“We looked, my lad. Believe it.” Thorne shot a conciliatory glance over at Dallin. “Though our methods were….” He lifted an eyebrow, wryly expectant.
“Antiquated,” Dallin supplied.
“Antiquated,” Thorne agreed.
“Amateurish.”
“Hm, right, and….” Thorne’s mouth twisted, sardonic. “What was the other?”
“Incompetent and negligent, I believe were my exact words.” If Thorne was expecting Dallin to flush and take a single one of them back, he was going to be sorely disappointed.
Thorne merely nodded and turned back to Wil. “All of those things and more, brave lad. We would prostrate ourselves at your feet, but young Brayden tells us you might be moved to….” Again he looked at Dallin, expectant.
This time Dallin did flush. “I believe I suggested that he might kick your arses.”
“And that you might hold us down for him, yes?”
Dallin was saved from answering that one by Wil, who looked worried, but Dallin was extraordinarily relieved to see a bit of defiance creep into Wil’s pained gaze. “Calder said you would be expecting me to prostrate myself. That I’d sinned against—”
“The only sin here is our own.” Thorne’s tone was soothing. “We have waited for our Lost Shaman so that he may guide us, as he always has done. Now that he is home, he has wasted no time in pointing out our sins and mistakes to us rather plainly.”
Wil looked from Thorne to Dallin. For the first time, a faint smirk touched Wil’s lips.
“And has he spent the last few days ‘guiding’ you, then?”
Thorne returned the smirk. “In a manner of speaking.”
“You have my sympathies.” Wil smiled up at Dallin, somewhat weak and thin, but it took the sting out of the tease. “He’s ‘guided’ me a bit too.”
Thorne grinned and pulled his hand away. “The pain has lessened?”
Wil nodded. “Thank you, it has.” He rubbed his fingers over his brow where Thorne’s had been. “Calder said Fæðme—”
“Not here, lad.” Thorne patted Wil’s cheek. “Let your young Brayden get you settled and fed. The pain will return shortly if we don’t let him tend to you. You and he have more work to do.” He waved at the others behind him. “We will come to you afterward.” He sent another meaningful look at Dallin. “All will be disclosed, and then we will hear your decision.” He turned back to Wil. “Is that acceptable?”
“My…?” Wil’s brow twisted in confusion, but he merely looked up at Dallin. When Dallin shifted an encouraging nod, Wil turned his gaze back to Thorne. “It’s acceptable. Thank you.”
Courteously, Dallin helped Thorne to his feet. Not so courteously, he set his gaze on Shaw alone. “We could probably use your help, if you don’t mind.”
Shaw gusted a weary sigh. Dallin didn’t really blame him. Dallin had been putting Shaw in the middle since he’d joined them, using Shaw as a sort of buffer between himself and Calder. It was either that or they’d end up knocking each other out, so Dallin maintained the tacit parameters and pretended at decorum. Since the bone over which Dallin and Calder were snarling was Wil, however, Shaw had been remarkably cooperative. He nodded his agreement while the Old Ones, one by one, sidled past Wil, dipping full bows to him, and left them to themselves, thankfully chivvying Calder along with them. Wil just sort of blinked after them, then up at Shaw, then Dallin, then… he frowned and lifted a questioning look at Hunter, who, like his apparent kin, didn’t seem to take a hint that his presence was not welcome.
“I can help,” Hunter said, somewhere between a demand and a plea. He shifted his glance from Wil, to Dallin, to Wil again, then spread his hands and dipped as close to bowing as he could get in his half crouch. “Wil from Ríocht, please forgive me for any affront and allow me to make amends.” He lifted his head and flipped an anxious glance at Dallin. “I can fetch whatever you need, if you’ll just tell me. Food, medicines—”
“Tea.” Wil rested his head in his hand again, eyes closed. “You said you’d fetch me tea.”
Hunter grinned and nodded enthusiastically, eyes bright. “I did.”
“Please do, and….” Wil squinted up at Dallin, blinking him into focus. “What was that stuff Mistress Slade gave me?”
“Mistress….” Dallin had to card through several days of chaos to place the name. “Oh.” The healer in Dudley. “Meadowsweet and skullcap.”
“D’you still have it?”
