Adair must be fueled, then, by love.
His mind, quite apart from the rest of him now, called upon it. The love he felt for Bradana and that she felt for him. The love he harbored for this land.
It came flooding to him up from the very ground, through the oak planks at his back and into his heart.
One last burst of power.
His blade met Mican’s and held. The power filled his legs, his body. He pushed off from the door, pushed,pushed. The two swords gave voice as they screeched together.
But one of them held.
*
Bradana screamed asshe saw one of the men go down. Even across the distance she could see the bright shower of blood as he fell.
Both of them fell.
She was up and running before she knew it, her feet acting on their own. Breaking her promise. It did not matter, for with the conclusion of that one small battle there at the door, the rest of it crumbled, the individual fights ending and the attackers pulling away, away like a black mist from the land.
Bradana ran, past sprawled bodies of the dead and dying. Past living men who recognized and called out to her. Past reddened turf and stone, climbing, climbing with the breath searing her lungs and her heart disbelieving what she had seen.
His brown head going down.
Nay, nay.She could not live so. She could not endure without him. She could not wait for another lifetime to find him again.
She had no breath when she reached the door of her grandsire’s dun. So clogged was it by the fallen, by the dead, that she could not reach the two men who lay up against it.
“Mistress Bradana!” Men, her grandfather’s men, called to her. She ignored them, her gaze fixed on but one form.
He lay facedown, his brown hair a tangle, and the sword fallen at last from his hand. Surrendered in death?
Mican lay almost touching him, face up and eyes wide, a terrible, gaping slash across his chest.
No need to ask if he were dead.
“Mistress. Mistress!” someone else cried.
Mican was dragged aside. Careful hands turned Adair over in the space allowed. Bradana dropped to her knees beside him.
Breathing? Was he breathing?
His eyes were closed and his face, liberally splashed with blood, looked unusually calm. Serene. As if he saw beyond this world.
“Nay,” she moaned in her throat. “Nay, nay.”
Surely he must breathe. Despite the terrible wound she could see, seeping blood across his belly. Surely she would know if he were gone. Her world would collapse around her and grow dark.
The man kneeling beside her, the one who had turned Adair over, looked into her face. She knew him, a member of her grandfather’s guard called Dabhor.
He had tears running down his face.
“He turned the battle. He did. We all fell in behind him and—”
“Aye. Is he dead?” She touched Adair’s face, his cheek, and his brow, just where he always kissed her.
“He breathes.”
Bradana’s blood surged so hard, she went dizzy. The door behind Adair opened.
