Wil looked from Thorne to Dallin. For the first time, a faint smirk touched his 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 pulled his hand away. “The pain has lessened?”
“Thank you, it has.” Wil 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, said, “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 him as a sort of buffer between himself and Calder, but 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 they were snarling was Wil, however, Shaw had been remarkably cooperative. He nodded his agreement while the Old Ones, one by one, sidled past Wil, dipped 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 and Dallin, then… He frowned, lifting a questioning eyebrow at the young man 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, spread his hands and dipped himself 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 mumbled, head resting in his hand again, eyes closed. “You said you’d fetch me tea.”
Hunter grinned, eyes bright. “I did.”
“Please do,” Wil told him, “and…” He squinted up, blinked Dallin into focus. “What was that stuff Mistress Slade gave me?”
“Mistress…?” Dallin had to card through several weeks 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 replied. “But mæting would surely—”
“Did I ask for mæting?” It was sharp-edged through clenched teeth. Dallin wasn’t surprised, but Hunter certainly was; the boy reared back, blinked. “I’m sorry,” Wil said, voice low now and with none of the strength of mere seconds ago behind it. “I didn’t mean to… just… I don’t want mæting.”
“Poppy?” Shaw put in.
“Actually, wood betony will be better for this,” Dallin told Shaw. “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 glance 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 muttered, eyes closed again and kneading at his temples like he was trying to dig right into his skull.
“Whatever, just… some thing. Quick.”
“All right, then,” Dallin said to 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 the boy off. “Get on, then.”
Obviously pleased, Hunter sprang to his feet and hurried off. Dallin just shook his head. Another bloody Calder. What was he supposed to do with another bloody Calder who wouldn’t go away?
“Right, then,” Shaw said, clapped his thin hands together and quick-stepped over to Wil. With the smallest of grunts, he crouched down and took hold of Wil’s arm, wrangling it over his shoulder. “C’mon, lad, up you get.”
Dallin joined him on Wil’s other side and hauled him to his feet. He kept firm hold while Wil staggered. Wil wouldn’t open his eyes, and his brow was drawn in tight again.
“Shall I carry you?” Dallin asked.
He 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 him as he staggered, suffered 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, clutched at his head with both hands and bent at the waist, gagged up nothing.
Dallin didn’t wait for him to settle down—he took hold of Wil again, kept him from keeling face-first into the grass.
Wil didn’t fight him this time, just 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 half-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 half-mad?”
Wil let Dallin straighten him up some, let him slip himself back beneath his arm, and took a shaky step.
“They all do,” he muttered. “I could feel it. I can still feel it. All of them.”
Dallin privately thought Wil was likely confusing concern with contempt, because Wil just would— weak, for the love of the Mother, like that was even possible—but Dallin prudently kept that to himself. Wil was not in a reasoning mood.
Listing a little toward Shaw, 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 said, low and soothing as he reached up, guided 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, blinked up at Dallin. “Yes. Please.”
Dallin sighed, nodded, and led him 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 he was becoming immune to those small things Dallin could offer him by way of respite. Or, perhaps, this place was just too much, and anything Dalli
n could do would always come up just short of enough. Guardian or no, chosen or not, this sort of thing was just not the sort at which Dallin excelled.
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…
“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 worked: Dallin drew in a deep, calming breath, let it flow slowly from his chest.
“I’m sorry, Wil, I don’t mean to be impatient.” He knelt in front of Wil, and slipped his fingers into dark hair, 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.
He measured his words carefully, set 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, he’d 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, pressed over Dallin’s—not for any kind of intimacy, Dallin was sure, but an animal instinct pressure-to-pain. “Siofra couldn’t… I pushed, I pushed it all, and he couldn’t—”
“Siofra was not your Guardian,” Dallin told him, gentle but stern. “You told me once I was as chosen as you, and this is one of the reasons why.”
He’d argued long and loud with both Calder and Shaw about this, and they were half-right—he 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. Still, he knew what he was doing in this, the same way he just 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 he never looked, Dallin had 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, Dallin had no doubt the next armed standoff in which he was going to find 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 like 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 entrusted them to Shaw that first night they’d got here. Dallin may be sure, but he wasn’t going to take stupid chances.
He closed his eyes, laid his brow to Wil’s, 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. Reluctantly, 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, squinted at Dallin against the dim light. Dallin waited until Wil’s gaze was semi-steady and locked with his—liquid and shifting and over-bright with that eerie light, and pulsing at Dallin, painpainpainpain—and Dallin firmed his grip on Wil’s shoulders, asked: “Do you trust me?”
Because if he didn’t, it was all pretty pointless, and not just this, but everything.
Wil shut his eyes again, thin tears squeezing out the corners, and he slumped, leaned in to rest his head to Dallin’s chest. “Yes,” he whispered.
Dallin 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?” Wil mumbled into Dallin’s shirt.
“Then I expect you to choose yourself, like you’ve been alleging you would,” Dallin told him, dropped a brief, soft kiss to his 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 muttered angrily, but nonetheless nodded consent.
Crap or not, it had apparently worked.
“All right,” Dallin sighed. “Good.” 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,” he told Wil. “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, level his riotous gaze with Dallin’s. “You’re sure?”
Dallin cracked a small smirk. “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. He might have even allowed the arguments to sway him, if he wasn’t so deep-down sure.
“It’ll work, Wil, trust me, all right?” Dallin kept his grip on Wil’s shoulders, 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 was trying and failing to keep everything at bay, extended a shaky reach—
A scream, anguished and wrenching, as it all flooded at Wil, excruciating and overwhelming. Wil balled in on himself, flung his arms over his head and screamed again.
Bloody damn, this place was powerful—it fair reeked with it—Dallin could feel the edges of what was pounding in on Wil, like invisible iron filings scattering at him like he was a magnet. Sharding right into his 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 him frantically trying to weed through the threads of it, sort them and shove them away from himself. 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 lis
ten 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, whooshed out and up. Shaw yelped a bit and reached a hand out.
“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.
“Wil!” Dallin shook—harder than before. “Wil, listen to me. Don’t hold onto it, don’t try and sort it—just push it, right at me, I won’t let anything happen, I promise, just send the pain—”
Jerked abruptly back and away, like a great hand had just reached out and shoved him in the chest. It knocked the wind out of him—he couldn’t even let loose a small yip—as he was thrown backward with a force that hurled him across the small cave. His back slammed to curved rock, strength like he’d never felt driving him right into the cave’s wall, compressing him between immovable granite and mind-numbing power.
Oh, fuck, this isn’t just big—it’s bloody huge !
Dallin took it all, let down every barrier and let it flow over them, let it drive into his body and his mind, seep into the cracks and fill them up. His body instinctively tried to double over with the pain, but he was pinned, like a bug to a cork. Mother help me—is this what he’s been feeling all this time? How could he stand it? Breath was just a memory; his chest was caving beneath the force of it all.
Out the corner of his eye, Dallin saw the fire climbing up the wall of the cave, heard the rumble of thunder, then he was deaf and blind, unable to move, to claw air into burning lungs. Still, he let it wash into him, took it all and invited more.
He could feel Wil inside it, distant and still confused, but sanity was returning, relief was slowly taking the place of agony. Dallin reached, set himself like a baldachin beneath the onslaught, showed Wil the channels and showed him how to use them. Was swamped by the bald grace of Wil’s reprieve when the stanchions held. Part of Dallin smiled, smug and satisfied— Ha! Fuck you, Calder, told you I knew what I was doing—the rest of him saw the dark void of oblivion beckoning.
The Aisling Trilogy Page 68
