Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

She placed the pouch in a leather bag, then held up a vial. “Should it go wrong, should he come back before you’re done, this should disable him for a few moments, long enough for you to get back to me, Iona, Boyle in our time. It’s only if there’s no choice.”

She pouched the vial, added it to the bag. Stared down at it as she wished what he needed to do didn’t need to be done. “Don’t risk all for the moment.”

“As all includes you, you can be sure I won’t.”

“Touch nothing of his. Don’t—”

“Branna.” He cupped her face until their eyes met. “We’ve been over it all.”

“Of course. You’re right. And it’s time.” She handed him the bag, went to get her jacket. “Iona and Boyle will be here any minute.”

“When this is done we’ll have a window to look in on him as he too often looks in on us. And we’ll be able to give all the time needed to the poison that will end it.”

“I’m uneasy, that’s the truth.” She didn’t know if it helped to say it, but did know it was foolish, and maybe dangerous, to pretend. “The closer we come to the end of it, and I believe we will end it, there’s a pull and tug in me. It’s more than confidence and doubt. I don’t understand my own feelings, and it makes me uneasy.”

“Be easy about this. If for now, only this.”

She could only try, as there was no room for doubts, and no time to delay as Iona and Boyle pulled up outside.

She picked up a short sword, fixed the sheath to her belt. “Best be prepared,” was all she said as Iona and Boyle came in.

“Connor and Meara are on their way.”

“Then we’d best be on ours.” Branna reached for Fin’s hand, then Boyle’s. When Iona took Boyle’s other hand, they flew.

Through the cool and the damp, through the wind and over the trees, across the river, then the lake with the castle of Ashford shining behind them.

They landed softly, in a stand of trees, in a place she didn’t recognize.

“Here?”

“It’s where I lost him. It’s been hundreds of years since Midor and his cave,” Fin pointed out. “Some houses not far, some roads, but as with Sorcha’s cabin, I think the place where Cabhan was made will remain, in some form.”

“There’s a quiet here.” Eyes watchful, Boyle studied the lay of the land. “A kind of hard hush.”

Feeling the same, Fin nodded. “We’re a superstitious breed, we Irish, and wise enough to build around a faerie hill without disturbing it, to leave a stone dance where it stands. And to keep back from a place where the dark still thrums.”

He glanced over at Boyle. “We agreed to stay together, but it’s fact we’d cover more ground if we split up.”

“Together,” Branna said firmly, as she’d expected him to suggest it. “And if the dark still thrums?” She drew out a wand with a tip of glass-clear crystal. “The light will find it.”

“I don’t recall that being in the plan.”

“Best to be prepared,” she repeated. She lifted her wand to the sky until the tip pulsed light. And watched Merlin circle above them.

“Between my wand and your hawk, we should find the lair. It pulls north.”

“Then we go north.” Boyle took Iona’s hand in his again, and the four of them headed north.

• • •

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER CONNOR AND MEARA walked in the woods. He’d linked with Roibeard, who swooped through the trees, and with Merlin, who watched the rest of the circle travel another wood.

“It’s a pleasure to finally have some time to go hawking with you. It’s been too long since we just took an hour for it.”

“I need to practice more,” Meara responded, easy and casual, though her throat was dry. “So I’m full ready when we add the package.”

“We could’ve come on horseback.”

“This will do.” She lifted a gloved arm for Roibeard, and though the hawking was a ploy, enjoyed having him.

“Would you want a hawk of your own?” Connor asked her.

She glanced at him in genuine surprise. “I’ve never thought of it.”

“You should have your own. A female if you find one who speaks to you. Your hawk and mine could mate.”

The idea brought a smile as it seemed a lovely thought, and a normal one. “I’ve never tended to a hawk on my own.”

“I’d help you, but you’d do well with it. You’ve helped often enough with Merlin when Fin’s gone rambling. We could build a place for them when we build our house. If you’re still in the mind to build one.”

“I’ve hardly thought of that either, as I’m barely making strides on the wedding.” She let Roibeard fly again. “And there’s Cabhan to worry about.”

“We won’t think of him today,” Connor said, though both of them thought of little else. “Today we follow Roibeard’s dance. Give us a song, Meara, something bright to lift Roibeard’s wings.”

“Something bright, is it?” She took his hand, swung his arm playfully as they walked. But she wanted that connection, the physical of it, as they both knew the music could bring Cabhan.

They’d planned on it.

She decided on “The Wild Rover,” as it was bright enough, and had a number of verses to give Cabhan time to be drawn in, if it was to happen.

She laughed when Connor joined her on the chorus, and any other day would have prized the walk with him, with the hawk, with the song in the pretty woods where the snowmelt left the ground so soft and pools of white still clung to the shady shadows.

When he squeezed her hand, she knew the ploy had worked. And it was time for their part of the scheme.

Her voice didn’t falter as she saw the first wisps of fog slithering over the ground, nor when Roibeard landed on a branch nearby—a golden-winged warrior poised to defend.

“I could still your voice with a thought.”

Cabhan rose from the fog, and smiled his silky smile when Meara stopped singing to draw her sword. “And so I have. You risk your lady, witch, strolling through the woods without your sister to fight for you.”

“I’ve enough to protect my lady, should she need it. But I think you know she does well protecting herself. Still . . .” Connor ran a finger down Meara’s blade, set it alight. “A little something more for my lady.”

“What manner of man has his woman stand in front of him?”

“Beside him,” Connor corrected, and drew a sword of his own, enflamed it.

“And leaves her unshielded,” Cabhan said and hurled black lightning at Meara.

Connor sent it crashing to the ground with a hard twist of wind. “Never unshielded.”

• • •

ACROSS THE WATER, THE PULSE OF BRANNA’S WAND QUICKENED. “Close now.”

“There.” Fin pointed to a wild tangle of thickets edged with thick black thorns, snaking vines dotted with berries like hard drops of blood. “In there is Midor’s cave. I can feel the pull, just as I felt the burn when Cabhan crossed the river. The way’s clear.”

“It doesn’t look clear,” Iona said. “It looks lethal.” Testing, she tapped the flat of her sword on one of the thorns, listened to the metallic clink of steel to steel. “Sounds lethal.”

“I won’t be going through them, but through time. Though when this is done we’ll come back here, all of us, and burn those thorny vines, salt and sanctify the ground.”

“Not yet.” Branna took his arm. “Connor hasn’t told me Cabhan’s taken the bait.”

“He has. He’s nearly there, and the sooner I’m in and out, the less time Connor and Meara have to stand against him. It’s now, Branna, and quick.”

Though it filled her with dread, they cast the circle, and she released Fin’s hand, accepted it would be done.

“In this place,” she chanted with the others, “of death and dark, we send the one who bears the mark through space, through time. Powers of light send him through, let our wills entwine. Send him through, and send him back by the light of the three.”