Blood Magick (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #3)(88)

“I’ll join Connor tomorrow, with the hawks, and with Kathel. It may be having me with your hound, and Connor to add more power, we’ll find what we need.”

“It should be you and I,” she realized. “He confuses me with Sorcha from time to time, and covets her still—covets you. The two of us, with Kathel. And the two of us who can join with the hound. I should’ve thought of it.”

“You think enough. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.” He drew her into bed, wrapped around her. “You’ll sleep now.”

Before she could understand and block, he kissed her forehead, and sent her into slumber.

For a time he lay beside her in a stream of pale moonlight, then he, too, began to drift into sleep.

And from sleep into dreams.

Baru’s hooves rang against the hard dirt of the road not yet thawed. He didn’t know this land, Fin thought, yet he did. Ireland. He could smell Ireland, but not his home. Not his own place in it.

The dark night, with a few pricks of stars and the wavering light of a moon that flowed in and out of clouds all closed around him.

And the moon showed a haze of red like blood. Like death.

He could smell smoke on the wind, and in the distance thought he saw the flicker of a fire. Campfire.

He wore a cloak. He could hear it snapping in the wind as they galloped—a dead run—along the ringing ground. The urgency consumed him; though he didn’t know where he rode, he knew he must ride.

Blood and death follow. The words echoed in his head so he urged more speed out of the horse, took Baru up, into flight under the red-hazed moon.

The wind rushed through his hair, whipped at his cape so the song of it filled his ears. And still, beneath it, came the bright ring of hoofbeats.

He looked down, saw the rider—bright hair streaming—covering the ground swiftly, and well ahead of those who raced behind him.

And he saw the fog swirl and rise and blanket that rider, closing him off from the rest.

Without hesitation, Fin dived down, taking his horse straight into the dirty blanket of fog. It all but choked him, so thick it spread, closing off the wind, the air. The light from the scatter of stars and swimming bloody moon extinguished like candlewicks under the squeeze of fingers.

He heard the shout, the scream of a horse—sensed the horse’s fear and panic and pain. Throwing up his hand, Fin caught the sword he brought to him, and set it to flame.

He charged forward, striking, slicing at the fog, cutting through its bitter cold, slashing a path with his flame and his will.

He saw the rider, for a moment saw him, the bright hair, the dark cape, the faintest glint from a copper brooch, from the sword he wielded at the attacking wolf.

Then the fog closed again.

Rushing forward blindly, Fin hacked at the fog, called out in hopes of drawing the wolf off the man and to him. He brought the wind, a torrent of it to tear and tatter the thick and filthy blanket that closed him in. Through the frayed ribbons of it, he saw the horse stumble, the wolf again gather to leap, and threw out power to block the attack as he charged into the battle.

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.”