Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(105)

All through the spring, the blacksmith’s anvil rang. It wasn’t plowshares into swords—they needed to plow—but there was plenty of scrap metal, and a witch and alchemist who worked in the blistering heat of the forge to strengthen that metal.

Others melted metal to make bullets, and taught others how it was done.

Through the summer, into the fall, and to the first frost after her sixteenth birthday, Fallon taught and trained, conjured and brewed.

The soldier in her father watched her forge herself, as the smithy forged steel, into a weapon.

Sometimes with her father, sometimes with her mother—neither would let her go alone as yet—she flew on Laoch for supplies. Magickal and military.

But she went alone—what they didn’t know wouldn’t worry them—through the crystal deep at night to study unfamiliar land, to walk places on her maps she considered strategic.

Once she’d slipped through to stand near the rubble of a memorial for a once-great president. Cloaked in darkness she listened to gunfire, explosions, watched a trio of small tornadoes whirl over the city spitting black lightning.

And the Dark Uncanny who winged by like bats.

Why, she wondered, did those who wanted to govern, who surely wanted to rebuild the city that had once held all those traditions and governance, strike and fear the magicks that would help them? It made no sense, it had no strategy.

How many of her kind had they locked away, had they “tested,” tormented? Killed. Because they were different.

How did they justify hunting people down, even children?

And by doing so, they fought two wars—against the dark and the light—so their city, their capital remained a battleground.

While marauders roamed free, while violent cultists tortured and killed the innocent.

“This city is dead,” she said aloud. She could taste it in the smoke. “It won’t ever be what it was, what it might have been. And how much blood will fall because of people like you, people who fear and hate, when we rise up and fight back.

“And we will.” She put a hand on the hilt of her sword. “We will.”

She thought of her family, her neighbors, the sacrifice to come. Of New Hope, what courage and community could build—and lose.

“We will,” she repeated.

She supposed it was because New Hope came formed in her mind that she went there back through the crystal instead of home again.

For the second time she and Duncan drew swords. And for a second time, as dark covered both, steel met steel.

And as it rang, light burst, flooded them both for two heartbeats.

He swore, eased back. “This is getting to be a habit.”

Disoriented, a little dizzy, she struggled for dignity. “Maybe you’re just always in the way. What are you doing out here?”

“Security detail. What are you doing out here?”

She wasn’t entirely sure where here was, so evaded. “Just checking.”

She could smell the woods, and now that her vision adjusted after that burst of light, see them beyond a thin trickle of snow.

The shadow of a building, other structures—greenhouses. And a garden with … winter cabbage, and kale she identified by scent.

Beyond it a cornfield rustling dry with the first winds of winter.

The community garden, she realized. The cornfield where her father died. Murdered.

She took a step toward it.

Duncan grabbed her arm. “Hold on.”

It felt like the light, she thought, that blast when his hand gripped her. She shoved it off.

“I want to see.”

She walked over a dusting of snow.

As she did, she could see it, feel it. High summer, bright sun, music, color, smoking grills, the garden thriving.

Gunfire, screams.

“Someone died here, just here.” She looked down at the ground. “A woman, a witch, shielding a child.”

“Twelve people died,” Duncan told her. “Twelve of our people died, inside minutes. It only took minutes. Twenty-four wounded, some of those were kids.”

She walked to the cornfield. “My father died here.” Crouched down, laid her hand on the ground. “His brother and his brother’s bitch. They rose up there.” She pointed. “Wing tips scorched, but the edges like blades. A gift from the dark.”

“They did blood sacrifices up in the mountains of PA—some bad shit. Eddie, Poe, and Kim were up there with your mother and father, and they’ve told us what went down. My father died in the Doom. Mom put his name on the memorial tree.” Duncan gestured toward it. “Your father’s up there, too.”

She looked toward the tree. The stars on it shimmered quietly in the thin snow. “Will you show me?”

He walked her over, picked out the star with Max Fallon on it. “I don’t know who put it up. I never thought to ask.”

“It doesn’t matter who. It matters you honor the dead.”

“Is this why you’re here? You wanted to see this.”

“No.” But she reached out, brushed her fingertips over the star with her father’s name. “I didn’t mean to come.”

“Wires crossed?”

She looked at him in the shimmer of stars. He’d grown taller since she’d seen him last, and had a dark stubble over his cheeks. He hadn’t bothered with a hat so the snow fell over his hair, as shaggy and unkempt as before.