Soul Fire

by R. F. Long

  “Not yet, perhaps, but it will. Let’s get you inside. The others will be coming. She must have left him here to try just such a thing.”

  “Wait! The milk, the iron,” she protested and pulled free of him.

  He didn’t stop her. Perhaps he didn’t have the strength to do that so close to the metal implements. She plucked the cartons from the car, relieved they hadn’t burst, and then gathered the iron pieces up, dropping the now blood-splattered items and the milk into the box. She lodged it under her uninjured arm. Daire eyed her warily.

  His expression tightened as she came nearer. “Inside quickly,” he hissed. “Can you leave the box by the door?”

  The iron affected him too. His face turned pale and stricken. She tried to hurry ahead. Her injured arm started to ache. Her blood pounded through her body and icy pincers closed at the base of her neck, digging uncomfortably in through her skin, her nerves.

  “How did he do it?” she asked. “How did he pretend to be you? I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I thought I had killed you, Daire.”

  He squeezed her shoulder on the uninjured side, a comforting gesture of support, of trust. “I suppose I was just lucky I didn’t hear the car then.”

  Rowan glanced back to find him smiling, a tight, pained smile, but a genuine one, nonetheless.

  Daire sat her down at the kitchen table and pulled back the slashed material of her blouse to reveal the open wound underneath. He tried not to think about what had almost happened, how close he had come to seeing her in Cathal’s grip. He needed to focus now on what was, not on what could have been.

  Rowan winced as he touched the reddened, swollen skin around it, but he could detect no infection. If anything her blood seemed alive, the heat of it scalding his tentative fingertips. He busied himself filling a bowl with water, taking a clean cloth from the drawer. As twilight deepened outside, he could sense the iron pieces in the box by the door as if they were gleaming with a brighter light than anything else. Anything except Rowan.

  Cold iron, ancient forgings created over a low heat. The smiths who had wrought those various shapes had been masters, keeping the innate power of the metal while utilising its strength and its magical powers. Shoe a horse with cold iron and no Sidhe, Dark or Light, would ever come near it. No fae creature could torment it, ride it through the night to exhaustion. Nail it over the door of your home and you created an impenetrable charm, binding the Sidhe either inside or out, barring the threshold. Rowan’s grandfather had done a fine job on this house. Daire felt the prickling of iron every time he walked in or out, whenever he neared the windows. As Rowan’s guest, he could bypass them, but if they had been made with cold iron, he would be trapped. Once he went home, all she needed to do was nail a few horseshoes up and even if he wanted to, he could never find sanctuary here again.

  After today, after seeing him become her attacker, that might well be her desire.

  But Rowan pulled away from him and picked up one of the containers of milk. She poured some into a glass and passed it to him. Without hesitation he drained it. The drink helped a little, but knowledge of the iron so close quickly depleted the meagre energy it gave him.

  “What did you find besides horseshoes?” he asked, sensing more empowered objects but unable to identify them. His breath tightened in his chest. The proximity of iron was bad enough, but this iron—everything seemed to drain him, scalding the air around him.

  “I asked the antiques dealer for anything iron. There’s an old cross, and an actual iron iron.” She laughed in spite of the pain, her excitement draining her shock just a little. Such a simple thing to feel joy over, and yet justified under the circumstances. “The ones you filled with hot water. Then there are some bowls. Why would anyone need iron bowls?”

  Because any fae creature who drank milk from iron bowls would die an agonising death, he thought. And they did so love an offering of milk. He shuddered at the thought. She poured more milk into the glass, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it now. His head swam. Was he also in shock? Considering what he had almost been witness to.

  “I’ll tell you later,” he muttered and finished her bandage.

  Blood speckled his hands and stung his skin. He studied the markings, holding up his fingers to the light. The room lurched around him, and Rowan leaped to her feet as he sagged forwards. Sluggishly, he drew his arms up to the table and plunged them into the bowl of water, to wash them clear. The sensation passed. He was breathing hard, his throat harsh.

