by Nora Roberts
“Well, some spine anyway, so we’ll see.” Dismissing Breen again, he looked up. “Mahon shouldn’t be far behind me, and he’ll see you safely home. This one was likely an opportunist, as Odran wouldn’t send such a poor swordsman. I’ll take care of what’s left of him.”
“You’ve been gone more than a fortnight. Will you be staying for a time?”
“As long as I can. I’ve missed the homeplace. And here’s Mahon now.”
“Ah, Aisling and the children will be happy to have him home.”
With wings the color of aged mahogany and hair of the same hue in dozens of braids, the faerie glided through the sky.
“Will you need help getting this one back in the cart?” Keegan asked Marg.
“Oh, for—” Insult completely overrode lingering fear and continuing wonder. “Bollocks!” Breen snapped, and started for the cart. Her ankle twinged, but she refused to limp.
“Bollocks?” Keegan repeated with a hint of humor.
“That would be the dog’s name, and leave off poking at the girl, Keegan. What happened here is my fault. It’s mine.”
She walked after Breen before Mahon dropped lightly to his feet.
“You flew off like a gale and nearly sent me into a spin,” Mahon complained. “And more, it looks as if I’ve missed the fun. A dark faerie, was he?”
“One of Odran’s, as he had Marg’s granddaughter a foot or two off the ground when I got to them. And her, kicking and screaming like a tot having a tantrum.”
“The message Aisling sent said she’d come through.”
“And nearly had herself taken off again. See them home safe, will you, Mahon, before you take yourself home.”
“I will, of course.”
Keegan stepped over, picked up the head by the hair, tossed it beside the body. “Cróga! Lasair,” he said to the dragon.
With a rumbling roar, Cróga spewed fire. And the power of it turned the remains to blackened ash. At the sound, Breen looked back, and he realized by the way the color drained from her cheeks, he should have waited until they were out of sight.
Well, no help for it now.
“You might’ve been more delicate,” Mahon commented, then strolled over to the cart. “My lady.” Despite the formal term, he leaned in to kiss Marg’s cheek. “I’m sorry you had trouble, and here, at a holy place. And I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“You’re a one, Mahon. Breen’s my granddaughter, as you well know. And, Breen, here’s Mahon Hannigan.”
“I’ve met your family.” Because she could smell the smoke, Breen spoke carefully so her voice didn’t shake. “Your children are adorable.”
“And a handful with it. Are you well enough to travel, my lady?”
“I’m fine, thank you. I’m fine.”
“I’ll be seeing you safely home again, so not to worry.”
His wings spread, and up he went. Breen forgot to be astonished.
After Marg clicked to the horse, after they’d gone beyond the stench of burning and smoke, Breen turned to her. “I need answers.”
“You do, aye, you do. This, what happened, it’s my fault.”
“Before we get to that, I want to get this out so I can stop thinking about it. That man was riding a dragon.”
“Such creatures are lore and legend in your world, but a part of this one. I asked none come near for a while, as I thought you . . . You had so much coming at you, and I thought . . . I was wrong. I’ve been wrong, and you might have paid dearly for it.”
“He’s Aisling and Harken’s brother? The dragon rider.”
“He is. And the taoiseach of Talamh.”
“Him? Well, why the hell not? Now, why would some dark faerie try to drag me off against my will, and who the hell is Odran?”
“I believed you were still hidden from Odran, that there was time still to prepare you, to explain, and to teach. I can’t say whether the one Keegan killed was sent, or if he was a scout or spy who got lucky, you could say, before he got unlucky.”
“That doesn’t answer either question.”
“He would have wanted to take you. There would surely be a grand reward for it. He would have been one of Odran’s. Your grandfather.”
“My—Why would my grandfather, one you failed to mention, want me scared witless and hauled off by . . . He’s the one who took me when I was a child.”
Her face tight, Marg urged the horse to quicken her gait. “The fault’s mine there as well. We’re a peaceful world. You have to work to have peace, and there are times you have to fight for it. There are those who live for, who thrive on destroying, on taking, on the ruling of others against their will. Odran is such a one.”
