by Nora Roberts
“No, no, no!” Whipping out both sword and shield, she leaped to him, raised the shield over him to protect him from the next bolt.
The black dragon glided overhead. On his back rode Petra.
She heaved fire, scattering troops, but her eyes, those mad eyes, never left Fallon’s. Her hair, her wings flowed, black on one side, white on the other.
“You think this is over, cousin!” She shouted it, let her laugh ring out. “You think this matters? But he mattered, didn’t he, you weak, stupid bitch. He mattered to you. Oops, gone now.”
Fallon gathered her grief, let it wind with her power. Flung it into the sky.
“And me, too. Poof.”
Both Petra and the dragon vanished an instant before Fallon’s power blasted the sky, boomed across it like a comet.
“Mick. Mick.” She lifted his head into her lap. “I’ll fix it. Please. Let me fix it.” Pressing her cheek to his, she rocked.
“Fallon.” Duncan knelt beside her. “He’s gone. I’m sorry. He’s gone.”
“No. No.” She shoved Duncan back, ran her hands over Mick’s face, his hair, his chest, searching for life, for his light. “No. Stay away from me.”
But he wrapped around her, held her, as she’d once held him when he’d grieved. So she wept in Duncan’s arms on the bloody field, cradling her friend.
LIGHT FOR LIFE
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.
—Sir Thomas Browne
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
She thought she might drown in grief. She sank under the swamping waves of that grief so every breath poured in more until it saturated her heart. She barely felt it beat.
She sent for Mick’s father, but she wouldn’t have Thomas see his son lying in the mud. Instead, she took Mick to a triage tent, dismissed everyone, and washed his body herself, let her tears mix with the water as she bent to touch her lips to his.
She cleaned his clothes of mud, of blood, dressed him again, tenderly. Though her hands shook, she braided his hair.
“I like the blue,” she managed, then touched her fingers to the bracelet she’d made him so long ago. “It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”
Thomas stepped in.
She stepped back.
To honor his grief, she pushed down her own.
“I have no words,” she began as he took his son’s hand in his. “I have nothing to give you but my own sorrow, and you have enough sorrow. But I will pledge to you, take this oath that the one who took his life, his bright, joyful life, will pay for it with her own. I swear it to you.”
She started to leave him, to give him his privacy, but Thomas reached out, took her hand in turn to stop her.
“He was bright, and joyful, and brave. And so clever. From the moment of his birth, he was my star, shining. He gave his life to fight against all that’s dark and cruel and cowardly. A father should never outlive his child, but war often demands it. I would have given my life if he could have lived his in peace and freedom.”
He let out a broken sigh as he brought Mick’s hand to his cheek. “He died a warrior, a commander, a defender of the light. He deserves our pride as much as our grief.”
“He has it.”
“He loved you.”
She couldn’t push it down any longer, so the grief swelled up again. “I know. Thomas—”
He shook his head. “That love helped make him the man he became. That’s our pride. I need…” His voice wavered. “I need to take my boy home, to the forest, to the green.”
“Yes. I’ll take you.”
“You’re needed here, for the living and the dead. Those who fought to free this city need to see you as much as they need the banners to fly. I’ll make my way home with my boy. My son. I need time with him first, then we’ll make our way home.”
She moved to the opening of the tent. “I loved him, too.”
“I know it. So did he.”
Outside, the air was crisp and clear. Cleansed, Fallon thought, with the dark and cold magicks driven out. Some, like Mick, had paid for that cleansing with their lives. Those lives would be honored, and the city would be held.
And Petra, by all the gods, Petra would pay in pain and in blood.
She saw Mallick, muddied, bloodied, and straight as an arrow. They moved toward each other.
“Even in triumph, sorrow that deep cuts to the heart. He will be missed.”
“The gods demand their pounds of flesh,” she said bitterly, “their vats of blood.”
His gaze, full of patience, stayed on hers. “Victory of light over dark requires sacrifice.”
“Like my birth father, like Mick, like scores of others. I’m aware. What demands sacrifice will have it, again and again, until this is done. And I, who was chosen to order others to fight and die, will have mine.”
“To kill with a sword coated in vengeance leads to the shadows.”
“If I wasn’t meant to feel rage, grief, fury, I shouldn’t have been given a will, a heart, a mind. I’ll do what’s asked of me, Mallick. I’ll cleanse the world as I have this city. But I will have my payment.”
She looked out to see the banner flying white over the field. “The troops need to see me, and there’s work to be done yet. Thomas … he wants to take Mick home. Would you take them?”
“Yes, of course.” He laid a hand on her arm. “It’s no comfort now, but in time it will be to know Mick is part of the light.”
“No, it’s no comfort now. He’s dead. A statue of a god shines gold in the heart of the city, and another good man who loved me is dead.”
She did her duty, walked the battlefield, visited the triage tents, the mobiles, the clinics to speak to the wounded, the medicals. With her grief frozen inside her, she did her best to give comfort to those who’d lost a friend or loved one.
She checked on Laoch, found Faol Ban and Taibhse with him. And going over the alicorn from ears to tail, found Duncan had indeed healed any wounds.
