Нора Робертс - Blood Magick

“Grief and torment?” Her dark eyes flashed at him. “These can’t balance the scales. I cursed you, and all who came between you and Cabhan, and as it is written, what I sent out into the world, has come back to me threefold. I burdened my children, and all the children who came after them.”

“You saved them. Gave your own life for them. Your life and your power.”

She smiled now, and though grief lived in the smile, he saw Branna in her eyes. “I held fast to that grief, as if it were a lover or a beloved child. I think it fed me through all the time. I wouldn’t believe even what I was allowed to see. Of you or in you. Even knowing not just Cabhan’s blood ran in you, I couldn’t accept truth.”

“What truth?”

She looked down at Daithi. “You are his as well. More his, I know now, than Cabhan’s.”

With a hand red with Daithi’s blood and his own, Fin gripped her arm. Power shimmered at the contact. “What are you saying?”

“Cabhan healed—what’s in him helped him come out of the ashes I’d made him. And healed, he sought vengeance. He couldn’t reach my children—they were beyond him. But Daithi had sisters, and one so fair, so fresh, so sweet. He chose her, and he took her, and against her will planted his seed in her. She took her last breath when the child took his first. You are of that child. You are of her. You are of Daithi. You are his, and so, Finbar of the Burkes, you are mine. I’ve wronged you.”

Carefully, she unpinned Daithi’s brooch, one she’d made him for protection that held the image of horse, hound, hawk to represent their three children. “This is yours, as you are his. Forgive me.”

“She has your face, and I hear her in every word you speak.” He looked down at the brooch. “I still carry Cabhan’s blood.”

With a shake of her head, Sorcha closed Fin’s fingers around the copper. “Light covers the dark. I swear to you by all I ever was, if I could break the curse I put on you, I would. But it is not for me.”

She rose, keeping his hand in hers so they stood together over Daithi’s body. “Blood and death here, blood and death to follow. It is beyond me to change it. I give my faith as I gave my power to my children, to the three who came from them, to the two who would stand with them, and to you, Finbar from Daithi, who carries both the light and the dark. Cabhan’s time must end, what joined with him must end.”

“Do you know its name?”

“That is beyond me as well. End it, but not to avenge, for there only leads to more blood, more death as I have learned too well. End it, for the light, for love, and for all who come from you.”

She kissed his cheek, stepped back. “Remember, love has powers beyond all magicks. Go back to her.”

He woke unsteady, disoriented, and with Branna desperately saying his name.

She crouched over him in the thin light of dawn, pressing her hands to his wounded arm. She wept as she spoke, as she pumped warmth into the wound. Some part of him stared at her, puzzled.

Branna never wept.

“Come back, come back. I can’t heal this wound. I can’t stop the bleeding. Come back.”

“I’m here.”

She let out a sobbing breath, looked from the wound to his face with tears running down her cheeks. “Stay with me. I couldn’t reach you. I can’t stop the bleeding. I can’t— Oh, thank God, thank all the gods. It’s healing now. Just stay, stay. Look at me. Fin, look at me. Look in me.”

“I couldn’t heal him. He died with my hands on him. It’s his blood on my hands. His blood on me, in me.”

“Hush, hush. Just let me work. These are deep and vicious. You’ve lost blood, too much already.”

“You’re crying.”

“I’m not.” But her tears fell on the wound, and closed it more cleanly than her hands. “Quiet, just be quiet and let me finish. It’s healing well now. You’ll need a potion, but it’s healing well.”

“I won’t need one.” He felt steadier, stronger, and altogether clearer. “I’m fine now. It’s you who’s shaking.” He shifted up to sit, brushed his fingers over her damp cheeks. “It may be you who needs a potion.”

“Is there pain now? Test your arm. Move it, flex it, so we see if it’s as it should be.”

He did as she asked. “It’s all fine, and no, there’s no more pain.” But he glanced down, saw the sheets covered in blood. “Is all that mine?”

Though she trembled still, she rose, changed the sheets to fresh with a thought. But she went into the bath to wash her own hands, needed the time and distance to smooth out her nerves.

She came back, put on a robe.

“Here.” Fin held out one of two glasses of whiskey. “I think you need this more than I.”

She only shook her head, sat carefully on the side of the bed. “What happened?”

“You tell yours first.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “All right then. You began to thrash in your sleep. Violently. I tried to wake you, but I couldn’t. I tried to find a way into the dream, to pull you out, but I couldn’t. It was like a wall that couldn’t be scaled, no matter what I did. Then the gashes on your arm, the blood flowing from them.”

She had to pause a moment, press her hands to her face, gathered back her calm.

“I knew you were beyond where I could reach. I tried to pull you back. Tried to heal the wounds, but nothing I did stopped the blood. I thought you would die in your sleep, trapped in some dream he dragged you into, blocked me out of. You’d die because I couldn’t reach you. He’d taken you from me when it seems I’ve only gotten you back. You’d die because I wasn’t strong enough to heal you.”

“But you did just that, and I didn’t die, did I?” He slid up behind her, pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “You cried for me.”

“Tears of panic and frustration.”

But when he kissed her shoulder again, she spun around, wrapped around him, rocked. “Where did you go? Where did he take you?”

“He didn’t take me, that I’m sure of. I went back to the night Cabhan killed Daithi. I saw Sorcha. I spoke with her.”

Branna jerked back. “You spoke with her.”

“As I’m speaking to you. You look so like her.” He brushed her hair behind her back. “So very like her, though her eyes are dark, they have the same look as yours. It’s the strength in them. And the power.”

“What did she say to you?”

“I’ll tell you, but I think it’s best to tell all of us. And the truth is I could use some time to sort through it all myself.”

“Then I’ll tell them to come.”

She dressed, asked him no more questions. In truth, she needed the time herself, to settle, to put on her armor. Not since the day she’d seen the mark on him had she felt the level of fear, of grief she’d known that dawn. She asked herself if feeling so much had blocked her powers to heal him, to bring him out of the dream. And didn’t know the answers.

When she went down, she noted he’d put the kettle on, and already had coffee waiting for her.

“You’ll think you need to cook up breakfast for the lot of us,” he began. “We can fend for ourselves.”

“It keeps my hands busy. If you want to fend, scrub and chip up some potatoes. You’ve skill enough for that.”

They worked in silence until the others began to straggle in.

“Looks like a full fry’s coming,” Connor commented. “But a damned early hour for it. Had an adventure, did you?” he said to Fin.

“You could say it was.”

“But you’re okay.” Iona touched his arm as if checking for herself.

“I am, and also clever enough to turn over the duty dropped on me here to Boyle, who has a better hand with it.”

“Nearly all do.” Boyle shoved up his sleeves and joined Branna.