Any world, Breen thought, magicks or not, was the same.
“Why does he want me?”
“You’re his blood as you are mine. And you’re so much more than you know, mo stór.”
Before she could speak again, Breen saw the dragon glide overhead before it, and its rider, veered off toward the west.
“Where’s he going?”
“He would take the ash of the dark to the Bitter Caves, bury them deep, and salt the ground.” Marg drove the cart a moment in silence. “We’ll soon be home. Can you wait for the rest?”
She wanted to protest, but noted Marg looked as pale as she felt. “I’ve waited this long.”
She looked up, watching Mahon soar. “If Keegan is taoiseach, who is Mahon?”
“His oldest friend, and a brother to him even before he and Aisling took vows. A good man, is Mahon, and one you can trust, who stands as Keegan’s right hand.”
“He’s . . . of the Sidhe, and Aisling—you said—was of the Wise. So the different . . . tribes, I guess it would be, can intermarry.”
“Of course. A heart loves who it loves. Harken pines for Morena, and always has. But he’s a bit slow on such matters, and she’s more than a bit stubborn, so they circle each other yet.”
Marg turned onto the path toward the cottage. “When I have Igraine settled, I want to look you over again, or I could call on Aisling, as healing is her greatest strength.”
“I’m not hurt. Probably some bruises, and my left ankle’s sore, that’s all.”
“We’ll have a look, and we’ll have some wine, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“All of it,” Breen insisted. “Not what you think I need to know.”
“All of it.”
When she pulled up, Mahon dropped down to help Marg out of the cart. “I’ll see to the horse and cart.”
“Ah, Mahon, I know you’re wanting home.”
“And I’ll have it soon enough.” He gave her another kiss, gave the dog a rub. “You’re very welcome in Talamh, my lady Breen.”
“Thank you.”
Because her ankle had stiffened up on the drive in, she had to fight not to hobble to the door.
“Sit there, by the fire.” Marg flicked her fingers to have it going from dying embers to low flame. “Let’s put that foot up now, and get the boot off.”
“I just twisted it when I fell. My ass actually took the brunt of it.”
Marg frowned over it. “A bit bruised, a bit swollen. Healing’s not my greatest strength, but I can tend to this.”
Sitting on the low table, Marg propped Breen’s foot in her lap. “
It just needs ice and elevation.”
Marg said, “Hmmm,” and gently ran her fingers over the ankle, slow circles, the lightest touch. “When you learned to walk, you only wanted to run. Bruises and scrapes, scrapes and bruises. You’d just pop back up again and go.”
“I like to run. I ran track in school. For a while.”
The fingers felt so soothing, so cool and soothing, Breen’s eyes drooped.
“Now just sit, and I’ll get us some wine, and you some balm to finish off the healing.”
When Marg got up, Breen opened her eyes again. Not only was the stiffness and ache gone, so were the bruises, the swelling.
“Is it some sort
of spell?”
“Oh, no indeed. A skill, you could say, though if it had been serious, I’d have wanted Aisling or one of the other healers. You have the skill. I remember once Morena burned her fingers on the stove. You healed them with kisses.”
“How . . . how did I know?”
“Your heart knew. Now here you are.” She brought in the wine, a plate of cookies, and a biscuit for the dog. On the tray sat a little blue jar.
“Just some balm. Lotions, potions, balms, salves, spells, and such, those are my strengths.”
“It feels fine now.”
“This will keep it that way. You called me Nan.” With that same gentle, circular touch, Marg applied the balm. “You called me Nan, and told me to run and hide.”
“You didn’t hide.”
“You thought to shield me. Would I do less for you?”
She gave the biscuit to the dog, who stretched out in front of the fire to gnaw at it.
“Do you always leave the door open?”
“Not always, no, but I like the air. Would you have it closed?”
“No, it’s nice, the breeze, the fire.”