With the cheers of victory ringing hollow in her head, she made her way back to her headquarters, and to her quarters. She found her father waiting for her.
Simon opened a bottle of whiskey, poured two glasses.
“Thanks, but I need a shower more than a drink.”
“Have the drink first.” He handed her the glass. “I want to say first I’m sorry about Mick. He was a good man, a good friend to you, a good soldier. He deserves us lifting a glass to him.”
Her eyes stayed as cold as fog over a frozen lake. “He deserves more.”
“Start here. I’ve spent more time than I like to think about in combat, and plenty of that time commanding others. I know what it is to lose men, as a soldier, as an officer, and what it is to lose a friend.”
Not the same, Fallon thought. Not the same. Not the same. “I didn’t feel her, didn’t see her coming, didn’t anticipate. If I had—”
“That’s bullshit. It’s understandable bullshit, but still bullshit.”
“She killed him because he mattered to me, because he loved me. I know what she is, but I didn’t see this. I wrapped my power into the spell to lock down the DUs who would slaughter us, every one of us, so I didn’t feel her coming.”
“She didn’t fight,” Simon pointed out. “Didn’t risk herself. Ask yourself why. Instead of asking yourself why Mick, ask why she didn’t strike at you, or me, your mom, your brothers, Duncan.”
“I don’t know.”
“Because you’re not thinking straight yet. It was of the moment, Fallon. It was convenient and low risk. He was with you. It was the easiest way to hurt you without putting herself on the line. She wants your pain, wants you to question yourself, blame yourself. Don’t give her what she wants.”
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t think past finding her, ending her.”
“If that takes front and center, you give her an advantage. That’s how she thinks, Fallon, and you’re smarter. Where was Allegra?”
She looked up, stu
nned she hadn’t asked herself the question. “I didn’t think past Petra, the dragon. I’ve seen the dragon fly over New York, over the shield in Scotland—but not Allegra. I didn’t think about Allegra.”
“Is she dead? Is she alive but too weak or damaged to join an attack? Is she alive and well and on other business somewhere else? Can’t know,” Simon added. “But you can know she wasn’t part of this. Petra did this on her own.”
“Yes, it matters. The answers matter. Petra said she didn’t care about losing New York, but of course she did. Of course she did,” Fallon repeated as she paced.
Now she’s thinking, Simon decided, and waited for the rest.
“She waited. She’s no soldier. She’s a killer, but not a warrior, so she waited. She must have been furious when we drove them out. She’s waiting to take a victory lap, and instead watches defeat. Of the moment, you said, and yeah, yeah, that was blind fury. Mick’s dead because she’s a killer, because, like Denzel was to Duncan, Mick was important to me. She probably stayed close all these weeks. Not close enough for me to feel her, to risk her own skin, but close enough.”
“She fears you, even though she thinks you’re weak.”
Fallon stopped. “Does she?”
“What would she have done in your place today? With the enemy trapped, defeated, helpless?”
“She’d have destroyed them all.”
“You didn’t, and she sees that as a weakness. You love, and that’s a weakness to her. She struck down someone you love to exploit that weakness.”
“She miscalculated.”
“I know it.”
“I can’t think, Dad.” Broken, she thought as she covered her face with her hands. Something broken in her. “I can’t feel past the grief and the fury under it, bubbling under it. I know what has to be done, but—”
“You need a little time.”
“I don’t have time for time. But—”
“Not all wounds are physical, Fallon. If you don’t take time, you’ll go into the next weakened. Take a couple of weeks, because love and grief aren’t weaknesses, baby. Every good commander knows when a soldier needs a couple of weeks to recoup. That includes you.”
“We need to rotate in fresh troops, leave a security force here, bring in people to help the resistance repair some of the infrastructure, others to plant in the green spaces. The Beach needs a commander, and one who can start leading some of its troops south. We need—”
“It’ll be a long list,” Simon interrupted. “Get your shower, we’ll get some other brains in on that list, get some food, and work it out. But first.”
He held up his glass, waited.
“Okay.” She let out a long breath, steadied herself. Then lifted her glass. “To Mick.”
* * *
Duncan headed the burial detail. Some would be transported back to their homes, but so many had no home other than the bases they’d migrated to. For those, he claimed a section of the park, one where the ground rose, where the trees grew thick.
It was heartbreaking, soul-searing work, and so he’d asked for volunteers rather than issuing orders for the detail. It revived him, his flagging spirit, that he had more than were needed. He split them up into groups assigned to separate the enemy dead, others to dig graves, others to make markers.
He spotted Tonia, worked his way to her. “Give yourself a break.”
“I will when you will,” she said, and kept shoveling.
“There are easier ways to dig a grave.”
“Sometimes you need to do something this way. We lost Clarence.”
“Shit.” Duncan felt his heart drop again as he thought of the boy they’d rescued from a cult, and the women who’d taken him as a son.
“And Keisha, Morris, Liah. Mick.” Tonia swiped at her face, leaned on the shovel. “Have you seen Fallon?”
“Not since … No. Colin said she’s holding, and they’re meeting now to work on reconstruction, cleanup, expansion.”
“Why aren’t you in on that?”
