Blood Magick

by Roberts, Nora

  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.”

  “Out of grief,” Fin said. “Out of grief and torment.”

  “Grief and torment?” Her dark eyes flashed at him. “These can’t balance the scales. I cursed you, and all who came between you and Cabhan, and as it is written, what I sent out into the world, has come back to me threefold. I burdened my children, and all the children who came after them.”

  “You saved them. Gave your own life for them. Your life and your power.”

  She smiled now, and though grief lived in the smile, he saw Branna in her eyes. “I held fast to that grief, as if it were a lover or a beloved child. I think it fed me through all the time. I wouldn’t believe even what I was allowed to see. Of you or in you. Even knowing not just Cabhan’s blood ran in you, I couldn’t accept truth.”

  “What truth?”

  She looked down at Daithi. “You are his as well. More his, I know now, than Cabhan’s.”

  With a hand red with Daithi’s blood and his own, Fin gripped her arm. Power shimmered at the contact. “What are you saying?”

  “Cabhan healed—what’s in him helped him come out of the ashes I’d made him. And healed, he sought vengeance. He couldn’t reach my children—they were beyond him. But Daithi had sisters, and one so fair, so fresh, so sweet. He chose her, and he took her, and against her will planted his seed in her. She took her last breath when the child took his first. You are of that child. You are of her. You are of Daithi. You are his, and so, Finbar of the Burkes, you are mine. I’ve wronged you.”

  Carefully, she unpinned Daithi’s brooch, one she’d made him for protection that held the image of horse, hound, hawk to represent their three children. “This is yours, as you are his. Forgive me.”

  “She has your face, and I hear her in every word you speak.” He looked down at the brooch. “I still carry Cabhan’s blood.”

  With a shake of her head, Sorcha closed Fin’s fingers around the copper. “Light covers the dark. I swear to you by all I ever was, if I could break the curse I put on you, I would. But it is not for me.”

  She rose, keeping his hand in hers so they stood together over Daithi’s body. “Blood and death here, blood and death to follow. It is beyond me to change it. I give my faith as I gave my power to my children, to the three who came from them, to the two who would stand with them, and to you, Finbar from Daithi, who carries both the light and the dark. Cabhan’s time must end, what joined with him must end.”

  “Do you know its name?”

  “That is beyond me as well. End it, but not to avenge, for there only leads to more blood, more death as I have learned too well. End it, for the light, for love, and for all who come from you.”

  She kissed his cheek, stepped back. “Remember, love has powers beyond all magicks. Go back to her.”

  He woke unsteady, disoriented, and with Branna desperately saying his name.

  She crouched over him in the thin light of dawn, pressing her hands to his wounded arm. She wept as she spoke, as she pumped warmth into the wound. Some part of him stared at her, puzzled.

  Branna never wept.

  “Come back, come back. I can’t heal this wound. I can’t stop the bleeding. Come back.”

  “I’m here.”

  She let out a sobbing breath, looked from the wound to his face with tears running down her cheeks. “Stay with me. I couldn’t reach you. I can’t stop the bleeding. I can’t— Oh, thank God, thank all the gods. It’s healing now. Just stay, stay. Look at me. Fin, look at me. Look in me.”

  “I couldn’t heal him. He died with my hands on him. It’s his blood on my hands. His blood on me, in me.”

  “Hush, hush. Just let me work. These are deep and vicious. You’ve lost blood, too much already.”

  “You’re crying.”

  “I’m not.” But her tears fell on the wound, and closed it more cleanly than her hands. “Quiet, just be quiet and let me finish. It’s healing well now. You’ll need a potion, but it’s healing well.”

  “I won’t need one.” He felt steadier, stronger, and altogether clearer. “I’m fine now. It’s you who’s shaking.” He shifted up to sit, brushed his fingers over her damp cheeks. “It may be you who needs a potion.”

  “Is there pain now? Test your arm. Move it, flex it, so we see if it’s as it should be.”

