Нора Робертс: The Becoming

“I could have more if I abjured the staff, if I sent the sword back into the lake.”

“You wouldn’t. Couldn’t.”

“Would you have me fight every day of my life, suffer the weight of passing judgment on others?” He turned her toward him. “Or would you have me be with you? Go to your world with you and make it mine?”

“You can’t—”

He drew her in. “Can you tell me you don’t wish me to choose you over all else? As no one has before? Even your father, in the end, chose Talamh. Chose the sword, its power.”

“Duty, not power,” she began, but he laid his lips on hers. She felt dizzy from the kiss.

“He could have passed the duties to another and stayed with you.” Eyes on hers, he brought her hand to his lips, pressed them to her palm. “You weren’t enough for him.”

“That’s not true. Keegan—”

“I would choose you over Talamh.” He pressed his lips to her wrist, had her pulse pounding. To her throat, so the beat doubled. “Ask me.”

Weak with want, she nearly did. “I can’t.”

“If you love me, tell me. Tell me I must choose you.” His hands roamed over her; his lips grew hot and urgent. “We’ll have peace, and quiet moments. You will be all to me. Tell me! Demand it!”

“If I loved you, I couldn’t. If I loved you, it’s what and who you are I love. Stop. You’re hurting me now.”

“I hurt you?” He shoved her back, and the rage on his face had her heart flying to her throat. “What do you do to me with this weak mewling? Would you have me fight against a god for a meadow of flowers? Would you have me die by his hand? Do you wish this for me?”

He swept his hands down his body. Blood poured from his chest, down his arms, dripped from his fingers.

“No. Stop. Let me help.” She leaped to him, trying to find the wounds, to heal them.

“My blood is on your hands. Remember this, pathetic child of the Fey. You killed me.”

The dark dropped, and he was gone. She stood alone with his blood still warm and wet on her hands.

Alone, but not in the sun-drenched meadow. Now she stood in a forest so thick it felt as though the trees pressed in against her. A thousand heartbeats roared in her head. Terrified, raging, grieving.

Before her stood a tree, black as pitch, its branches gnarled and coiled. Its roots dug into the ground that held no life, as the tree had smothered its breath, its beat.

As she watched, as she understood she stood before the dark mirror image of the Welcoming Tree, those coiled branches began to move, to slither.

To hiss.

“No.” She pushed back at it with all she had. “You won’t come through.”

But she heard the screams, the clash and thunder of battle.

They had come.

So she ran, with no weapon but herself, toward the sounds of war. She tossed light ahead, gasping when she saw blood on the path. And the dead scattered among the trees.

She couldn’t save them, so she ran to save others.

But when she came through the forest, the castle burned. Flames ate their way over the bridges, and the river boiled beneath them.

Cróga, his emerald and gold scales smeared with blood and ash, lay dead on the scorched earth.

Screaming in grief, in horror, she dropped down beside him.

Odran walked toward her, the sword in one hand, the staff in the other.

And the power swirling around him, through him, spoke of death.

“Rider and dragon, dead. Hear the screams, iníon ? Hear how they cry out, how they beg, how they curse the day you were born? Soon, the Fey will be no more, and the world is mine. Talamh has fallen because you did nothing.”

He laughed, his black robes billowing as he walked toward her. His gold hair flew around his face, and the gray of his eyes went to red-rimmed black. “Your blood is my blood. Your power is my power. Now come, and let me drink.”

She woke with a scream strangling in her throat, and Bollocks on the bed, nosing at her, whining.

She started to wrap her arms around him to comfort them both, but in the dim light, the dawn light, saw the blood on her hands.

“Oh God, my God.” Horrified, she shoved out of bed to race to the bathroom, scrub it away. She felt dizzy and ill, had to brace her hands on the bathroom counter to fight off the vicious churn of nausea.

“Not just a dream. A portent? Was it him or was it me?”

She looked up into the mirror at her face—sheet white, clammy with sweat.

Terrified.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She rushed back into the bedroom and to the globe. “Show me Talamh, as it is now, at this moment. Show me the Capital, and beyond.”

What she saw was dawn breaking, and the castle standing quiet and whole, its banner flying against the first hints of light.

She saw dragons in the air, and fields. Sheep and cows and horses, smoke curling from chimneys.

“That wasn’t now. If it hasn’t happened, there’s time to stop it.”

She grabbed clothes, dressing quickly—leggings, sweater, boots. She didn’t have a sword at the cottage, but reached for her wand, her athame. No weapon but herself, really, so she’d have to be enough.

She sprinted down the hall, rapped hard on Marco’s door three times, then just shoved it open.

“Breen, what the fuck!” When he shoved up in bed, alone, she saw she was too late to borrow Brian’s sword or take him with her.

“I have to go. I have to go right now, to the Capital.”

“What? Why? What?” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Jesus, coffee.”

“I don’t have time, I don’t know how much time there is. I need you to stay here. Don’t go to Talamh today. Don’t go until I get back.”

If she came back.

“Keep Bollocks. I have to go now.”

When she ran for the stairs, Bollocks ran ahead of her. “No, you have to stay with Marco. You stay!”

She grabbed a jacket on the way out, shoved her arms through. As she’d already called Lonrach, he waited for her outside. Even as she yanked the door open, Marco came flying down the stairs in nothing but his Baby Yoda boxers.

“What the actual fuck, Breen.”

“I don’t have time. I have to go. Stay here, promise me. I have to go or they’ll die. He’s coming.”

“You go, I go. Give me two minutes to get some clothes on.”

“Stay here.” When he grabbed her arm, she flicked him off with a little buzz of power.

“Don’t you pull that crap on me!”

He ran after her, but she mounted the dragon where Bollocks already sat.

“Get down! Stay with Marco.”

The dog just stared at her with eyes of stubborn steel.

“Damn it. I’m taking him. Stay here, Marco.”

The dragon rose up, soared over the trees. “The hell with that.” Marco slammed the door, stormed upstairs to dress.

She wasn’t sure she knew the way, but trusted Lonrach did. Beneath her, Talamh began to wake. Lamps glowed in cottages where mothers stirred the children to dress for breakfast and chores before school. Farmers herded cows for the morning milkings. Night guards settled down to sleep, and those like Brian manned their posts.

It would not end today, she promised herself. Odran would not come through. He wouldn’t win.

She wondered if she should have tried the portal in the Far West, but calculated by the time she explained herself, tried to open it, risked using it, she could be halfway to the Capital.

She knew the tree of snakes now, and where to find it in the forest. It seemed impossible they’d searched for days and hadn’t found it, but she’d take them to it.

With Keegan, Nan, Sedric, she thought, with all that power, they’d lock it down.

She didn’t want to think about the first part of the dream, or the longing she’d felt, the war between it and duty. Did she actually wish Keegan would give everything up and come with her? Did she have that much of her mother in her?