Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(102)

“You survived.”

And the world righted again, the ground settled, the flames softened in the sky.

“How did you— I don’t care. You survived.” She pressed her lips to his face, to his hair. “Ah, God, you’re bleeding, everywhere. Rest easy, easy, my love. Help me.” She looked to Sorcha’s Brannaugh. “Please.”

“I will, of course. You’re all she told me.” She knelt down, laid hands on Fin’s side where his shirt and flesh were rent and scorched. “He is my own Eoghan to the life.”

“What?”

She squeezed Branna’s hand. “His face is my own love’s face, his heart, my own love’s heart. He was never Cabhan’s, not where it mattered.” She looked down at Fin, and touched her lips to his brow. “You are mine as you are hers. Healing will hurt a bit.”

“A bit,” Fin said through gritted teeth as pain seared him.

“Look at me. Look into me,” Branna crooned.

“I won’t. You won’t take this. It’s mine. The others?”

“Being tended right now. Damn you to bloody hell, Finbar, for making me think I’d killed you. It’s too much blood, and your shirt’s still smoldering.” She whipped it away with a flash of her hand. “Ah, God, some of these are deep. Connor!”

“I’m coming.” Limping a little, Connor swiped bloodied sweat from his face. “Meara and Boyle are healing well, though Christ, she took a blow or two. Still . . . Well, Jesus, Fin, look at the mess you’ve made of yourself.”

To solve things, he gripped Fin’s head in his hands, and pushed his way into Fin’s mind, and the pain.

“Ah fuck me,” Connor hissed.

Minutes dragged on for centuries, even when the others joined them. Before it was done, both Connor and Fin were covered in sweat, breathless, quivering.

“He’ll do.” Teagan brushed a hand down Branna’s arm. “You and my sister are very skilled healers. Some rest, some tonic, and he’ll be fine.”

“Yes, thank you. Thank you.” Branna pressed her face into Connor’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“He’s mine as well.”

“Ours,” Eamon corrected. “We came home, and we had a part in destroying Cabhan. But he played the larger role in it. So you’re ours, Finbar Burke, though you bear Cabhan’s mark.”

“No longer,” Teagan murmured. “I put the mark on Cabhan, and our mother put it on his blood, all who followed. And I think now that she and the light have taken it. For this is not Cabhan’s mark.”

“What do you mean? It’s—” Fin twisted to look, and on his shoulder, where he’d worn the mark of Cabhan since his eighteenth year, he now wore a Celtic trinity knot, the triquetra.

A sign of three.

It stunned him, more than the fire of the poison, more than the blinding flames of the white.

“It’s gone.” He touched his fingers to it, felt no pain, no dark, no stealthy pull. “I’m free of it. Free.”

“You would have given your life. Your blood,” Branna realized, as her eyes stung with pure joy. “Its death from your willing sacrifice. You broke the curse, Fin.”

She laid her hand over his, over the sign of three. “You saved yourself and, I think, Sorcha’s spirit. You saved us all.”

“Some of us did a bit as well,” Connor reminded her. But grinned at Fin. “It’s a fine mark. I’m thinking the rest of us should get tattoos for matching.”

“I like it,” Meara declared, and swiped at tears.

“We’ve more than tattoos to think of.” Boyle held down a hand. “On your feet now.” He gripped Fin’s arms hard, then embraced him. “Welcome back.”

“It’s good to be here,” he said as Iona just wrapped around him and wept a little. “But Christ, I’d like to be home. We need to finish altogether.” He kissed the top of Iona’s head. “We need to be done, and live.”

“So we will.” Eamon held out a hand, took Fin’s in a strong grip. “When I get a son, he will carry your name, cousin.”

They set the ashes on fire, more white flame, turned the earth, scattered them, salted all.

Then stood in the clearing, in peace.

“It’s done. We’re done with it.” Sorcha’s Brannaugh walked to her mother’s grave. “And she’s free. I’m sure of it.”

“We honored her sacrifice, fulfilled our destiny. And I feel home calling.” Eamon reached for Teagan’s hand. “But I think we’ll see you again, cousins.”

Connor took the white stone out of his pocket, watched it glow. “I believe it.”

“We’re the three,” Branna said, “as you are, and as they are.” She gestured to Fin, Boyle, Meara. “We’ll meet again. Bright blessings to you, cousins.”

“And to you.” Teagan looked over at their mother’s grave as she started to fade. “She favored bluebells. Thank you.”

“It’s finished.” Meara looked around the clearing. “I want to dance, and yet I’m shaky inside. What do we do now that it’s finished?”

“Have a full fry. Dawn’s breaking.” Connor pointed east, and to a ribbon of soft pink light.