  He did as she asked. “It’s all fine, and no, there’s no more pain.” But he glanced down, saw the sheets covered in blood. “Is all that mine?”

  Though she trembled still, she rose, changed the sheets to fresh with a thought. But she went into the bath to wash her own hands, needed the time and distance to smooth out her nerves.

  She came back, put on a robe.

  “Here.” Fin held out one of two glasses of whiskey. “I think you need this more than I.”

  She only shook her head, sat carefully on the side of the bed. “What happened?”

  “You tell yours first.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “All right then. You began to thrash in your sleep. Violently. I tried to wake you, but I couldn’t. I tried to find a way into the dream, to pull you out, but I couldn’t. It was like a wall that couldn’t be scaled, no matter what I did. Then the gashes on your arm, the blood flowing from them.”

  She had to pause a moment, press her hands to her face, gathered back her calm.

  “I knew you were beyond where I could reach. I tried to pull you back. Tried to heal the wounds, but nothing I did stopped the blood. I thought you would die in your sleep, trapped in some dream he dragged you into, blocked me out of. You’d die because I couldn’t reach you. He’d taken you from me when it seems I’ve only gotten you back. You’d die because I wasn’t strong enough to heal you.”

  “But you did just that, and I didn’t die, did I?” He slid up behind her, pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “You cried for me.”

  “Tears of panic and frustration.”

  But when he kissed her shoulder again, she spun around, wrapped around him, rocked. “Where did you go? Where did he take you?”

  “He didn’t take me, that I’m sure of. I went back to the night Cabhan killed Daithi. I saw Sorcha. I spoke with her.”

  Branna jerked back. “You spoke with her.”

  “As I’m speaking to you. You look so like her.” He brushed her hair behind her back. “So very like her, though her eyes are dark, they have the same look as yours. It’s the strength in them. And the power.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “I’ll tell you, but I think it’s best to tell all of us. And the truth is I could use some time to sort through it all myself.”

  “Then I’ll tell them to come.”

  She dressed, asked him no more questions. In truth, she needed the time herself, to settle, to put on her armor. Not since the day she’d seen the mark on him had she felt the level of fear, of grief she’d known that dawn. She asked herself if feeling so much had blocked her powers to heal him, to bring him out of the dream. And didn’t know the answers.

  When she went down, she noted he’d put the kettle on, and already had coffee waiting for her.

  “You’ll think you need to cook up breakfast for the lot of us,” he began. “We can fend for ourselves.”

  “It keeps my hands busy. If you want to fend, scrub and chip up some potatoes. You’ve skill enough for that.”

  They worked in silence until the others began to straggle in.

  “Looks like a full fry’s coming,” Connor commented. “But a damned early hour for it. Had an adventure, did you?” he said to Fin.

  “You could say it was.”

  “But you’re okay.” Iona touched his arm as if checking for herself.

  “I am, and also clever enough to turn over the duty dropped on me here to Boyle, who has a better
hand with it.”

  “Nearly all do.” Boyle shoved up his sleeves and joined Branna.

  With the air of anticipation hanging, they set the table, brewed tea, made the coffee, sliced the bread.

  When all were settled at the table, all eyes turned to Fin.

  “It’s a strange tale, though some of it we know from the books. I found myself riding Baru at a hard gallop on a dirt road still hard from winter.”

  He wound his way through it, doing his best to leave out no details.

  “Wait now.” Boyle held up a hand. “How can you be so sure Cabhan didn’t reel you into this? The wolf attacked you, went for your throat, and our Branna couldn’t get through to help you, or to bring you back. It sounds like Cabhan’s doing.”

  “I took him by surprise, I can swear to that. The wolf came at me only because I was there, and might interfere with the murder. If Cabhan had wanted to do me harm, why not lie in wait, and come at me? No, his aim was Daithi, and my coming into it something unexpected.

  “I couldn’t save him, and thinking over it all, was never meant to save him.”

  “He was a sacrifice,” Iona said quietly. “His death, like Sorcha’s, gave birth to the three.”

