“The forest is sick,” he finished. “It will keep taking tithes from Coill Darraghns until it returns to its former strength.”
“Unless Rowan sacrifices himself,” Sorcha said. She shook with fury. “And Da did this? He knew?” At Rowan’s affirming look, she let out a snarlof frustration. Briar remembered her, on a cold night, admitting that it would have been her, except that she’d given up her father’s mantle. She’d chosen a family. She wanted nothing to do with the responsibilities that had torn her father from his. Now they tore her brother away, too.
“I’m not letting it have him.” Briar had contemplated their problem on the way here. He had no perfect answer. If they didn’t give the forest its sacrifice, then it would continue to savage the town. There were no wards to prevent Linden returning for vengeance.
Briar’s whisper sounded loud in the quiet of the church. “I don’t have long to live.”
Rowan whipped around.“No.”
“It can have me, but I won’t be enough,” Briar said. “Not to heal it and erect the wards.”
“Briar,no.” Rowan’s voice shook. Softer this time, “No.”
Briar met his eyes. Squeezed his hand. “I brought this down on us.”
“It’s this Linden’s doing more than yours,” Maebh interrupted. “Knew I didn’t like the look of him, mind. I say we throwhimto the woods.”
She wasn’t joking. Briar said, “It wouldn’t be the same. It has to be a willing sacrifice. That’s why the tithes it takes from people only help a little. The forest said there’s more powerful magic in a gift than something stolen.”
Everyone fell silent. Rowan hadn’t looked away from him, his fierce eyes drinking Briar in. It felt sacrilegious in church, where you weren’t meant to love anyone more than God.
“I won’t let you,” he whispered.
Briar said, “You can’t stop me.”
“No.”
The conversation was quiet but impossible to keep private.
Maebh, dusting her hands on her skirt, said, “Well, that settles it. I’ll be doing the sacrificing.”
“Don’t you start,” Rowan said.
“You aren’t the boss of me. I’m your mammy. Will be always. Hasn’t changed now you’re grown up.”
“You’ve a lot of years left,” said another voice. It was Diarmuid, wearing dusty dungarees just like the day Briar fixed his gate. “Briar’s done us a few favors too many in this town, and I don’t rightly blame him for this mess. We’ve not been doing right by our ancestors if the woods are this angry. I’m old. Let it have me.”
“That’s not—” Briar started to say.
Then another older woman said, “Or me. I’m ancient. Can’t get out of bed without effin’ and blindin’ anyway. Might as well be me.”
To Briar’s surprise, Aisling spoke next. “I’m not old, but this is home to me. If my man Kenneth died ’cause of this Linden… And here I thought he’d left. I’d join him.”
Before she could finish, another person stood in a pew and said they wanted to help. And another. Briar suspected they didn’t understand it would mean the end of their life, a transformation into something otherworldly like Éibhear. He didn’t know how to put voice to all this, but an idea had started to take root in his mind.
Every leaf, every twig, every branch, every tree has magic. But a forest has power beyond your reckoning.
He recalled giving a small flesh tithe and receiving an entire branch of rare lichen. He recalled standing in front of the cameras, knowing he could not face Linden alone, but with all those eyes on him…
He had no idea if it would work. He was no master; his apprenticeship hadn’t prepared him for a spell of this magnitude. With his curse, he didn’t know if he had the reserves of magic necessary.
But if it did work…
Everyone argued, everyone with a different take on who deserved more time. Niamh cut through it, her voice echoing off the high eaves.
“I think,” she barked, “Briar has an idea.”
Had she known? Or only suspected? Was this all part of her prophecies, in the end?