  Rowan stood over him nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

  “What is it? You looked like you were about to collapse. Was it the iron?”

  He glanced towards the box by the door. Her blood covered the iron. She had shaken off his enchantments when they first met. And now, the box crackled with energy, and she glowed with it. Not the rich warmth of the soul fire he had already seen in her, but the sparkling explosion of sap bursting from a fresh log on a fire.

  “It’s the iron in your blood,” he realised. “There’s too much, saturating it.”

  “Haemochromatosis,” she replied, so matter-of-factly that it stole his breath. Though he did not know the word, he could guess what it meant. He couldn’t believe it, but it all became so clear to him with that single alien word. “It’s hereditary. My body produces extra iron, but I won’t require treatment for years, if at all. Daire, are you okay?”

  A Blood Witch, his people called them. And prized them. To the Seelie Sidhe they were almost equals, allies without rival. To the Unseelie… Dread clawed at his guts. If Aynia found out, if she realised, she would take Rowan, no doubt about it, but not to kill her. Rather she would use the girl like a self-charging power source, the blood of a Blood Witch the most fearsome weapon of the Unseelie Court, the soul fire of such an individual a pool of vast power to draw on.

  “It wasn’t just the cold iron that destroyed Cathal.” He took her hands, holding them delicately, as if handling a vat of Greek Fire. “It would have hurt him, but—Rowan, it was your blood on the iron. Your blood with its excess of iron combined with the cold iron and all its native properties… I have to get you away from here.”

  “It’s too late. The sun has set. But I don’t understand.”

  “Was there ever talk of witches in your family line?” he asked, framing his tone with patience. “Wise women? Fairy doctors? Healers? Herbalists?”

  She raised her eyes to the heavens. “Well, why not? There are Sidhe and fae and all the other monsters of legend stalking around here. Why shouldn’t I be one too?”

  His eyes narrowed, irritation at her self-deprecation slicing through him. “You are no monster.”

  She jerked back, freeing herself and folding her arms tightly. Pointedly, she turned her back on him. Her shoulders shook as she struggled to control her temper. Clearly she failed because she spun back, her expression furious.

  “No monster? My blood kills the Sidhe. Dear God, Daire, what does that mean for you? What does it mean for us?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Daire could only stare at her. What did it mean for them? It meant nothing for them. How could it?

  Guilt smeared itself across her heart-shaped face. She threw her hand over her mouth but it was too late. Dismay made her stagger back a step or two and she bumped into the table, leaving her with nowhere else to run.

  Daire caught her arms, pinning one on either side of her, pressing her palms against the rough grain of the table. Burying his face in the curve of her neck, he inhaled the fragrance that clung to her, as familiar now to him as his own scent. Forbidden and intoxicating, maddening, Rowan.

  She turned, trying to pull away from him, but he was not going to release her, not now. He seized her, and his mouth claimed hers, thrusting his tongue deep inside to silence her half-hearted protests.

  He knew this was insanity, stupidity of the highest order, but he couldn’t stop himself. No, he didn’t want to stop himself.

  Warmt
h built to an inferno, raging beneath his skin, and deep inside him the power of the Unseelie Sidhe uncoiled, a consciousness Aynia had awoken deep inside him. It grew, and he struggled against it, realising, even as he gave up strength to combat this new assault, that his body was betraying him, was falling beneath the spell of the human and the pull of the Unseelie.

  Rowan reacted beneath his body, as captivated as he was by the physical sensations, her hips rising to meet his, pressing against his hardness. Her arms strained to be free, to wrap their pale lengths around him, entwine and ensnare him. She didn’t seem to understand for a second the danger into which she threw herself on a regular basis.

  But he was not going to let her go free. He wanted to hold her, to keep her safe and secure forever. Safe from harm, and safe from the harm she might do. To let her go would be to let her stumble into danger yet again. He needed her, needed to hold her. To possess her.

  The images Aynia had planted in his mind flared like afterimages. Rowan naked before him, Rowan calling his name, begging him, for what he did not know, but right now he didn’t care. The Unseelie inside him reared its head, the thing he thought he could control.