The welcome, she thought. Because an open door meant welcome.
Marg sat, picked up her wine. She turned the cup in her hands before drinking. “I’ll tell the tale my way, but it’ll be the truth. The whole of it. And what questions you have, I’ll answer.”
She drank again.
“When the taoiseach before me died—and he had a long life, and held the peace—I joined the others at the lake. This is how we choose and are chosen. The sword is given back to the lake. Going into the lake is the first choice we make. So I went in. Eighteen years was I, and with no ambitions to lead. I wanted to be—a good witch, you’d say, and when I found my heart mate, a good mother to our many children. These were my desires when I went into the water. But there, in its depths where others looked, only I could see the sword. So I chose again, to take it up, to accept my destiny.”
“Like, in a way, the Lady of the Lake, the Arthurian legend.”
“Legends come from somewhere, don’t they? So I took up my duties as well, practiced my craft, and the odd politics of leadership. There were men who wished to share that station with me, but none I wanted in return. Until I saw Odran.”
Sitting back, she looked into the fire, into the past. “Ah, gods, he was handsome, with hair like sunlight, eyes gray as a storm cloud. Tall and well-built, so charming. He romanced me, long looks, sweet words, thrilling touches. I thought he was of the Wise. I thought he was of Talamh.”
“He wasn’t? Isn’t?”
Marg shook her head. “I was blind to what he was. I was young and full of love and lust for him. I’ll never know if that was from me, or his powers to mold my feelings. So I bedded him. He wasn’t my first, but he was what I wanted—or so I believed.”
The cat came in. It took a long look at Marg, then walked back toward the kitchen.
“We took our vows, first at the Capital, then again at the farm where my family worked the land for generations. And as was my deepest wish, we made a child. So attentive was Odran while I carried our son. He worked the land with my father, brought flowers to my mother. Then Eian was born. The joy lasted weeks more, for you see he wanted the baby plump with my milk—witch’s milk—and growing in power.”
“Why? What for?”
“To take it, into himself. To drain it, bit by bit, a child that carried his blood, and mine. The taoiseach. One night I woke from a dream—a dream of storms and blood. I felt not well, and dizzy and weak, for he’d dosed me in the tea he kindly brought while I was nursing my babe. And I saw him, saw him for what he was, saw the dark and the purpose as he held the baby—sleeping as well, and too deep. Drawing that innocent power in, draining the child we’d made.”
“He—he was killing the baby? His own son?”
Marg shook her head. “Not killing, but taking, draining slowly. The power, the soul. Drinking it in, you could say. And, aye, death would have come in time when my sweet babe had no more to give.
“And I found my wrath, and my strength with it. I stopped him, a curse from a mother’s torn heart. I cast him out of the house, out of the world—I believed forever. But you see he was more than I knew, even then, and my worry for the baby dimmed my sight. For he came back, with his dark and his demons, and the long peace ended.”
For a moment, Marg laid her head back, closed her eyes.
“We waged war, more than a year. People died, good men and women who fought those forces. My own father, my own brothers fell in that year. And within the next my mother died with a bitter and broken heart. Never did she forgive me.”
“How was any of that your fault?”
“I was taoiseach. Did I protect the world I’d sworn to? No. I gave in to my own desires and wants. And so, when we sent him back, and into the dark, when we honored the dead and began to build a new peace, I gave the sword back to the lake for another to be chosen.”
“Not my father. He would’ve been too young.”
“No, there was another, and she did well for her time. Then it was Eian’s time. Only a mother knows, I think, the feeling of great pride laced with great fear. I felt that the morning Eian came out of the lake with the sword held firm in his hand. But he held the peace, my boy. And he met your mother when he took one of the journeys. All here are encouraged to see other worlds, to learn, to understand we are not the only. So, as I told you, he brought her here, willing, and they took vows, and they made you.”
A man came in, a man with silver hair, and walked to Marg, poured wine in her glass. “You need more wine, and a meal come to that.”
“I’ll eat when I’ve told her the rest. She’s not as safe as I believed.”
