the portal in the one farthest from the ocean. The Fomori who chose that location wagered we wouldn’t look there first, and they were right. It happens.”

  “Forgive me for thinking Niall will be less cavalier about the matter,” Siobhan. “He’s going to sit the three of us down and whinge about what we did wrong.”

  “Honestly, Shiv,” Finn said, flopping his hands as he formed his next thought, “the way he’s been acting lately, Niall’d give out to us if we did everything right. I don’t know what’s been eating at our aul’ ones lately but I’m done with worrying about whether they’ll take it out on us.”

  He took Siobhan’s right hand in both of his. “We’re alive. That family is alive. Those beasties are dead and we stopped more of them from coming. Even if nobody else is paying attention, we three know that we did well today. That’s what matters right now.”

  He looked to the ground and grimaced. “Even Shadow had a hard time picking what we did apart.”

  Siobhan’s mouth flattened as she looked to Donal. “You said—”

  “—Hai, I did Siobhan,” Donal said, “because no one knows better than I the look of someone tormenting themselves for no reason. Before you get mad, remember how good you felt not ten seconds ago.” He wagged a finger at Finn. “Before my brother mucked things up by saying one sentence too many. Again.”

  “And now I feel foolish,” Siobhan said. “Is that also what you two intended?”

  The boys dropped their heads and glared at each other.

  “But thank you for giving my head some peace,” she said. “And thank you, Donal for taking the reins. Let’s go, Finn.”

  “That’s grand,” Finn said as he hopped into the back.

  “Oi!” Donal said. “He had a hand in the ruse as well. Why isn’t he getting punished?”

  Siobhan paused her slide into the cargo area. “Because he didn’t give me those sad, pathetic eyes.”

  Siobhan joined Finn in the back and the two nestled against each other for a nap. “You’ll do fine,” she said. “This is the only road to take for miles.” She lifted her head. “In all seriousness, wake us if you need to. We don’t need you running the cart off the road because you’re tired.”

  Donal turned back to Siobhan and nodded. She closed her eyes and smiled. Finn capped his smarmy grin with a wink before closing his eyes.

  Donal groaned. “Just don’t you two give me a reason to do it on purpose,” he said.