Blood Magick (25 page)

The wolf turned, red stone, red eyes gleaming bright fire. It flew at Fin’s throat, so fast, so fleet, Fin only had time to pivot Baru. Claws scored his left arm, shoulder to wrist, the force of it nearly unseating him, the pain a tidal wave that burned like hellfire. Swinging out with his sword arm, he lashed out with blade and flame, seared a line along the wolf’s flank—and felt the quick pain of it stab ice through the mark on his shoulder.

He pivoted again, hacking, slicing as the fog once again closed in to blind him. Fighting free, he saw the maneuver had cost him distance. Another charge, another burst of power, but the wolf was already airborne, and though the wounded warrior swung his sword, the wolf streaked over the flash of the blade, and clamped his snapping jaws on the warrior’s throat.

On a cry of rage, Fin spurred Baru forward, through the shifting curtains of fog.

Both horse and rider fell, and with a triumphant howl the wolf and fog vanished.

Even as Baru ran, Fin jumped down, fell to his knees beside the man with bright hair and glazed blue eyes.

“Stay with me,” Fin told him, and laid his hand over the gaping, jagged wound. “Look at me. Look in me. I can help you. Stay with me.”

But he knew the words were hollow. He had no power to heal death, and death lay under his hands.

He felt it—the last beat of heart, the last breath.

“You bled for him.”

With rage, pain, grief all swirling a tempest inside him, Fin looked up, saw the woman. Branna, was his first thought, but he knew almost as soon as that thought formed, he was wrong.

“Sorcha.”

“I am Sorcha. I am the Dark Witch of Mayo. It is my husband, dead on the ground. Daithi, the brave and bright.”

Her dress, gray as the fog, swayed over the ground as she walked closer, and her dark eyes held Fin’s.

“I watch him die, night after night, year after year, century by century. This is my punishment for betraying my gift, my oath. But tonight, you bled for him.”

“I was too late. I didn’t stop it. Saving him might have saved all, but I was too late.”

“We cannot change what was, and still your blood, my love’s, Cabhan’s lay on this ground tonight. Not to change what was, but to show what can be.”

She, too, knelt, then laid her lips on Daithi’s. “He died for me, for his children. He died brave and true, as he ever was. It is I who failed. It is I who out of rage harmed you, who cursed you, an innocent, and so many others who came before you.”

“Out of grief,” Fin said. “Out of grief and torment.”

“Grief and torment?” Her dark eyes flashed at him. “These can’t balance the scales. I cursed you, and all who came between you and Cabhan, and as it is written, what I sent out into the world, has come back to me threefold. I burdened my children, and all the children who came after them.”

“You saved them. Gave your own life for them. Your life and your power.”

She smiled now, and though grief lived in the smile, he saw Branna in her eyes. “I held fast to that grief, as if it were a lover or a beloved child. I think it fed me through all the time. I wouldn’t believe even what I was allowed to see. Of you or in you. Even knowing not just Cabhan’s blood ran in you, I couldn’t accept truth.”

“What truth?”

She looked down at Daithi. “You are his as well. More his, I know now, than Cabhan’s.”

With a hand red with Daithi’s blood and his own, Fin gripped her arm. Power shimmered at the contact. “What are you saying?”

“Cabhan healed—what’s in him helped him come out of the ashes I’d made him. And healed, he sought vengeance. He couldn’t reach my children—they were beyond him. But Daithi had sisters, and one so fair, so fresh, so sweet. He chose her, and he took her, and against her will planted his seed in her. She took her last breath when the child took his first. You are of that child. You are of her. You are of Daithi. You are his, and so, Finbar of the Burkes, you are mine. I’ve wronged you.”

Carefully, she unpinned Daithi’s brooch, one she’d made him for protection that held the image of horse, hound, hawk to represent their three children. “This is yours, as you are his. Forgive me.”

“She has your face, and I hear her in every word you speak.” He looked down at the brooch. “I still carry Cabhan’s blood.”

With a shake of her head, Sorcha closed Fin’s fingers around the copper. “Light covers the dark. I swear to you by all I ever was, if I could break the curse I put on you, I would. But it is not for me.”