“I need to do this.”
“Me, too.”
With a nod, he picked up a shovel, helped her dig.
After friends, loved ones, comrades had been laid to rest, Duncan supervised the purification and burning of the enemy dead. Dusk crept in by the time he went back to the graves.
This he’d wanted to do alone.
Pulling up power, he brought the green springing through the mud, a hopeful sea of it over what he thought of as sacred ground. There would be a ceremony in the morning—even now Tonia worked on those arrangements. Words would be said, tears shed. But tonight, he’d pay his own respects.
He’d chosen this spot for the rise of land, the trees, and the rough rocks pushing tall out of the ground. Some formed wide steps, others peaks.
He’d already sketched what he wanted in his mind, and now used his magick to bring it to be.
He smoothed some of the rough. He sketched a great deal better than he sculpted, so worried a little he’d muck it up.
But he smoothed, formed, carved, etched, polished, let the image flow from him into the rock.
He chose the form of a faerie for the grace, with wings spread, hands held out to those who lay beneath her.
He drew up more, still more, until water broke through the rock, to spill gently down the steps of stone, and formed a stone pool below for it to feed. Above the pool, he carved the fivefold symbol.
Finally, he stepped back, studied his work. “Best I can do.”
He turned to leave, saw Fallon, the alicorn and wolf beside her, the owl on her arm.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I couldn’t think of any words.”
“It doesn’t need any. Look, the faeries are lighting it.”
He looked back, saw the dance of lights.
“You used Fred’s face.”
“I guess I did.” He saw it now. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s beautiful,” she repeated, and again felt tears pushing up into her throat. “It’s right. Tonia told me you might still be here, and that she and some others have the details for a ceremony in the morning. I need to walk.”
He fell into step with her, but didn’t touch her. The barrier he felt was as real as the stone he’d carved.
“You didn’t come to the meeting.”
“I needed to do this.”
“Understood. Flynn’s going to take command of The Beach, and start moving troops south.”
“You couldn’t ask for better.”
“No. He’ll be gone for weeks, maybe months. I nearly asked you to take that post, but … I wasn’t sure I could get through those weeks or months if you went away again.”
“Then why don’t you want me to touch you now?”
“I’m not sure I can get through the next minute if you do. I should have helped with the burial, the purification of the enemy dead. I knew you would take care of it, so I spared myself.”
“Stop. Damn it. You want to feel sorry for yourself right now, you’re entitled, but I took care of it because I needed to, wanted to. Some of those people died under my command, so just knock off all The One crap. We all did what we had to do, and we all lost friends today.”
It weighed on him, more stone. “Those friends knew what they risked, and took this place back with courage. You demean that by sucking up all the responsibility. You demean them.”
It sliced at her, the truth of it sliced. “That’s harsh, that’s cold.”
“Maybe, but it’s how I see it. Those men and women didn’t die for you, they died for what you represent. They died for their families, their neighbors, their futures.”
“Mick died because Petra wanted to hurt me.”
“Then let’s go get the bitch and her fucking hag of a mother.” He wanted it, could almost taste the bitter tang of their blood. “We go back to Scotland, close the shield, and we take down that dark bastard in the woods. We draw Petra and Allegra out, and finish it.”
She press
ed her face to Laoch’s neck. “It’s not time.”
“Screw that, Fallon. If not now, when?”
“I don’t know!” And that sliced, too. “I just know it’s not time. There’s more to come. I can’t—” She whirled on him, stopped. Drew a breath. “There,” she said, and pointed.
And there where Mick had fallen stood a tree of life, blooming full, branches curving upward.
“Is that my solace?” she asked.
Now he whirled on her. “It’s acknowledgment. It’s gratitude and honor.”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes, and she wanted to scream and shed them. “Yes, yes, you’re right. The fact I can’t feel that, just can’t, is another reason I need to leave.”
“Leave? Go where?”
“I need solitude, I need to restore my faith. I need a couple of weeks, Duncan, just some time alone.”
“Alone?”
“Everything you said is right, but I can’t feel it. I need to feel it again, believe it again. And I can’t lean on you until I’m sure I can stand on my own. She broke something in me, Duncan, and I need some time to heal. When she killed Denzel, you needed to leave.”
“Part of that was distance from you, but okay, yeah.”
“A couple of weeks,” she said again, and though she felt his need, stayed behind the wall she’d built. “Will you stand for me tomorrow, at the memorial?”
“You’re leaving now?”
“If I don’t, I won’t, because I want to lean on you, I want my family, my friends. But I know it won’t be time to end this until I take back what she took from me today.”
“We need to—I need to just sit the hell down with you. Take a minute.”
“I can’t. I just can’t. I have to go.”
“Where?” he demanded. “Where the hell are you going?”
“To the quiet.” She felt his hurt, his need for more from her. But couldn’t give it. She mounted Laoch. “After the quiet comes the fury, and with the fury the end. The end of dark, the end of light—this hangs in the balance. Know the fire, the famine, the rivers of blood should dark tip the scales. Know the song of peace a thousand years if the light shines true. Shine true, Duncan of the MacLeods, and you will know when the time has come.”