by KH LeMoyne
“He’s our best bet for scoping out the crewmen threat,” Logan said cautiously.
Robert held up a hand. “We had an interchange of goodwill. You got any ideas about who the kid might be?”
“Nothing I can substantiate yet. She’s certainly not a servant—unless they’re pampered here. Let’s hope she wakes up and tells us.”
“Does Briallen know anything about her?”
“No. But I believe she knows more about our situation than she’s offered. Though the voice insists she’s in the same situation we are, perhaps worse.”
“Voice!”
“I think the voice in my dreams is preparing me for what we’re facing. Just one voice.” He shrugged, trying to downplay the oddity of his experiences. “She’s stopped speaking to me. I’ll admit, that felt like someone dug my brain out of my eardrums with a paring knife, but the new visions aren’t bad. More detailed and noninvasive.”
Robert looked away, frowned, then dug at the ground with a rock. “You trust Briallen?”
Good question. Surprisingly, he hadn’t given it a second thought. Whatever threat they faced wasn’t by her design. He knew that. He couldn’t read what was bothering her the way he could with most people. However, he had an excellent take on her skills, her emotions, and the protective layers she’d erected. He could crack the outside layer if he tried hard enough—but he wouldn’t. She’d built her shields to protect herself. If she brought them down for him, it needed to be on her own terms. “She’s not responsible for the attacks, and she trusts us. We’ll follow her lead until we can figure this out.”
“Well, let me update you on my chat with Hefin. There’s good news and bad.”
Logan crossed his arms over his chest and nodded.
“The clan uses runners to carry news. One briefed Hefin about a ship sinking last night, near Iona. Ran aground on the rocks. Word has it a boat full of men escaped. No one’s seen them yet.”
Logan opened his mouth to ask a question, but Robert held up a hand. “There’s more. The clansmen to the south of us are most likely between the crewman and our location. They’ve been alerted by Hefin. Don’t think they’ll take too kindly to these guys if they show up. History of invasion by sea around here makes folks wary.”
“Buys us a little time. What did he tell them?”
“It’s not like he’s a big talker. His story is the crewmen attacked his kin coming from the north. That makes us kin with him, the old woman, Briallen, and the girl. Conveniently avoids discussion of the shield we passed through.” Robert jerked his head toward the cottage. “We need to be prepared in case those men reach us, or come from another direction.”
“Or the mages come for us. Will the cottage’s shield mask our presence?”
With a shrug, Robert glanced back and his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t sense any of you inside the cottage when I returned. I suspect a large energy burst might break through it, but it’ll hold for now. I did wonder who created this shield. I doubt it was Hefin or Grainne.”
Logan nodded, considering their options. “We can’t move the girl. She’s not any better now than last night.”
“Okay. I’ll work on a defensive strategy. It’d help if we can figure out why they want her so badly.”
“She’s part of our goal somehow.”
“The kid is? How?”
He nodded. “My visions don’t reference her. However, I see no explanation for ending up on an island similar to Staffa, near our pre-travel location, as opposed to anywhere else if not for her. Our experiences here aren’t random. I’m assuming she’s a key factor.”
“You sure it’s not your protective instinct kicking in?” Robert held up his hand once more at Logan’s look. “I don’t want anything to happen to her, either. Just keep in mind you can’t save everyone, Logan.”
“You’re one to talk. Nevertheless, she doesn’t fit with Hefin’s people,” Logan continued. Robert’s eyes narrowed in interest. “Her clothes were detailed, well-stitched. Bri didn’t provide her wardrobe. The skin on her hands, feet, and face are soft, delicate. She’s never done manual labor and, aside from her illness, she’s been well cared for.”
“You already have a suspicion as to her identity.”
“It doesn’t make sense, and I’m not going to voice my guess until I’m certain.” Honestly, he didn’t want to jinx the child’s chances. “I’m still surprised none of this fazes you.”
Robert shrugged and fixed a blue stare on Logan that fell short of calm and unemotional. “Our aim’s finding out who’s targeting our family. We’re here. I guess we pushed a button. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter if we resolve the problem here or at home. This place is farther away from Dana and Gwyn, and therefore safer for them. So here’s better for a confrontation.” He stood and covered the small pit he’d dug in the dirt with his boot.
“Since we arrived here, I’d like to think we can get home,” Logan added.
“I’ll believe that when I see another portal open.” Robert turned. “I’ll see what Hefin has to do to sharpen the knives we took from those pirates. We’ll need weapons.”
Robert walked away, but Logan’s unease lingered. Robert’s secrets were starting to take a visible toll. How long before they cracked him open? Or would Logan have to wrestle them free?
It took several minutes for Logan’s pupils to adjust from the bright sunlight outside to the interior of the cottage. Even so, it took him several moments to comprehend what was happening.
“No!” He lunged across the room, fear driving him.
A smoky glow, black and oily, covered the girl’s face, seeping into her nostrils and the small crack between her lips. The black mask quivered like a sick caress along her skin.
Without thinking, Logan grabbed for her. Only the heart-pounding need to stop the evil infection from claiming her.