She rose, keeping his hand in hers so they stood together over Daithi’s body. “Blood and death here, blood and death to follow. It is beyond me to change it. I give my faith as I gave my power to my children, to the three who came from them, to the two who would stand with them, and to you, Finbar from Daithi, who carries both the light and the dark. Cabhan’s time must end, what joined with him must end.”

“Do you know its name?”

“That is beyond me as well. End it, but not to avenge, for there only leads to more blood, more death as I have learned too well. End it, for the light, for love, and for all who come from you.”

She kissed his cheek, stepped back. “Remember, love has powers beyond all magicks. Go back to her.”

He woke unsteady, disoriented, and with Branna desperately saying his name.

She crouched over him in the thin light of dawn, pressing her hands to his wounded arm. She wept as she spoke, as she pumped warmth into the wound. Some part of him stared at her, puzzled.

Branna never wept.

“Come back, come back. I can’t heal this wound. I can’t stop the bleeding. Come back.”

“I’m here.”

She let out a sobbing breath, looked from the wound to his face with tears running down her cheeks. “Stay with me. I couldn’t reach you. I can’t stop the bleeding. I can’t— Oh, thank God, thank all the gods. It’s healing now. Just stay, stay. Look at me. Fin, look at me. Look in me.”

“I couldn’t heal him. He died with my hands on him. It’s his blood on my hands. His blood on me, in me.”

“Hush, hush. Just let me work. These are deep and vicious. You’ve lost blood, too much already.”

“You’re crying.”

“I’m not.” But her tears fell on the wound, and closed it more cleanly than her hands. “Quiet, just be quiet and let me finish. It’s healing well now. You’ll need a potion, but it’s healing well.”

“I won’t need one.” He felt steadier, stronger, and altogether clearer. “I’m fine now. It’s you who’s shaking.” He shifted up to sit, brushed his fingers over her damp cheeks. “It may be you who needs a potion.”

“Is there pain now? Test your arm. Move it, flex it, so we see if it’s as it should be.”

He did as she asked. “It’s all fine, and no, there’s no more pain.” But he glanced down, saw the sheets covered in blood. “Is all that mine?”

Though she trembled still, she rose, changed the sheets to fresh with a thought. But she went into the bath to wash her own hands, needed the time and distance to smooth out her nerves.

She came back, put on a robe.

“Here.” Fin held out one of two glasses of whiskey. “I think you need this more than I.”

She only shook her head, sat carefully on the side of the bed. “What happened?”

“You tell yours first.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “All right then. You began to thrash in your sleep. Violently. I tried to wake you, but I couldn’t. I tried to find a way into the dream, to pull you out, but I couldn’t. It was like a wall that couldn’t be scaled, no matter what I did. Then the gashes on your arm, the blood flowing from them.”

She had to pause a moment, press her hands to her face, gathered back her calm.

“I knew you were beyond where I could reach. I tried to pull you back. Tried to heal the wounds, but nothing I did stopped the blood. I thought you would die in your sleep, trapped in some dream he dragged you into, blocked me out of. You’d die because I couldn’t reach you. He’d taken you from me when it seems I’ve only gotten you back. You’d die because I wasn’t strong enough to heal you.”

“But you did just that, and I didn’t die, did I?” He slid up behind her, pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “You cried for me.”

“Tears of panic and frustration.”

But when he kissed her shoulder again, she spun around, wrapped around him, rocked. “Where did you go? Where did he take you?”

“He didn’t take me, that I’m sure of. I went back to the night Cabhan killed Daithi. I saw Sorcha. I spoke with her.”

Branna jerked back. “You spoke with her.”

“As I’m speaking to you. You look so like her.” He brushed her hair behind her back. “So very like her, though her eyes are dark, they have the same look as yours. It’s the strength in them. And the power.”

“What did she say to you?”

“I’ll tell you, but I think it’s best to tell all of us. And the truth is I could use some time to sort through it all myself.”

“Then I’ll tell them to come.”

She dressed, asked him no more questions. In truth, she needed the time herself, to settle, to put on her armor. Not since the day she’d seen the mark on him had she felt the level of fear, of grief she’d known that dawn. She asked herself if feeling so much had blocked her powers to heal him, to bring him out of the dream. And didn’t know the answers.

When she went down, she noted he’d put the kettle on, and already had coffee waiting for her.

“You’ll think you need to cook up breakfast for the lot of us,” he began. “We can fend for ourselves.”