  “He had eyes like yours, bright and blue. I could see, when I could see, how brave and fierce he fought. But no matter that, no matter what I could bring to help, nothing could change what was done. Cabhan’s power was great, more than he has now. Sorcha dimmed that power, though he healed. I think now some of the hunger that drives him is to gain it all back again. And to gain it, he must take it from the three.”

  “He never will,” Branna said. “Tell them the rest. I only know a little of it.”

  “Daithi fell. I thought I could heal his wound, but it was too late for that. He drew his last breath almost as soon as I put my hands on him. And then she came. Sorcha.”

  “Sorcha?” Meara set down the coffee she’d started to drink. “She was there with you?”

  “We spoke. It seemed a long time there on the bloody road, but I think it wasn’t.”

  He went over it, word by word, her grief, her remorse, her strength. And then the words that changed so much inside him.

  “Daithi? You come from him, your blood is mixed with his and Cabhan’s?” Shaken, Branna got slowly to her feet. “How could I have not known? How could none of us have known? It’s him you carry, it’s him and what’s in you that beats back Cabhan at every turn. But I didn’t see it. Or wouldn’t. Because I saw the mark.”

  “How could you see what I myself couldn’t see in me? I saw the mark and let that weigh as heavy as you did. Heavier, I think. She knew, as she said, she knew, but didn’t believe or trust. So I think she brought me there, to see what I would do. That last test of what burned strongest in me.”

  He reached in his pocket. “And in the end, she gave me this.” He opened his hand, showed the brooch. “What she made for him, she gave to me.”

  “Daithi’s brooch. Some have searched for it.” Branna sat again, studied the copper brooch. “We thought it lost.”

  “The three guides as one.” When Connor held out his hand, Fin gave him the brooch. “As you’re the only among us who can speak with all three. It was always yours. Waiting for you, for her to give it to you.”

  “She sees Daithi die every night, she told me. Her punishment for the curse. I think the gods are harsh indeed to so condemn a grieving woman. Blood and death, she said, as you did, Branna. Blood and death follow, and so she gives us—all of us here, and her children—her faith. We must end him, but not for revenge, and I confess revenge rode high in me before this. We must end him for the light, for love, and all who will come from us. She said love had powers beyond all magicks, then sent me back. She said, ‘Go back to her,’ and I woke with you weeping over me.”

  Saying nothing, Branna held out a hand to Connor, then studied the brooch. “She made this for love, as she did what the three wear. It’s strong magick here. And as we do, you must never be without it now that it’s given to you.”

  “We can make him a chain for it,” Iona suggested, “like ours.”

  “Yes, we’ll do that. That’s a fine idea. This all tells me why I’ve always needed so much of your blood to make a poison. It’s never had enough of Cabhan in it.”

  With a half laugh, Fin decided to eat the eggs that had gone cold on his plate. “Ever practical.”

  “You’re one of us,” Iona realized. “I mean, you’re a cousin. A really, really distant one, but you’re a cousin.”

  “Welcome to the family then.” Connor lifted his tea, toasted. “So it may be written, at some point, that the Cousins O’Dwyer, and their friends and lovers, sent Cabhan the black to hell.”

  “I’ll raise a glass to that.”

  As Fin did, Boyle gave Iona’s hand a squeeze. “I say we all raise them tonight, at the pub, and the new cousin stands the first round.”

  “I’m fine with that, and the second’s on you.” Fin lifted his own glass, then drank the coffee that had gone cold as his eggs.

  And still he felt a warmth in him.

  19

  FIN WORE THE BROOCH ON A CHAIN, FELT THE WEIGHT of it. But when he looked in the mirror, he saw the same man. He was what he ever was.

  And while the brooch lay near his heart, the mark still rode on his shoulder. Knowing his blood held both dark and light didn’t change that, didn’t change him.

  It wouldn’t change what would be in only a few weeks’ time.

