The council fire burned low and hot in the longhouse, painting the gathered chieftains in flickering orange and shadow. Men in wool and leather leaned on spears and shields, torque bracelets glinting on sinewed arms. A few Norsemen sat among them, mail shirts clinking softly, faces half-hidden behind plaited beards.
Cormac sat to his father's right.
Domnall mac Fergal was broad and barrel-chested, grey streaking his beard. His eyes, though, were sharp as a hawk's as they swept the room.
"You have heard the tales," Domnall said. "Ships off the east coast, with iron-clad men and great yew bows. They claim land in the name of a far-off king."
"Another bunch of Norse," one man grunted. "We've dealt with raiders before."
"These are not Norse," said a Norseman at the far side of the fire, his Irish rough but clear. "I've seen such men on the other side of the sea. They build in stone that does not fall." He struck his fist against his palm. "Their lords do not go home when the winter storms rise. They stay."
Cormac's mind spooled through everything he knew about Anglo-Norman invasion: Strongbow, Diarmait Mac Murchada, the siege of Dublin. He didn't know exact dates, but the taste of inevitability in those history lessons had always bothered him.
Here, inevitability felt like a challenge.
"We are not here to cower at tales," Domnall said. "We are here to decide whether we stand alone, as we have always done, or whether we make new bonds."
All eyes turned, briefly, to Cormac.
In the past, he gathered, he had argued fiercely for keeping control within their own tribe. He felt their expectation like a weight on his shoulders.
Aisling sat among the women at the back, but her gaze was as keen as any warrior's. He could feel it on the side of his face.
Cormac rose slowly.
"I remember little of three nights past," he began, truthfully enough. "My head is as full of fog as the Liffey in winter. But some things are clear to me."
He looked around the circle, at men who would be his allies or enemies or both.
"We are strong here," he said, gesturing toward the walls, the city beyond. "Our warriors are brave. Our fords and fields are good. But if these men are as our Norse friend says—if they come to stay, with stone that does not fall and bows that strike from beyond the reach of our javelins—then courage alone will not hold them."
A few men shifted uneasily.
"What do you propose, Cormac?" his father asked, voice mild but curious.
"We do not wait," Cormac said. "We do not stand as a dozen small fires for a storm to snuff out one by one. We become one great blaze."
He moved to the centre of the circle, eyes scanning the faces, committing them to permanent memory—cheekbones, scars, colours of eyes. Each would matter later.
"The men of Meath, Leinster, Wicklow, the Norse of the east quarter—we all guard our own little patches of earth, squabbling over cattle and honour. Meanwhile, others build fleets that cross seas."
He thought of Ireland's fractured kingdoms in his old life, bullied and divided by larger empires.
"Unite," he said simply. "Not in word alone, but in practice. We share roads, build proper fortifications, train together. We design our defences as if we are one kingdom, not many."
"Who would be king of such a kingdom?" someone scoffed. "You?"
Laughter rippled.
Cormac felt every jeer, but he let it wash over him. Stubbornness, his mother had once told him (the other mother, the one who'd watched him draw Dublin from memory on a school copybook), would be the death of him.
"Who leads is less important than how we stand," he said evenly. "But if you ask who can design such a defence—" He spread his hands. "I can see it."
"See what?" Domnall asked, interest sharpening further.
Cormac pointed to the packed earth floor, picturing Dublin's environs as he'd seen them that afternoon.
"First, roads," he said. "Not just cattle tracks and muddy paths. Paths raised with stone and gravel, with ditches on either side. So we can move warriors quickly from north to south, east to west, even in winter."
"Who will lay such roads?" a Meath chieftain snorted. "My men have fields to plough."
"Fields that will be burned if invaders march unhindered," Cormac shot back. "If we build these roads together, each tribe contributes men and stone for the stretches through their land. In return, they gain not only defence, but trade. A cart that doesn't sink into mud carries twice as much grain."
Some heads tilted at that. Trade, they understood.
"And the walls?" Domnall said. "You've muttered in your sleep of walls like cliffs."
Cormac's mind called up images of Norman castles, of concentric defences, of bastions and tower keeps. He couldn't recreate late-medieval fortifications yet—not with technology at hand—but he could improve what existed.
"We strengthen the palisade," he said. "We dig a deeper ditch, fill the bottom with sharpened stakes. We build earth ramparts behind the timber, so if the wood burns, the wall still stands. We place watch hills at certain distances—" He jabbed his finger at invisible points. "—here, here, and here, with signal fires ready. One sight of an enemy, and the whole kingdom knows."
"Kingdom," someone echoed.
"Call it what you like," Cormac said. "Call it a ríoghacht, call it a confederation. But if we do not think as one, we will hang each other's men on separate hills."
Silence settled, thick and thoughtful.
At the back, Aisling's eyes shone.
Domnall leaned back on his carved chair. "Hot words from a man recently dead."
"A man recently reminded," Cormac replied.
"Of what?"
"That the world is bigger than our river bend," he said softly.
He didn't mention the other world of steel and glass and motorways mapped in his skull. Not yet.
Domnall looked around the council. "We cannot decide all tonight. But Cormac speaks with vision. He sees roads and walls where the rest of us see fields and timber." A slight, proud smile moved his beard. "He is my son. I would be a fool not to listen."
Grudging nods. A few outright glares. But also, intriguingly, a glimmer of hope.
After the council broke, men drifting away into the smoky dark, Aisling found him by the longhouse door.
"You said you are not yourself," she said quietly. "I think that is a lie."
"Oh?" he said wearily. "Who am I, then?"
"You are yourself," she said. "Only more. As if someone poured a river into a smaller stream." Her gaze probed his. "You see further than you did before. But you still care where the sickness begins. You still stand in the way of spears not meant for you."
Her voice softened. "You are still Cormac."
Emotion surprised him, a knot in his throat. "If I am… different, are you afraid?"
She considered the question honestly. "A little. I do not yet know all the ways this new Cormac will think." Then she lifted her chin. "But I have never feared your mind. Only what you choose to do with it."
He found himself stepping closer.
"And what do you think I should do with it?" he asked.
"Build your roads," she said. "Gather your tribes. When the foreigners come, let them find not squabbling cattle thieves, but a kingdom ready to meet them."
"And you?" he asked. "What role will you play in this grand design of mine?"
She smiled, and it felt like a sunrise breaking over the Liffey.
"I will count the cattle," she said. "Watch the shadows. Keep the children alive and the warriors fed. And when you forget that numbers in ledgers are also hearts in chests, I will remind you."
He exhaled a soft laugh. "Aisling ingen Niall. Qualities: brilliant, compassionate, terrifying when crossed."
"Add stubborn," she said.
"That too."
He reached for her hand. She let him take it without flinching.
"You remember we are to be wed at Samhain?" she asked, eyes intent.
His heart thudded once, strangely loud. "I do now."
"Good," she said. "You'll need a queen for your kingdom of memory, Cormac mac Domnall."