Нора Робертс - The Becoming

The way his tail whipped, she took it as a hell, yeah.

He landed gracefully, and still the ground shook. Then he turned his head so his eyes looked into hers.

“I want to go see Nan, and Sedric if he’s there, but I wanted to fly first. Wanted this.” She laid a hand on his head.

Lonrach dipped a wing so Bollocks could run up it and onto his back. Breen did the same.

“Wherever you want,” she murmured, and he rose up.

She saw Harken raise a hand to wave up at her.

They soared over the green, over the bay, over cottages and bored sheep. She saw her father’s grave below and sent her thoughts to him.

“They’re still there, trapped.” She studied the ruins below. “We have to find a way.”

She’d talk to her grandmother about it.

She thought about asking Lonrach to fly south. She wanted to see the village there, how much of the Prayer House they’d razed, but when he veered off, she realized she’d thought of somewhere else.

The forest, the stream, the waterfall. The portal.

Pulled there, she thought now, without fully knowing it. But pulled so the dragon was pulled.

And little licks of fear slid cold over her skin as they flew closer. “Do you feel it, too?”

Because he trembled, Breen wrapped her arms around Bollocks.

She saw Cróga circling, so Keegan must be there. At the portal.

Checking. The seal needed to be checked, of course. Guarded well, because …

She saw Keegan and other Fey below. Some horses. Sedric, silver hair gleaming.

She arrowed down, wind rushing into her face as Keegan looked up. She caught the flicker of irritation, ignored it as both she and Bollocks jumped down.

“I’ve too much to do to—”

“They’re at the portal, on the other side.” She snapped it out. “Trying to open it again. Can you feel it?”

She snatched his hand. “Feel it now.”

Through her, he did. “It’s holding. We knew they’d try, and it’s holding.”

“Yes, but …”

“It holds, Breen.”

“There’s blood, blood in the water. Demon blood, and next it will be Fey, a sacrifice of their own, as they have no more of ours. For now. And it is now. Happening now.”

“What do you see?”

“The blood, so much blood. Yseult wading in it, and the sleep snakes wound around her shoulders like a scarf. She points. An elf, but he’s not quick enough, and the others drag him to her. The snakes, they strike and strike, and he screams and screams.”

“Enough,” Keegan said when she covered her ears with her hands. “Enough now.”

“No, no, no. She takes the knife, plunges it into his throat. Blood, more blood. It gushes into the water. Her hands, painted with it. But the seal holds.

“He’s not there, but he watches. Odran watches from his tower. And she falls to her knees in the blood and the water when he slaps out with power. Blood on her face now, her own. He turns his back on her, and goes inside. And outside in the storm he brings, she bleeds.”

“All right now. Bring her some water.”

“It’s not right.”

“The seal holds,” he said again. “And as it does, Talamh holds.”

“It’s not right, Keegan.” She took the offered water, drank deep. “He didn’t look at me. He didn’t look, but he saw me. I know, I felt. But he didn’t look.”

“You bested him.”

“It’s not right,” she said again. “It’s not, but I don’t know why. I wasn’t coming here, but I felt pulled. Like it was urgent I come. But the seal’s holding, and you were expecting them to try. Why did I need to come?”

Keegan looked back at the falls, brought the portal into his mind.

“To see what he wanted you to see, and feel what he wanted you to feel. There’ll be a purpose in that. Call your dragon. You’ll bring Marg to the farm. I need to get Mahon. If his purpose is what I think it may be, we have work to do.”

They sat around the big farm table in sturdy chairs. Breen imagined the generations who’d done the same for family meals. How they’d talked and argued, laughed and cried.

Had they reached over the big table for seconds? Had children pushed peas around on their plates hoping they’d somehow disappear?

Her father would have eaten here, as she would have. And her mother, she realized.

They’d been a family once.

Now they sat, another kind of family, not to eat and talk about the day to come or the day that passed, but how to defeat a god hell-bent on destroying them.

Instead of its candlestands and serving dishes, the sideboard held rolls of maps. Rather than sitting at the head of the long table, Keegan stood, the sword still strapped to his side.

“All in Talamh know of the Welcoming Tree, and the portal to the other side through Ireland. By law and tradition, because we were once part of that world, that place, any in Talamh may pass through there.

“All in Talamh,” Keegan continued, “since Odran took the child Breen was, know of the portal through the great falls that leads to the world he conquered and claims as his own. By law, this portal was sealed, and is closed and forbidden. And we know through blood sacrifice and black magicks, Yseult breached that portal. With the help of the Pious in the south, Odran was able to create a portal from his world to ours, and that we closed and sealed. These two we guard as they lead only to Odran’s world. Breen’s seen Yseult’s efforts to break through the portal in the falls.”

“Yes.” She spoke up because he looked at her. “Twice now. The first time I—somehow—went there—as they were about to sacrifice the young girl.”

“And so you stopped them, and Sedric went through and brought her back safe. But Yseult used the breach we hadn’t found to take Shana through to Odran. And in seeing this, as you saw the other, we knew where to find the breach, so sealed it.”

“I won’t forget that part anytime soon. But today I saw Yseult on the other side of the falls. They’re sacrificing their own now to work the spell, to compromise the seal.”

“I don’t doubt this is true, and they would kill their own without question, but I don’t think he plans to come at us that way.”

“From the south again?”

Keegan shook his head at Mahon. “Where we sealed again, and guard, and have, like the falls, concentrated forces.”

“He can’t use the Welcoming Tree,” Harken pointed out. “He still has no way into that world, and even Odran can’t break that ancient spell. Nothing passes through—from here or from there—that intends harm.”

“He only has those two ways.” Morena held up a finger on her right hand. “The south.” Then one on her left. “The falls.”

“There are other portals.”

“Aye, but none that lead to Odran’s world, and none all in Talamh know. To use any but the Welcoming Tree, you have to get permission from the taoiseach. If granted,” Morena continued, “you’re be-spelled so the location is hidden from your mind. For the safety of all, for this very reason.”

“For this reason,” Keegan agreed. “So none taken by Odran, none who choose to join him can give him another way, another world to conquer and destroy. And before Odran, it was tradition. The taoiseach has this knowledge, and holds it.”

“Since you wouldn’t have told him, he has no way to know …” Morena trailed off. “Gods, Keegan, you didn’t tell Shana?”

“What do you take me for?” Rather than a sting, his words carried weariness. “But the council, as it advises, as it helps craft the laws, as it is sworn to duty to Talamh and its safety, knows. It’s a sacred trust, and such matters are never to go beyond the council room.