Нора Робертс: Blood Magick

“We will find the way. We will go home. But tonight, for tonight, we’ll feast. We’ll have music. And we three will give thanks to all who came before us for the light. For the lives,” she said, with a hand light on his sister’s belly, and one on her own.

“And tomorrow.” Eamon stood. “We begin to end what took the lives of our father, of our mother.”

“Will you bide with Brannaugh? I would speak with Gealbhan now.”

“Give him only the joy today.” Brannaugh rose with her sister. “Tomorrow is soon enough for the rest. Take today for joy alone, for time is so short.”

“I will.” She kissed her sister, her brother. “Eoghan must bring his harp.”

“Be sure he will. We’ll fill the wood with music and send it flying over the hills.”

She sat again when Teagan left, and Eamon nudged her tea toward her. “Drink it. You’re pale.”

“A bit tired. Eoghan knows. I’ve talked with him, and he’s ready to leave—leave all he built here. I never thought it would be hard to go back. Never knew I would be torn in two ways.”

“Gealbhan’s brothers will tend the land here, for you and for Teagan.”

“Aye, and it’s a comfort. Not for you, the land here it’s never been for you.” Here again was sorrow and joy mixed into one. “You will stay in Mayo, whatever comes. I can’t see what we will do, Eoghan and I, the children. But Teagan will come back here, that I see clear. This is her place now.”

“It is,” he agreed. “She will ever be a dark witch of Mayo, but her home and heart are for Clare.”

“How will it be for us, Eamon, not to be together as we have been all our lives?”

His eyes, the wild blue of their father’s, looked deep into hers. “A distance in space means nothing. We are always together.”

“I’m weepy and foolish, and I dislike it very much. I hope this mood is a brief one or I might curse myself.”

“Well, you were given to tempers and sharp words toward the end of carrying young Sorcha. It may be I prefer the weeping.”

“I don’t, that’s for certain.” She drank the tea, knowing it would settle her. “I’ll add a bit more to the tonic I give Kathel and Alastar, for the journey. Roibeard does well without it yet. He’s strong.”

“He’s hunting now,” Eamon said of his hawk. “He goes farther each time. He goes north now, every day north. He knows, as we do, we’ll travel soon.”

“We will send word ahead. We will be welcome at Ashford Castle. The children of Sorcha and Daithi. The Dark Witches will be made welcome.”

“I’ll see to that.” He sat back with his own tea, smiled at her. “Hair like fire, is it?”

As he’d wanted, she laughed. “Oh, and you’ll be struck dumb and half blind, I promise you, when you meet.”

“Not I, my darling. Not I.”

2

FOR THE CHILDREN IT WAS AN ADVENTURE. THE IDEA OF a long journey, of the traveling to a new place—with the prize of a castle at the end of it, had Brin especially eager to go, to begin.

While Brannaugh packed what they’d need, she thought again of that long-ago morning, rushing to do her mother’s bidding, packing all she was told to pack. So urgent, she thought now, so final. And that last look at her mother, burning with the power left in her, outside the cabin in the woods.

Now she packed to go back, a duty, a destiny she’d always accepted. Eagerly wished for—until the birth of her first child, until that swamping flood of love for the boy who even now raced about all but feverish in his excitement.

But she had a task yet to face here.

She gathered what she needed—bowl, candle, book, the herbs and stones. And with a glance at her little boy, felt both pride and regret.

“It is time for him, for this,” she told Eoghan.

Understanding, he kissed her forehead. “I’ll take Sorcha up. It’s time she was abed.”

Nodding, she turned to Brin, called him.

“I’m not tired. Why can’t we leave now and sleep under the stars?”

“We leave on the morrow, but first there are things we must do, you and I.”

She sat, opened her arms. “First, come sit with me. My boy,” she murmured, when he crawled onto her lap. “My heart. You know what I am.”

“Ma,” he said and cuddled into her.

“I am, but you know, as I’ve never hidden it from you, what I am besides. Dark witch, keeper of magicks, daughter of Sorcha and Daithi. This is my blood. This is your blood as well. See the candle?”

“You made the candle. Ma’s make the candles and bake the cakes, and Da’s ride the horses.”

“Is that the way of it?” She laughed, and decided she’d let him have that illusion for a little while more. “Well, it’s true enough I made the candle. See the wick, Brin? The wick is cold and without light. See the candle, Brin, see the wick. See the light and flame, the tiny flame, and the heat, the light to be. You have the light in you, the flame in you. See the wick, Brin.”

She crooned it to him, over and over, felt his energy begin to settle, his thoughts begin to join with her.

“The light is power. The power is light. In you, of you, through you. Your blood, my blood, our blood, your light, my light, our light. Feel what lives in you, what waits in you. See the wick, it waits for your light. For your power. Bring it. Let it rise, slow, slow, gentle and clean. Reach for it, for it belongs to you. Reach, touch, rise. Bring the light.”

The wick sparked, died away, sparked again, then burned true.

Brannaugh pressed a kiss to the top of his head. There, she thought, there, the first learned. And her boy would never be just a child again.

Joy and sorrow, forever entwined.

“That is well done.”

He turned his face up, smiled at her. “Can I do another?”

“Aye,” she said, kissed him again. “But heed me now, and well, for there is more to learn, more to know. And the first you must know, must heed, must vow is you harm none with what you are, what you have. Your gift, Brin? An’ it harm none. Swear this to me, to yourself, to all who’ve come before, all who will come after.”

She lifted her athame, used it on her palm. “A blood oath we make. Mother to son, son to mother, witch to witch.”

Solemn-eyed, he held out his hand to her, blinked at the quick pain when she nicked it.

“An’ it harm none,” he said when she took his hand, mixed her blood with his.

“An’ it harm none,” she repeated, then gathered him close, kissed the little hurt, healed it. “Now, you may do another candle. And after, together, we will make charms, for protection. For you, for your sister, for your father.”

“What of you, Ma?”

She touched her pendant. “I have what I need.”

• • •

IN THE MORNING MISTS, SHE CLIMBED ONTO THE WAGON, her little girl bundled at her side. She looked at her boy, so flushed with delight in the saddle in front of his father. She looked at her sister, fair and quiet astride Alastar; her brother, their grandfather’s sword at his side, tall and straight on the horse he called Mithra. And Gealbhan steady and waiting on the pretty mare Alastar had sired three summers before.

She clucked to Gealbhan’s old plow horse, and with Brin letting out a whoop, began. She looked back once, just once at the house she’d come to love, asked herself if she would ever see it again.

Then, she looked ahead.

A healer found welcome wherever she went—as did a harpist. Though the baby heavy in her belly was often restless, she and her family found shelter and hospitality along the wild way.

Eoghan made music, she or Teagan or Eamon offered salves or potions to the ailing or the injured. Gealbhan offered his strong back and calloused hands.