“I saw you.” Breen pushed to her feet. “I saw you.”
“Only because I wanted you to.” He topped off her wine. “In hopes to stir what needed stirring.”
“You were spying on me?”
“Sedric is my dear friend and companion. I sent him to you, to watch. There were signs, Breen, I couldn’t ignore. Beyond the deep unhappiness I felt from you, there were signs the time had come. Sedric would never harm you.”
“I thought I was going crazy.”
“But things stirred,” he said with a slow smile, and strolled out of the room.
Something in the smile, the movements . . . “He’s—he’s the cat!”
“A were he is, and of the Wise as well from his mother. I’m as devoted to him as he is to me—and to you, always to you. No doubt he has the arrogance of his spirit animal, but he would give his life for mine, and for yours.”
It fell into place for her, bit by magickal bit. “It wasn’t just luck I found out about the money.”
“You needed your independence. You needed to choose, and you did. Do you regret it?”
“No, but I’m not sure what to do with it.”
Marg leaned forward, took Breen’s hand. “You’ll know when you fully wake. I only ask that you let me show you, teach you, so you’ll be strong.”
She remembered, she could see it. “He came in the night. I was just . . . I was just a baby really. He said . . . he said, he would teach me to fly, like the faeries, like the dragons. He looked like a little boy, but he wasn’t.”
“We had protection around you, and still he slid through, a snake slithering through the dark.”
“He put me in a glass cage, a box, and I couldn’t get out. I cried for my da, for my mother, for you.”
“And we heard you. He didn’t think we could—he thought his power so strong, but it crumbled against what you have in you, as well as your father’s love, and mine, your mother’s tears.”
“He said you couldn’t hear me, would never hear me. At first he tried to be soothing, but I wouldn’t stop calling and crying, and he got angry. I remember. I can hear it, see it.”
“If it’s what you want, take my hand, look into the fire with me now. Our memories will join. I wil
l see what you saw, and you what I saw. These answers are there, if you want them. But understand, you will feel it all, as if it were happening now.”
It frightened her, the very idea of reliving it, but she reached out and took Marg’s hand.
“Look into the fire, into the flame, the heart of the heat. Through the smoke and flickers of light and into what was. I am with you, and you with me.”
She knew fear, and the fear screamed and raged inside her. Just a little girl, beating fists on a wall she couldn’t see. Beyond it, the world swirled a pale green, like the waters of a lake. Deep, deep. The sun barely reached down to offer a murky light.
“Let me out. Da!”
“I am your father now, and mother, and all.” The voice, nowhere, everywhere, filled her cage. “Be still, be quiet, and I will give you sweets. You will be as a princess with golden toys and sugared plums.”
Tears spilled. Her hands hurt from pounding. “I want my da! I want my mama! I want Nan! I don’t like you!”
“Stop your blubbering, or you will know pain.”
Something pinched her, hard, on the arm. She squealed in shock, fell down to curl up and weep and weep.
“Good girls get treats. Bad girls get pinches and slaps. Be good, and grow. As you grow, what’s in you grows. What’s in you is mine! When it’s ripe, I’ll take it. When I take it, you’ll live in a palace in the sky.”
Even through her fear she heard the lie. She called for her father, her mother, her grandmother. And as she called, something built inside her.
What she’d known of power until then had given her little things, shown her the pretty and the fun. Butterflies that fluttered to her hand, birds landing on her shoulder to sing.
But this, this growing thing, was hard and sharp, like the knives she wasn’t allowed to touch.
And she, who had never known the ugly, screamed out her truth. “I hate you! My da will come and fight you! He’ll hurt you for hurting me.”
Not a pinch now but a slap, hard and sharp like the knives. No one had ever struck her, and the shock of it, the insult of it, carved through the fear and found the rage.
Cheek stinging, the raw red mark on it like a burn, Breen got to her feet. Her fists clenched at her sides. Her eyes went dark, dark as night, as what had built inside her erupted.
