Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(5)

“He bled,” Brannaugh agreed. “And he healed. He gathers again. He pulls in power from the dark. I can’t see where, how, but feel only. I can’t see if we will change what’s to come, if we can and will end him. But I see them, and know if we cannot, they will fight again.”

“So we go home, and find the way. So they who come from us won’t fight alone.”

Brannaugh thought of her children, sleeping upstairs. Safe, innocent still. And the children of her children’s children, in another time, in Mayo. Neither safe, she thought, nor innocent.

“We will find the way. We will go home. But tonight, for tonight, we’ll feast. We’ll have music. And we three will give thanks to all who came before us for the light. For the lives,” she said, with a hand light on his sister’s belly, and one on her own.

“And tomorrow.” Eamon stood. “We begin to end what took the lives of our father, of our mother.”

“Will you bide with Brannaugh? I would speak with Gealbhan now.”

“Give him only the joy today.” Brannaugh rose with her sister. “Tomorrow is soon enough for the rest. Take today for joy alone, for time is so short.”

“I will.” She kissed her sister, her brother. “Eoghan must bring his harp.”

“Be sure he will. We’ll fill the wood with music and send it flying over the hills.”

She sat again when Teagan left, and Eamon nudged her tea toward her. “Drink it. You’re pale.”

“A bit tired. Eoghan knows. I’ve talked with him, and he’s ready to leave—leave all he built here. I never thought it would be hard to go back. Never knew I would be torn in two ways.”

“Gealbhan’s brothers will tend the land here, for you and for Teagan.”

“Aye, and it’s a comfort. Not for you, the land here it’s never been for you.” Here again was sorrow and joy mixed into one. “You will stay in Mayo, whatever comes. I can’t see what we will do, Eoghan and I, the children. But Teagan will come back here, that I see clear. This is her place now.”

“It is,” he agreed. “She will ever be a dark witch of Mayo, but her home and heart are for Clare.”

“How will it be for us, Eamon, not to be together as we have been all our lives?”

His eyes, the wild blue of their father’s, looked deep into hers. “A distance in space means nothing. We are always together.”

“I’m weepy and foolish, and I dislike it very much. I hope this mood is a brief one or I might curse myself.”

“Well, you were given to tempers and sharp words toward the end of carrying young Sorcha. It may be I prefer the weeping.”

“I don’t, that’s for certain.” She drank the tea, knowing it would settle her. “I’ll add a bit more to the tonic I give Kathel and Alastar, for the journey. Roibeard does well without it yet. He’s strong.”

“He’s hunting now,” Eamon said of his hawk. “He goes farther each time. He goes north now, every day north. He knows, as we do, we’ll travel soon.”

“We will send word ahead. We will be welcome at Ashford Castle. The children of Sorcha and Daithi. The Dark Witches will be made welcome.”

“I’ll see to that.” He sat back with his own tea, smiled at her. “Hair like fire, is it?”

As he’d wanted, she laughed. “Oh, and you’ll be struck dumb and half blind, I promise you, when you meet.”

“Not I, my darling. Not I.”





2




FOR THE CHILDREN IT WAS AN ADVENTURE. THE IDEA OF a long journey, of the traveling to a new place—with the prize of a castle at the end of it, had Brin especially eager to go, to begin.

While Brannaugh packed what they’d need, she thought again of that long-ago morning, rushing to do her mother’s bidding, packing all she was told to pack. So urgent, she thought now, so final. And that last look at her mother, burning with the power left in her, outside the cabin in the woods.

Now she packed to go back, a duty, a destiny she’d always accepted. Eagerly wished for—until the birth of her first child, until that swamping flood of love for the boy who even now raced about all but feverish in his excitement.

But she had a task yet to face here.

She gathered what she needed—bowl, candle, book, the herbs and stones. And with a glance at her little boy, felt both pride and regret.

“It is time for him, for this,” she told Eoghan.

Understanding, he kissed her forehead. “I’ll take Sorcha up. It’s time she was abed.”

Nodding, she turned to Brin, called him.

“I’m not tired. Why can’t we leave now and sleep under the stars?”

“We leave on the morrow, but first there are things we must do, you and I.”

She sat, opened her arms. “First, come sit with me. My boy,” she murmured, when he crawled onto her lap. “My heart. You know what I am.”

“Ma,” he said and cuddled into her.

“I am, but you know, as I’ve never hidden it from you, what I am besides. Dark witch, keeper of magicks, daughter of Sorcha and Daithi. This is my blood. This is your blood as well. See the candle?”

“You made the candle. Ma’s make the candles and bake the cakes, and Da’s ride the horses.”