  He ran his businesses, worked the stables, the school, spent time in his own workshop trying to perfect spells that could be useful to his circle.

  He walked or rode with Branna, along with the dogs, hoping to lure out Cabhan, hoping they would find the way to dig out that last piece.

  But the demon’s name eluded them as February waned and March bloomed.

  “Going back to the cave may be the only way left.” Fin said it casually as he and Connor watched a pair of young hawks circle above a field.

  “There’s time yet.”

  “Time’s passing, and he waits as we wait.”

  “And you’re weary of the waiting, that’s clear enough. But going back’s not the answer, and you can’t know you’ll learn the name if you did.”

  Connor drew the white stone out of his pocket, the one Eamon of the first three had given him. “We all wait, Fin. Three and three and three, for I can’t find Eamon in dreams now. I can’t find him, and still I know he’s there. Waiting as we are.”

  Fin could admire Connor’s equanimity—and curse it. “Without the name, what do we wait for?”

  “For what comes, and that’s always been an easier matter for me than you. Tell me this, when it’s done, when we finish it, and I believe we will, what then for you?”

  “There are places in the world I haven’t been.”

  Temper flashed, and Connor was a man slow to temper. “Your place is here, with Branna, with us.”

  “My home is here, and I can’t deny it. But Branna and I can’t have the life we wished for, so we take what we can while we can. We can’t have the life you’ll have with Meara, or Boyle with Iona. It’s not meant.”

  “Ah, bollocks. She thinks too much for her own good, and you blame yourself for things beyond your doing. The past may be written, but the future isn’t, and two such clever people should be able to suss out how to make one together.”

  “Having Daithi’s blood in me doesn’t change having Cabhan’s, or bearing his mark. If we win this, and destroy him, the demon, his lair, what’s to say I won’t be pulled as he was, a year from now, or ten? I know just how dark and sweet that pull can be, and Branna knows it’s in me. We could never have children who would carry that same burden.”

  “If, can’t, doesn’t.” Connor dismissed all with a wave of his hand. “More bollocks. The pair of you stare into the hard side of things.”

  “A witch’s dying curse may be regretted now, but its power holds. It may be one of the places I have
n’t been holds the key to breaking it. I won’t stop looking.”

  “Then when this is done, we’ll all of us look. Think of all the free time on our hands once we dispatch Cabhan.”

  Fin smiled, but thought there were lives to be lived. “Let’s keep our minds on dispatching him. And tell me, what sort of house are you thinking of building for yourself and your bride. Something such as . . .”

  With a twirl of his finger, Fin floated an image of a glittery faerie palace over a silver lake.

  With a laugh, Connor twirled his own. “To start, perhaps more this.” And turned the palace into a thatched-roof cottage in a field of green.

  “Likely suits you better. And what does Meara have to say about it?”

  “That she doesn’t want to think about it until Iona and Boyle are wed, and their house finished. At that time, as she’s giving up her flat on the first of the month in any case, we thought it might be with Boyle and Iona tucked in their new place, we might give Branna her quiet and tuck ourselves into the flat over your garage.”

  “You could, indeed. As long as you like, but I think your fingers will be itching to make your own.”

  “Well, it may be I’ve drawn up a few ideas on it. I think—”

  He broke off as his phone signaled a text.

  “It’s Branna. No, no, nothing’s wrong,” he said as Fin lunged to his feet. “She’d like us to come back is all, has something she wants to talk to us and Iona about. Hmm.” Connor sent back a quick response. “Witches only, it seems, and I wonder what that’s about.”

  “She’s been brewing on something—in her head,” Fin added. “She may be finished on the brewing of it.”

  And with Connor, he called the hawks.

  Branna continued to work as she waited. She had indeed finished brewing on it, and felt the time had come to ask if the others were willing or thought the idea had merit.

  She’d studied the means to do it, had gone over the ritual needed more times than she cared to count—as it was a great deal to ask, of all.

  Was it another answer? she wondered. Another step needed for what they all hoped was the end?