Dallin shook his head, rueful. “I lost my pack in Chester.”
Wil turned back to Hunter. “Can you find some of that?”
“I don’t know meadowsweet.” Hunter looked crestfallen. “But mæting would surely—”
“Did I ask for mæting?”
It was sharp-edged and through Wil’s teeth. Dallin wasn’t surprised, but Hunter certainly was—he reared back and blinked.
“I’m sorry,” Wil said, voice low now and with none of the strength of mere seconds ago. “I didn’t mean to… just… I don’t want mæting.”
“Poppy?” Shaw put in.
“Actually, wood betony will be better for this,” Dallin said. “It grows like a weed around here, and most use it for amulets and charms. Shouldn’t have any trouble at all finding a good supply.”
Not with all these Weardas. Dallin had found over the years that almost everyone who carried a weapon also carried a good luck charm in some form. Those who were regularly shot at tended to be a superstitious lot, and Linders were the most superstitious by far.
Dallin shifted his gaze to Wil. “It will help you relax. It won’t put you to sleep, and it won’t… do anything else.”
He left it there. It didn’t matter if Shaw or Hunter understood what Dallin didn’t say, only that Wil did.
“Fine.” Wil closed his eyes again, kneading at his temples as though he was trying to dig right into his skull. “Whatever, just… something. Quick.”
“All right, then.” Dallin nodded at Hunter. “You heard the man. Tea and wood betony. Drop the dried petals right into the tea—a good palmful of them—and make sure you don’t get any leaves or anything else in there, only the petals, mind. Once they’ve sunk to the bottom of the cup, bring it along.” He waved Hunter off. “Get on, then.”
Obviously pleased, Hunter sprang to his feet and hurried away. Dallin just shook his head. Another bloody Calder. What was he supposed to do with another bloody Calder who wouldn’t fuck off?
“Right, then.” Shaw clapped his thin hands together and quick-stepped over to Wil. He crouched down and took hold of Wil’s arm to wrangle it over his shoulder. “C’mon, lad, up you get.”
Dallin helped haul Wil to his feet, keeping firm hold while Wil staggered. Wil wouldn’t open his eyes, and his brow was drawn in tight again.
“Shall I carry you?”
Dallin hadn’t meant anything by it but necessary help, but Wil snarled, snapped, “No, you shall bloody not,” and tried to pull his arms away.
Dallin caught Wil as he wobbled, suffering some more snarling with some added growling.
“Hey. Hey.”
This as Wil jerked away from both Dallin and Shaw, obviously too sharply, because he gasped, clutching at his head with both hands before he bent at the waist and gagged up nothing. Dallin didn’t wait for Wil to settle down—he took hold of Wil again, keeping him from keeling face-first into the grass. Wil didn’t fight Dallin this time, only stood there, bent over and breathing hard.
“Wil, I’m not trying to… whatever you think I’m trying to do, just—” Dallin shook his head. “You asked for my help. Now let me help you.”
“I will. I only…. Not here. They already think I’m fragile and halfway mad, and now you want to bloody carry me.”
Pointing out that Dallin had pretty much lugged Wil from Chester to here would probably be a very bad idea right now.
“I don’t want to bloody carry you, I asked you if I should. All you had to do was say no.” Dallin frowned. “And who thinks you’re
fragile and halfway mad?”
Wil let Dallin straighten him up some, then let himself be slipped back beneath Dallin’s arm. He took a shaky step.
“They all do. I could feel it. I can still feel it. All of them.” Wil slid a squinted gaze up at Dallin. “I can’t stop seeing it all. It’s everywhere, even when I close my eyes, and it hurts.”
“Let us get you settled back in.” Shaw reached up to guide Wil’s head to Dallin’s shoulder. Dallin was fairly impressed that Wil let himself be guided, that he closed his eyes again and seemed willing to at least try to let Dallin lead him. “Brayden knows what to do, all right? We’ll get you tucked back in and let him do his work.”
Wil lifted his head and blinked up at Dallin. “Yes. Please.”
Dallin sighed, nodded, and led the way back to the caves.