  Fool that he was, he tried once more, pushing away the darkness and trying to rein in his stampeding emotions. The only thing he knew was that he wanted her to be his forever. Not as a lover—Aynia had been his lover and look where that had brought him. He could never take a human as a lover. No, the Unseelie part of him wanted Rowan as a possession, his slave to dance to his whim, a font of power and soul fire eternally at his disposal.

  He felt himself teeter on the edge, clinging to the light of the Summer Court, the values of logic and emotionless control he held so high, the virtues that might one day see him saved. But his tenuous grip fumbled to hold on, because Rowan’s presence eroded the foundations of his barriers and sent them tumbling down.

  He saw himself as Aynia would make him, consumed by shadows and fire, a creature with a care for no one but himself. He saw himself released to fulfil his need to kill, to maim and destroy, to unleash the beast within him that made him such an effective soldier for the Seelie Court. He was a killer, professional perhaps, but a killer nonetheless, created by the Court in which he believed so fervently, the Court which had trained him to fight and kill for hundreds of years, his skills perfectly honed so he could fulfil his duty, a duty he had readily followed.

  But duty and honour meant nothing to him any more. They were the very things keeping him from Rowan, holding him back from her and as an Unseelie Sidhe he would need to do that no longer. She could be his forever.

  He wanted her to be his.

  Daire tried to shake the thoughts away, but instead he just saw Rowan, her bright eyes round with growing fear, the desire inside them melting away into tears which trickled down her cheeks, catching the light so they shone like crystal.

  Those nightmare scenes had been bad enough, but almost losing her to Cathal…

  Blood Witch or not, with lethal iron running through her veins, in her own right she was more than he could stand. She would never succumb to an enchantment; she would not be taken in by illusions, not if she wasn’t willing. The desires of a Sidhe lover might inspire her yearning, but they couldn’t overcome her.

  So if she loved him, if she truly saw a future for them where he could not, then it was real. It was love.

  Daire cried out and threw himself back. The chair behind him clattered across the kitchen floor.

  “Daire? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Why not have her then?” Aynia’s voice thundered inside his head. “If you want her, take her. She’s only a human. Even Blood Witches can be controlled if you’re strong enough. And you are strong, Daire, if you would only allow yourself to embrace that strength, to see it for what it is. So take her. Make her yours. Become like me, Daire. One of us, with your own slave to give you power beyond power. We could rule the Unseelie Court together. Take her, use her, make her yours and give in to the shadows inside.”

  “No!” He threw himself away from Rowan, his shoulders crashing against the cabinets, glass and crockery smashing around him. He had to force Aynia from his mind, to free himself from her. But she was so strong now, too strong, as if she was already tapping into Rowan’s powers, feeding off the Blood Witch’s soul fire as she had tried to incite him to do.

  Rowan was in mortal danger and not just from the Dark Sidhe anymore. From him too. He had to get away from her, before Aynia could act through him again, twist his own desire to lust and make him do something unspeakable.

  “Please!” Rowan called. “Daire, please…”

  Daire dived towards the door and flung it open, throwing himself out into the night. The Unseelie were waiting, implacable in their patience, smug in their triumph.

  “I’ll never let you have her,” he screamed at Aynia’s slender form as it coalesced out of the smoke and shadows, out of the dark in the midst of her ranks of guards, her subject liegemen, her slaves. Sidhe who had once been just like him. “I’ll die first.”

  Aynia smiled, a brief little twist of her full mouth which chilled his heart and sliced through the knot in his stomach. “Well, that can be arranged, of course.”

  Lorcan seized him, kicking his legs out from under him. The Dark Sidhe pinned him to the ground, slamming a foot to his back and pressing Daire’s face into the dirt.

  “Now?” He sounded hungry, and jubilant, unable to quite believe that the moment which he longed for had finally come. “His bitch killed Cathal. He probably told her how. Give me his death, Aynia. Now!”

  Daire closed his eyes, ready for the blade, ready for the end. So be it. If it would protect Rowan, so be it.

