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