RELIEF SHOULDN’T be coming this hard. In fact, Wil shouldn’t have even woken yet. He should have stayed under the sway of that heavy sleep until Dallin lifted it away, but it was as though Wil was becoming immune to those small things Dallin could offer by way of respite. Or, perhaps, this place was just too much—too much, too big, Wil had said—and anything Dallin could do would always come up just short of enough. Guardian or no, chosen or not, this sort of thing was just not what Dallin was good at. Give him a gun, a sword, a bow, or even just his fists, and he’d stand against anything and take his chances, but this….
It was enough to make him doubt his own snarled assertions to the Old Ones just an hour ago. Well, would have been, if he wasn’t so unwaveringly sure this was how it had to go.
“Wil, you have to listen to me, all right? I can’t do it if you won’t let me.”
“I am letting you. I just… I can’t… you’re making it worse.”
“Because you won’t let me make it better!”
“Brayden,” Shaw chided softly.
Just that, just his name, but it had the desired effect. Dallin drew in a deep, calming breath and let it flow slowly from his chest.
“I’m sorry, Wil. I don’t mean to be impatient.” Dallin adjusted his position, knelt in front of Wil, and slipped his fingers into Wil’s hair. He began a gentle massage. Wil was stiff and tense, but he didn’t jerk away. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better, and I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped.” Wil still wouldn’t open his eyes, squinched tight in pain, so Dallin did with his voice what he couldn’t with his expression, measuring his words carefully, setting his tone smooth and low. “You have to open up, just like you told me in Chester, all right? You do it quick, and then you push it right at me—in to you and out to me, as fast as you can.”
Wil shook his head against Dallin’s hands. “You don’t understand.”
Down to a strained whisper now. If Wil didn’t start cooperating soon, Dallin was going to have to put him out again. Except then Wil would simply wake sooner than he should, and the whole thing would start all over again.
“Then explain it to me.” Dallin kept his voice as soothing as he could, what with all the anxiety ramming through him.
“You were there.” Wil’s hands came up and pressed over Dallin’s—not for any kind of intimacy, Dallin was sure, but an animal instinct pressure-to-pain. “Síofra couldn’t…. I pushed, I pushed it all, and he couldn’t—”
“Síofra was not your Guardian. You told me once I was as chosen as you, and this is one of the reasons why.”
Dallin had argued long and loud with both Calder and Shaw about this, and they were halfway right. Dallin didn’t have the spells and prayers he was supposed to have spent the past twenty years learning, and he certainly hadn’t trained for it or practiced it, not even once. And perhaps it was cockiness made necessary by the immediacy of Wil’s need, but Dallin knew what he was doing in this, the same way he knew a person was guilty or innocent just by looking at them.
Shaw, after coming around somewhat to Dallin’s point of view, had speculated that perhaps, down deep where even Dallin never looked, he’d been training himself without even knowing. Dallin didn’t necessarily believe that entirely, but it had convinced the Old Ones enough to leave him to it. They’d even chastised Calder—albeit mildly—for his vehemence in his protestations. For now. Because if Dallin couldn’t keep Wil under control, or help him find a way to keep himself under control, there was no doubt the next armed standoff in which Dallin found himself was going to consist of him against twelve magic old men.
The problem, as Dallin saw it, was that even those twelve old men, as versed in magic as they were, had no real idea what they were dealing with in Wil. Power over elements they understood, and on those things Dallin would happily take their advice. But the dreams, the pushing—they were as ignorant about it all as Dallin was about tatting lace. They hadn’t touched the edges of Wil’s power as Dallin had. They hadn’t stood inside it and felt Wil wield it. They hadn’t looked at it with inward eyes and seen, understood—known. Dallin had. Dallin did. He wouldn’t be taking this kind of chance, else.
Of course, that surety hadn’t prevented him from dousing the fire in the cave down to coals. He’d taken all the guns and ammunition out and stored them in Shaw’s the first night they’d got here. Dallin might be sure, but he wasn’t going to take stupid chances.
He closed his eyes, laid his brow to Wil’s, and took a long, deep breath before pulling back again.
“Wil, look at me.”
He waited for a moment, but Wil only kept sitting there, eyes squeezed tight, breath thin and fast. Dallin slid his hands down to Wil’s shoulders, shook just a little, and firmed his tone.
“Open your eyes and look at me, Wil.”