“It keeps my hands busy. If you want to fend, scrub and chip up some potatoes. You’ve skill enough for that.”

They worked in silence until the others began to straggle in.

“Looks like a full fry’s coming,” Connor commented. “But a damned early hour for it. Had an adventure, did you?” he said to Fin.

“You could say it was.”

“But you’re okay.” Iona touched his arm as if checking for herself.

“I am, and also clever enough to turn over the duty dropped on me here to Boyle, who has a better hand with it.”

“Nearly all do.” Boyle shoved up his sleeves and joined Branna.

With the air of anticipation hanging, they set the table, brewed tea, made the coffee, sliced the bread.

When all were settled at the table, all eyes turned to Fin.

“It’s a strange tale, though some of it we know from the books. I found myself riding Baru at a hard gallop on a dirt road still hard from winter.”

He wound his way through it, doing his best to leave out no details.

“Wait now.” Boyle held up a hand. “How can you be so sure Cabhan didn’t reel you into this? The wolf attacked you, went for your throat, and our Branna couldn’t get through to help you, or to bring you back. It sounds like Cabhan’s doing.”

“I took him by surprise, I can swear to that. The wolf came at me only because I was there, and might interfere with the murder. If Cabhan had wanted to do me harm, why not lie in wait, and come at me? No, his aim was Daithi, and my coming into it something unexpected.

“I couldn’t save him, and thinking over it all, was never meant to save him.”

“He was a sacrifice,” Iona said quietly. “His death, like Sorcha’s, gave birth to the three.”

“He had eyes like yours, bright and blue. I could see, when I could see, how brave and fierce he fought. But no matter that, no matter what I could bring to help, nothing could change what was done. Cabhan’s power was great, more than he has now. Sorcha dimmed that power, though he healed. I think now some of the hunger that drives him is to gain it all back again. And to gain it, he must take it from the three.”

“He never will,” Branna said. “Tell them the rest. I only know a little of it.”

“Daithi fell. I thought I could heal his wound, but it was too late for that. He drew his last breath almost as soon as I put my hands on him. And then she came. Sorcha.”

“Sorcha?” Meara set down the coffee she’d started to drink. “She was there with you?”

“We spoke. It seemed a long time there on the bloody road, but I think it wasn’t.”

He went over it, word by word, her grief, her remorse, her strength. And then the words that changed so much inside him.

“Daithi? You come from him, your blood is mixed with his and Cabhan’s?” Shaken, Branna got slowly to her feet. “How could I have not known? How could none of us have known? It’s him you carry, it’s him and what’s in you that beats back Cabhan at every turn. But I didn’t see it. Or wouldn’t. Because I saw the mark.”

“How could you see what I myself couldn’t see in me? I saw the mark and let that weigh as heavy as you did. Heavier, I think. She knew, as she said, she knew, but didn’t believe or trust. So I think she brought me there, to see what I would do. That last test of what burned strongest in me.”

He reached in his pocket. “And in the end, she gave me this.” He opened his hand, showed the brooch. “What she made for him, she gave to me.”

“Daithi’s brooch. Some have searched for it.” Branna sat again, studied the copper brooch. “We thought it lost.”

“The three guides as one.” When Connor held out his hand, Fin gave him the brooch. “As you’re the only among us who can speak with all three. It was always yours. Waiting for you, for her to give it to you.”

“She sees Daithi die every night, she told me. Her punishment for the curse. I think the gods are harsh indeed to so condemn a grieving woman. Blood and death, she said, as you did, Branna. Blood and death follow, and so she gives us—all of us here, and her children—her faith. We must end him, but not for revenge, and I confess revenge rode high in me before this. We must end him for the light, for love, and all who will come from us. She said love had powers beyond all magicks, then sent me back. She said, ‘Go back to her,’ and I woke with you weeping over me.”

Saying nothing, Branna held out a hand to Connor, then studied the brooch. “She made this for love, as she did what the three wear. It’s strong magick here. And as we do, you must never be without it now that it’s given to you.”

“We can make him a chain for it,” Iona suggested, “like ours.”

“Yes, we’ll do that. That’s a fine idea. This all tells me why I’ve always needed so much of your blood to make a poison. It’s never had enough of Cabhan in it.”