The newcomer nodded to his fellow grogoch and then to me. “Oscar. Prince Tadhg.”
“What can I do for you, Seaney?” I asked.
His slightly protruding jaw rolled back and forth as he mulled over his response. “I’m supposed to pay taxes, ya see. But my entire crop has been struck down with a blight.”
Grogochs were brilliant farmers. For an entire crop to die wasn’t unheard of, but for a grogoch’s crop to die, that was something else entirely. “What sort of blight?”
“It’s hard to explain. Be best if ye come and see fer yerself.”
Oscar offered to tag along, which was a relief since I knew next to nothing about apples except they tasted good in a pie. On the way out, we ran into Ruairi by the fountain.
“Where are ye off to?” he asked, lifting a quizzical brow at our small party.
How did he always look so refreshed after a night’s drinking? So feckin’ unfair.
Seaney answered so I didn’t have to. “The southern fields.”
For some reason, that made Ruairi frown. He braced his hands on his hips and turned back to me. “Before ye go, might I have a word?”
As if I’d turn down my best mate. I told the lads to wait beyond the wards. With my magic bound, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it there and back on my own power alone.
Ruairi glanced around the empty courtyard before coming so close, the tips of his boots hit mine and I could smell last night’s drink on his breath. Maybe he wasn’t so unaffected after all.
He’d been drinking like a feckin’ fish. When I’d asked if anything was wrong, he’d snorted and told me to pass the bottle.
“I need yer help,” Ruairi whispered.
So there was something wrong. I feckin’ knew it. “Does it require you to be this close to me for long?”
A chuckle rumbled in his throat. “Unfortunately, it does. I’m working on a secret project and can’t be having anyone in the castle hearing about it.” He shot a pointed look toward Rían’s darkened window.
So he wanted to keep this “secret project” from my brother, then. As intrigued as I was, the last secret project I’d helped with left me buck naked in a briar patch. Not exactly where you want to spend a hungover Sunday morning.
“This won’t be like the last time. Ye can even keep yer breeches on,” Ruairi said, as if reading my mind.
After all he’d done for me over the centuries, it was the least I could do. Oscar and Seaney watched us from beyond the wards. “Come with me to the fields, and then I’ll help however I can.” That’s what Fridays were for. Helping.
If anyone asked me to lift a finger tomorrow, I was going to tell them to feck off.
Outside the wards, the four of us joined hands. Oscar’s cracked, dry fingers wrapped around mine. I lent some magic to the cause but mostly let Seaney steer us where we were meant to go.
The world went dark, and my stomach plummeted. When I opened my eyes and saw a bunch of blackened trees with sagging, gnarled branches, it bottomed clean out.
Seaney’s entire orchard looked as if someone had lit the field on fire, leaving only charred remains. The blackness didn’t stop at the roots either. It seemed to seep into the ground, turning the grass the color of ink. Bodies of birds and tiny rodents lay prone, their little legs pointing toward the sky next to hundreds of blackened apples.
Ruairi let out a low whistle through his teeth while Oscar bent to run his fingers through the bone-dry soil. When I poked the bark on the nearest tree, my finger sank into the tree’s spongy flesh. A foul-smelling red sap oozed down my hand.
The trees weren’t just dead, they were rotten all the way through.
From where he knelt, Oscar’s gaze lifted to mine. One look at his face told me everything I needed to know: This was bad. Really bad.
“What could possibly cause this?” I asked.
Oscar pushed to his feet and scrubbed a hand along his wiry red beard. “Looks like it might be poison of some sort. But to know for sure, we’d need to find the source of the blight.”
The blackened earth stretched from the orchard into the forest beyond. I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly where it had originated. And who was responsible.
My theory was confirmed when we traced the blight back to the Black River and found the land on Tearman’s bank as devastated as the Black Forest’s shore.