With obvious unwillingness, Wil slitted his eyes and squinted at Dallin against the dim light. Dallin waited until Wil’s gaze was semisteady and locked with his—liquid and shifting, overbright with that eerie light, and pulsing at Dallin, painpainpainpain—and Dallin firmed his grip on Wil’s shoulders.
“Do you trust me?”
Because if Wil didn’t, it was all pretty pointless. And not just this, but everything.
Wil shut his eyes again, thin tears squeezing out the corners. He slumped and leaned in to rest his head to Dallin’s chest. “Yeah. Yes, you arse.”
Dallin hadn’t known how incredibly tense he’d been, waiting the perhaps three seconds for that answer, but he blew out a sigh before he could help himself. “Then do as I say, all right? Let it in, then push it out—at me, only at me. Not everything, just the pain. It won’t hurt me, I promise.”
“And what happens if it does?”
“Then I expect you to choose yourself, like you’ve been alleging you would.” Dallin dropped a brief, soft kiss to Wil’s head, gave his shoulders a squeeze, and pushed him back to sit somewhat upright. “What’ll it be, Wil? Are you a man of your word, or was it all talk?”
Wil’s face twisted into a snarling scowl. “You’re crap at manipulation.” He pressed harder at his head. It took a while, but he eventually gave a small, conciliatory nod.
Crap or not, it had apparently worked.
“All right. Good.” Dallin grinned, cheered and relieved beyond sense, despite the fact that he’d just talked Wil into turning what Dallin knew to be almost boundless and pretty damned potent power directly at him.
It didn’t matter. This was right, Dallin knew it was right, and he’d stopped caring quite a while ago just how he knew anything. If he had anything that could be called magic in him, it was this.
“Do it now. Let it in and then send it out, but do it quick. It’s going to hurt like a bugger until you push it at me, so don’t hesitate, all right? Just the pain, not the rest.”
“Just the pain.” Wil dared to wrench open his eyes and level his riotous gaze at Dallin. “You’re sure?”
Dallin lifted an eyebrow. “Do I look like I don’t know what I’m doing?”
Amazingly, Wil smiled back—small and weak and fleeting, but there. “I don’t think Guardians are supposed to be so cocky.”
Prideful,
Calder had called Dallin, and arrogant and possessive too, while he’d been at it. Dallin half admitted the potential truth to it, though not to Calder. Dallin might have even allowed the arguments to sway him, if he weren’t so deep-down sure.
“It’ll work, Wil. Trust me, all right?” Dallin kept his grip on Wil’s shoulders and braced himself. “Do it now.”
All he could do was watch as Wil closed his eyes again, tensing even more in Dallin’s hands. Dallin could feel the reluctance, the fear… the shift as Wil tentatively unlocked whatever it was inside him that was trying and failing to keep everything at bay and extended a shaky reach—
Wil screamed, anguished and wrenching, as it all flooded at him, excruciating and overwhelming. He balled in on himself, flung his arms over his head, and screamed again.
Bloody damn, this place was powerful—it fair reeked with it—and all of it pounding in on Wil. Dallin could feel it, like invisible iron filings scattering at a magnet, sharding right into Wil’s mind and his soul, splitting and rending beneath its almighty weight.
“Don’t hold on to it, Wil. Push it away.”
Dallin could feel the flow of it all, could feel the thrum and shudder, but not the pain, just Wil’s anguish beneath it. Could feel Wil frantically trying to weed through the threads of it, sort them and shove them away from himself. He was sliding down into a state that was near senseless—a wounded animal mindlessly trying to lash out and curl in at the same time, screaming to make its throat bleed.
“Damn it, Wil, you didn’t listen to me before and you ended up lost. Now don’t—”
“Fuck off!” A snarling shriek, hoarse and this close to hysterical.
The smoldering bones of the fire flared once again to life, spat and roared, then whooshed out and up. Shaw yelped and reached out a hand.
“Don’t touch him!” Dallin ordered.
That was all he needed—Wil’s mind was ready to snap, the pain was that great, and in this basic, wounded-animal state, he might take out whoever got near him. Dallin didn’t want to think about the sorrow and guilt Wil would have to deal with afterward if he somehow managed to kill Shaw.
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