Maebh pushed a glass of brandy into the woman’s uninjured hand. “All right, Orla. Help is here.”
Sorcha said, “I’ll call Connor. He’s still at the clinic.”
“This will need a different sort of care.”
Briar thought she meant magic, but Maebh’s eyes flicked, not to Briar as the only witch in the room, but to Rowan. Worry shone in her stern gaze. Rowan’s answering stare might have appeared cold to the casual observer, but Briar could see the ashen fear plainly.
Comprehension dawned.To sustain itself, the forest started taking things from us. Limbs, mostly.
Whatever had afflicted the people of Coill Darragh ten years ago, it had returned.
Only now, Éibhear was dead, his responsibilities passed down to Rowan. This attack was within his domain to fix. Rowan took a step toward Orla, but she shied away from him. Maebh’s expression hardened.
“Don’t be a tit, Orla. Let him see it.”
Maebh ushered Rowan closer. Shivers walked up Briar’s spine as Rowan set a hand gingerly upon the thorny branch, another upon the desiccated arm. The wild magic of the wood reared up at his touch, making the air in the pub smell like ozone.
To Orla, Maebh said, “Have another sip of brandy.” To Rowan, she said, “You saw what your da did when this happened last. You’ll have to do the same to break the forest’s hold.”
Orla gulped the brandy. “Do it.”
Rowan snapped the branch.
It didn’t splinter like wood, it snapped like bone. Orla let out an ear-splitting howl. Something dark that could have been blood or sap spurted from the branch’s broken end. Briar’s stomach twisted, everything he’d drunk threatening to reappear. With the branch broken, the remains of it crumbled, sloughing apart like dead skin.
Rowan murmured “I’m sorry,” but the screams drowned it out.
Though the threat of being sick persisted, Briar stepped forward. “I can cast something to ease the pain.”
He hadn’t brought his pouches or tithe belt, but Rowan knew what he meant and inclined his head. “If you’re sure.”
Everyone under this roof would have known Éibhear, who used flesh tithes liberally. Briar felt less wary pulling charcoal out to draw arrowheads on his outstretched arm. Orla whimpered, bowed over by waves of agony. She shuddered at the touch of Briar’s fingers, but slowly the tension loosened in her bunched shoulders as the magic seeped through him into her. It took its time, slow to answer his call, dredged up from the bottom of his waning well. His pounding head reached a splitting ache, but he imagined it did not compare with what Orla had just endured.
While they waited for Connor to arrive, Maebh pulled Rowan aside to speak. Sorcha took one look at Briar and told him to get some air. Gratefully, he went, and as he left, Orla called out a thank-you.
The cold air helped relieve Briar’s nausea, but he could still hear an echo of the branch breaking. It rang out in his head, along with Orla’s awful scream. He didn’t have long to contemplate it. Sorcha stepped out to join him, crossing her arms against the December night.
“Feeling better?”
He sidestepped the question. “What was that?”
Like her family, Sorcha had something of the forest in her manner. Strong and unwavering, but at this question she looked weary. “Someone took something from the forest. So it took something back.”
Briar remembered the sickened tree extending an olive branch, only it was a branch of lichen polyps. He had given something back, hadn’t he? It had been months ago. If he’d taken more than his due, the forest would have lashed out then, not now. Still, the fear that he shared the blame stuck. “Who took something? What did they take?”
“It will fall to Rowan to find out, and he isn’t prepared. Our father—” Sorcha bit down hard on her lip. Her chin dimpled like she barely held grief at bay.
“I’m sorry,” Briar said. “You must miss him.”
“No. It’s been a long time. It’s my brother I’m afraid for. If the forest is taking bits of us, piece by piece, like it did before… He’s marked by it, Rowan. If things get worse, it will call on him like it did Da, I know it. And it’s my fault, ’cause I wanted no part in it. Refused to take up Da’s mantle, so it fell to Rowan instead.”
Briar’s jaw ground so tightly he couldn’t open it to speak. The image of Éibhear engulfed in tree roots played out in his mind with one nightmarish change: instead of Éibhear, it was Rowan the forest devoured. The very thought made a muscle in his shoulder seize, and he twitched with it, Vatii hopping and hovering in the air as the movement startled her. She settled back down with a look of concern.
“I won’t let that happen,” Briar said.
With a watery smile, Sorcha elbowed him. “I’m glad he has you looking out for him.”
Briar wished he felt worthy of her words. Truthfully, he feared he’d played a part in all this. His evening with Linden had cost him savings he could have used to call on Niamh and ask for guidance. But he hadn’t known. At the time, he’d wanted to speak to her about events of the past, not present ones threatening Rowan’s life.