Instead, he struggled to touch her, as if ton of weight pushed back and fought his efforts to protect her with his magic. Confused voices sounded behind him as the child’s eyes snapped open. Red flames reflected within her pupils—a fierce, hungry force, angered by his interference.
Logan’s ring burned and glowed as he forced his palm against her cheek. His fingertips barely grazed her face. Then she opened her mouth and roared. Her hoarse outcry let loose a violent expulsion of dark energy that flung Logan across the room. His spine and head contacted with rock in a heavy crack as air burst from his lungs. Stunned but conscious, he lay on the ground and turned toward the writhing girl as Bri dropped to her knees beside her.
His mouth didn’t work to warn her. Frozen, he could only watch while she strained to close the distance to the child, like two magnets repelling a connection.
Spikes of gold swirled in a fury around Bri, a merry-go-round of energy out of control, but stronger than the blackness surrounding the girl. Tips of green and blue flared from the fringes of the gold, as a swath of bright red pulsed stronger and deeper into the mix. She enclosed the girl in her arms and bent her face against the child’s neck. Variegated colors squeezed and pulsed. With each contraction of the energy womb around the girl, smoke expelled from her mouth.
The evil struggled and the girl’s small limbs twitched with the battle.
Bri held tight. The colors surrounding her brightened, clenched, and grew stronger.
With a violent jerk, the child’s head fell back, her raw, inhuman scream a painful pitch like shredded metal and shattered glass.
Grainne knelt three feet from Bri, her face pinched, incoherent blessings and incantations tumbling from her lips. Hefin stood beside her, his sword drawn, his face a mirror of Grainne’s. Their whole focus remained on Bri.
Robert had followed Logan into the cottage. Far enough behind to witness his body flying through the air. Now, from his crouched position beside him, Robert rose to help Bri.
Logan grabbed his arm. “Don’t.” He’d choked out the words, the rest of his energy crushed before he could explain. Bri was winning. Any t
ouch or interference would render her vulnerable. For it wasn’t her power she harnessed.
Somehow, she’d channeled the power of everyone in the room, the tight knit of focus and energy stripping the invisible invader from the child’s body and mind.
A tremor rocked the ground beneath Logan. Wind whipped through the room, tossing herbs, blankets, and clothing in its wake. Seconds passed, then a howl rose, climbing in pitch. The sound vibrated throughout the cottage. The horrible noise joined with the black smoke forced from the girl and now hovered near the roof’s thatching. With one final scream, it blew through the mesh of straw and reeds. A brief glimpse of blue sky, then darkness and silence closed in as the roof fell back into place.
Bri sat back on her haunches. The child lay limp in her arms, no longer enthralled in a deadly game of possession. A deep shimmer of indigo glowed around the girl’s body.
“How?” Logan croaked.
Bri glanced at him, damp strands of her ebony hair plastered to her face. The wan pallor of her skin reflected the energy drain required in ejecting the possession. “I think the darkness came from within her. We would have felt an entity that powerful come through the shields.”
Logan released his grip on Robert and tried to think. “Can you seal her power? Bind her?”
Bri hesitated. “I risk locking it away for good.”
“Better that than she turns into a tool for someone else’s aims.” He pushed up on his hands and knees, holding his position and not moving closer. “If her power is strong, yet uncontrollable—an anomaly in this world or another—then she will be the target of every succubus. She’ll never have a life or a chance at making her own choices.”
Her lips pursed in indecision, Bri glanced at Grainne. The old woman, supported against Hefin’s legs, nodded in agreement.
“I don’t know if I can bind her.” Bri’s voice wavered.
Logan staggered the few remaining feet between them and dropped beside her. “You’re the only one who can.” He reached around her, covered Bri’s hands, and moved them to the child’s head. “Think of it like putting training wheels on a bike.”
At her perplexed expression, he shook his head. “How about bundling a child in warm clothes to go play in the snow?”
Her mouth curved a bit, and a faint glow of acceptance lit her steel-gray eyes. With a deep breath, she lowered her lashes, opening her eyes once to stare at his hands, still covering hers.
“I’m not moving. So accept it and get started.”
She released an indelicate snort and raised an eyebrow, but closed her eyes again.
He relaxed behind her, and met Robert’s concerned gaze over her head. There wasn’t another option. They could build all the shields possible, but if the child’s biggest threat attacked from within—something that already had a hold on her—then they had no choice but to seal her tight.
6
Grainne gently squeezed her shoulders, but Bri remained motionless by the fire. “Lass, get some fresh air. I’ll tend to the child. Hefin will secure the wards and confirm no signs of her power have passed beyond our lands. We won’t be surprised a second time.”
“Perhaps in a moment.” She could barely stand up, much less walk outside until the jelly in her legs solidified.
“MacKenzie, let me look at that stubborn head of yours,” Grainne said.
Logan raised a brow, but he submitted. Bri was tempted to laugh as he winced beneath Grainne’s probing fingers.
“Good, no blood.”