  Aynia sighed, as if it was all too tiresome for words to deal with at the moment, and she could face such trials no longer. “Very well. We have a greater prize than him now.”

  Daire heard the ring of Lorcan’s blade as he unsheathed it, felt the cool bite of its top at the back of his neck. He welcomed it. Stranded here, or endangering Rowan, he would be destroyed either way. A slow and gradual fading or a crumbling away of the restraint he held so dear. The temptation the mortal woman represented was just too great and he would never be strong enough to resist her. And Aynia would just wait for him to put a foot wrong.

  This was better, quick and clean. A soldier’s death. He had ever been a soldier. Lived it, breathed it. That life was the one for which he had been born. He did not regret a moment of it, no matter what Aynia tried to make him believe. He was a guardian, not a murderer. He would finally die with honour.

  A thud sounded above him, the solid and comprehensive sound of something hard being struck with force by something even harder. Lorcan fell sideways, the sword toppling away as he did so. The iron landed on the ground next to Daire’s face and he scrambled back from its cold fire.

  Small hands, warm with life and inner vitality, seized him. Rowan. Of course it was Rowan. She would never just stay in the house, remain in her sanctuary and do what he told her. He realised that now. It wasn’t in her nature. She could not sit back and let someone else suffer for her. She fought her own battles, just as he did.

  She tugged at him with her free hand. The other brandished three horseshoes like throwing knives.

  “Get back inside!” she commanded.

  How could he help but obey when she came to his aid like a shield maiden of legend? He staggered to his feet, reeling like a drunk. Aynia’s magic closed around him, crushing him, grinding him down beneath her will. She had grown stronger, impossibly so in this place of iron. Aynia had found a way to make her powers grow.

  Daire’s knees buckled and Aynia pressed him into the ground. Instead of running, he could barely find the strength to crawl. Rowan’s hand clung to his, dragging him until she tumbled him through the door and he sprawled on the tiles of the kitchen floor, gasping like a landed fish. The weight lifted once he fell past the iron wards, the pressure gone, though his crushed ribs and bruised body st
ill ached from the ill-treatment. He was back inside Rowan’s house. He could feel the surrounding iron deadening his senses, but he welcomed it. Aynia had no power here.

  Daire rolled on to his back, stared up at Rowan who stood above him in the doorway. Relief coloured her face, triumph and satisfaction in a job well done. And something else, something which lingered behind the relief and was so much more powerful it made him tremble to see it. He tried to push himself up on his elbows, tried to say something, though whether he should rebuke her or thank her, he didn’t know.

  Aynia surged from the darkness behind the human girl, like a bank of fog billowing out of nowhere. She coalesced right beside Rowan, her features distorted with rage, shadows coiling around her.

  Rowan saw the warning on Daire’s face and turned. But she moved too late. Her feet faltered on the threshold, outside the doorstep of the house, outside the protection of her own hearth and the wards of iron riddled through the building. She was still holding the horseshoes, but Aynia’s fingers closed on her other arm like a vice. Digging into her skin, she pulled Rowan to her. The horseshoes clattered on the tiles as Rowan’s hand spasmed involuntarily, her fingers flaring out with the sudden pain.

  Aynia dug her fingers deeper, burrowing into the wound on Rowan’s arm. The young woman’s mouth distorted with agony, stretching wide in a silent scream she could not find the strength to voice. Aynia smiled like a demon and released her spell.

  Rowan ignited with soul fire, her body aglow, illuminating the night like a Beltane fire. And Aynia drank that power in, feeding and absorbing the energy. Great gulps of light poured into the Dark Sidhe’s body, wave upon wave of soul fire, draining Rowan until at last the light dimmed. Rowan sagged in Aynia’s grip, unconscious, sapped of her life force.

  Aynia glittered with power. It sparkled in her hair like a sprinkling of frost in morning sun. Her eyes caught twin stars in their depths while her skin glowed with moonlight. Daire struggled to his feet, staggered forwards and Aynia watched him like an insect crawling before a goddess.