Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(97)

“You could walk me through that sometime.”

“I will. None of your friends were hurt, Mom. And they rescued people who were being tortured, enslaved, people who’d be executed.”

“You’re glossing it over.” Lana folded her hands together. “You fought. You fought with them. I may have channeled my power into softer things, Fallon, and done what I could to build a safe life for my children, but I’ve been in the war. I’ve seen death and caused it. Don’t think to wait until you have your father alone to say the rest.”

Lana turned to Simon. “She walks us both through.”

“You’re right.” Simon took Lana’s hand, brushed his lips over it. “Your mom’s right. Lay it out now.”

“Okay. They had fuel tanks,” she began.

She took them through it.

“They’re strong soldiers, the people of New Hope. You’d like them, Dad.”

“So your mom’s always said.”

“After the battle, after more training, after I saw the first shield through the crystal, and the dark there tried to draw me to it, that’s when the Book of Spells called me.”

The moon set before she finished telling them all of it.

“I probably left some things out, but not on purpose. I needed you to know everything because it’s not right you don’t. And not telling you makes it seem like I think you’re weak, and you’re not. I want time to just be home, like today. Just to be home. And to train and practice, to help you and the boys train and practice. Then … I’ll know when I have to go. I’ll know.”

“Where will you go?” Lana reached for her hand.

“New Hope,” Fallon and Simon said together.

Fallon smiled at him, nodded. “Yeah, New Hope. So much started and ended there. So much is waiting there. It’s where I’ll need to go.

“To New Hope,” she said as her eyes deepened. “Where the light brought them, where the signs led them, where the blood of the sire stained the ground. There to raise an army, to forge the weapons against the dark. From there to the great cities, to the rubble and the ruin, across the seas, under the earth. Betrayal, blood, lies bear bitter fruit, and some will fall along the way. With the rise of magicks, the clash of the light and the dark, the worlds tremble.”

Now Lana rose, took a small bottle from a cupboard. “Two drops,” she said.

“I don’t get queasy from visions anymore.”

“Maybe not, but you don’t usually have one after you’ve been up most of the night. Two drops. Stick out your tongue.”

Though she mentally rolled her eyes, Fallon did as she was told. Lana leaned down, kissed the top of her head.

“I know what it’s like when it comes on so fast and strong. Like being filled up and hulled out at the same time.”

On a sigh, Fallon leaned into Lana, comforted by someone who knew, really knew.

“What works in us gives so much.” Gently, Lana stroked Fallon’s hair. “And demands so much. I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to feel that power surge inside me, or how to fight. How to use everything I have, everything I am to fight. Now, because I was given time and love, I have more to fight for.”

“I didn’t mean … I saw you, through the crystal. In New York, the life you had before, the way you had to leave it. And how strong you were going forward, always going forward. In the mountains, what you did there, faced there. I watched you fight for yourself and me and others, day after day, month after month. I saw that day in New Hope.”

“I would have spared you that.”

“Why?” Fallon pulled back, eyes fierce. “I saw people who’d begun to build something good, something bright and real. Honoring their dead, celebrating life. I saw the faces of those who came to kill me. I know those faces now. I saw my birth father give his life for you, for me, and saw you strike back.”

“It was grief.”

“It was power. Power—yours and mine. How many lives did you save that day? And how many more when you, with me inside you, with his blood on you, ran, alone? Left another place, another home you loved, friends who’d become family. You took his ring, for love. You took his gun. A woman thinks of the rings, but a warrior thinks of a weapon, Mom, and even in your grief and shock, you were a warrior.”

“I had a child to protect.”

“You did. Alone, hungry, scared, you kept going.”

“I nearly gave up. You came to me.”

“You wouldn’t have given up. You never give up. I just gave you a boost when you needed one. I saw you come to the ridge above the farm, and I saw on your face something I hadn’t since you ran. I saw hope. And …”

Fallon reached out, took Simon’s hand. “I saw that hope realized in kindness, and the building of trust, and love. It’s a lesson, that trust can build between strangers, but they have to take the first step, and that’s faith.”

“When did you get so smart?” Simon asked.

She squeezed his hand, looked straight into his eyes. “I saw you kill a man who gave you no choice, though you’d given him one. He wasn’t your first, or your last. I come from warriors, my mother, my fathers. And from power and strength. From kindness. When I’m afraid I won’t be good enough, brave enough, smart enough, I think of you, what you’ve taught me, and what I’ve seen through the crystal.”