Bri reached for the ladle in the water bucket and poured a small amount onto a pewter plate. The tepid fluid crystallized into ice. With a tap of the ladle, she fragmented it into chunks. Gathering the smaller pieces in a cloth, she handed it to Logan before she struggled to her feet and walked outside.
Midday sun drenched the benches in front of the cottage in bleached white and warmth. She sat and pulled a basket of bean pods into her lap, hoping the menial task and heat would cleanse the sick memories of locking the child’s powers in darkness.
“You okay?”
The concern in Logan’s voice threatened to break her emotions—already too close to the surface—free. She bowed her head over the mutilated green pod between her fingers. “How should I feel after stripping the power from another person?”
The bench creaked as he sat beside her.
“Binding isn’t stripping. Your actions will keep her safe.”
“And when she awakens in a new land, helpless among strangers and without her powers, what will keep her safe then?”
Logan’s gaze reflected sympathy. She shied away from looking too deep or trying too hard to read him. Acceptance might be addictive.
“Magic can’t be the focus of life. Not for her. Not for you. No power is without risks. Sometimes binding is the only option.”
She slid her thumb beneath three beans in the pod. They dropped into the bowl, soundless, brown specks almost lost on the sea of soft green. “Rather sounds like experience speaking.”
“My youngest cousin had trouble acclimating to her power. Her grandmother considered binding her powers.”
Bri’s throat thickened at the claustrophobic picture he’d created. “What happened to her?”
Logan’s smile released the tension pent up inside of her.
“We took turns distracting her grandmother, while the others worked with Dana and covered up the—results.”
She must have looked worried. He laughed and covered her hand on the basket. “She can read the past or the future from touching an object. The skill is only effective with an even flow of power. Dana had a problem with control at first.” He pulled back his hand and rubbed his leg. “We spent a lot of time hiding the things she blew up during her training until she could control her emotions and distance herself from her visions.”
“Her powers weren’t bound?”
“No.” His face turned serious. “However, if the threat had escalated, they would have been. We understood that. The protection today of this child took all of our combined efforts. We can’t be there every time evil senses her power and vulnerabilities. When and if she’s strong enough, and ready, she can release the binding.”
“What if something bad happens then?”
A furrow formed between his brows. “Your concern sounds like experience, too.”
“I summoned the portal and ended up here.”
“How long ago?” When she didn’t answer, he bent his head toward hers and repeated the question. “How long have you been here?”
She flicked a blade of grass off her pants. “Nine years.” The words barely passed through her lips, but his eyes widened, and she knew he’d heard. She bit her lip. This raw conversation of the past was harder than discussing options for the future.
“How old were you, Bri?” His tone softened and his continuing use of her nickname threw her off guard. Only Daniel and her father had ever called her by that endearment. With a simple name, he’d disarmed her.
“Sixteen.”
“Grainne and Hefin?”
“They found me and cared for me all these years, as if I were their flesh and blood.”
“Yet you haven’t opened another portal since.”
She met his gaze, confused, anticipating ridicule for her lack of effort, or disdain for the absurdity of her tale. Instead, she recognized compassion, an emotion more unnerving.
“I messed up the first time.”
“I don’t think so.” He looked away and pursed his lips, his fingers linked around his raised, bent knee. “You’ve used your skills to manufacture objects, manipulate elements, transport items, and deal in the mind.”
“I can’t manufacture anything. I manipulate available materials and—reassemble them.”
He nodded. “As you did with the child. You delved into her psyche and saw her memories, her trauma. Can you heal?”
She shook her head, uncomfortable discussing her magic. It had been so long since she’d embraced the magic of who she
was. Oh yes, Grainne and Hefin had supported her without pestering her with questions about her magic. But while Logan’s questions probed, she suspected he already knew the answers. So what was his purpose?
“If there were a ship on the far side of Staffa, could you turn their water to ice?”
“No. I require line of sight and close proximity. What is your point?”
He let out a sigh. “When we left the island in the rowboat, I saw a light. At first, I thought it a lighthouse signal.”
She frowned, unfamiliar with his reference.
He waved his hand toward the hill. “They’re usually built on dangerous shorelines, with tall lights, to keep sailors from coming too close and running aground. They’re a warning. Then I learned this island has a dense shield and mage towers for attack, to keep people away, not keep them safe.”
“This light was a warning?” What perplexing logic he posed. She couldn’t follow this at all.
“No. This light was a beacon. It didn’t even appear until we were in the boat with the girl.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Bri, you have many abilities. Some are minor skills, revolving around the here and now, the immediate. The clothes, the ice in the cottage—those are superficial tricks. Not insignificant, but they don’t define the composition of your true power. That’s why they’re limited by proximity.”
He waited for a response. She shrugged, waiting for more from him.
“I believe you created that light. Similar to the way you helped the child when you harnessed the abilities of those around you to save her. You attract people and bind them to you. Those skills are at the core of your power. They deal with urgency and protection. Opening our portal isn’t consistent with your skills. However, once we were here, you guided us to you—the pull is instinctual within you. With the child, you guided her to you as well. Anchored her to you in the same web of protection you maintain in your relationships with Grainne, Hefin, and us. I’ve watched you.”
