Page 199 of A Courage of the Chosen

Bouncing between the deluge of creatures overpowering them, the royal armies that have found a new determination with Elsie’s arrival, and the fresh wave of soldiers pressing from the higher ground, they turn in my direction for answers.

And for the first time in my life, I don’t have them.

This . . . this isn’t how it was supposed to go.

“I told you before, Tavish, and maybe now you’ll see.” Elsie’s voice is laced with a power that feels as old as the one channeling through the Craobh. It’s soft and fierce, and the beginning of the end. “All that is, belongs to me.”

Light, fractured with the same darkness that I wield, washes over the entire battlefield, in a display of dominance this world has never seen. It towers high above me, and reaches further than I can track. Fire and ice permeate from it, her two powers completely at balance with one another.

I knew she was capable of great things, that what ran within her was special, but this is like nothing I ever thought possible, and I can’t help but be awed by the magnitude of it.

It shouldn’t be possible. I have the Craobh Beatha, she shouldn’t be able to wield so much.

Elsie creates a dome. A thick, impenetrable wall of radiant light, veined with heavy streaks of darkness, that swallows my entire army. Their howls and hisses come from the other side, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to break them out.

A beam of it splinters away, freeing Callahan from his bonds, and he’s on me with stamina I thought had waned in our fight. He kicks my legs from under me, forcing me to my knees.

Now at equal height with him, he fists a hand around the Craobh and drags me in. He uppercuts me, and my teeth sink painfully into my gums. “I think it will be you begging for death. Because you will never be more powerful than her.”

Another punch, to my ribs this time, while keeping ahold of the Craobh Beatha. “She. Is. Everything.”

He snaps the pendant free, and the power of the Seelie realm leaves me in an instant. The connection to my soldiers disintegrates, and the hold I had on my own strength wavers without it, my body exhausted by how much I’ve pumped through my veins.

A frenzied kind of panic fists my gut in a way it hasn’t done since I was a child. Not since I tried to keep my mother’s blood from leaving her body, after my darkness manifested the first time.

Elsie’s presence looms heavy as she pushes her way toward me, and my mind whirs as I calculate the next move.

There’s only one hand left to play.

So, with a single, swift punch to Callahan’s abdomen, I do the one thing I’ve never done.

I leave the Craobh Beatha, my armies, my queen, and everything I’ve worked for behind . . . and I run.

Chapter 59

Callahan

I don’t watch Tavish flee. Don’t watch which direction he runs, with his tail tucked between his legs, to avoid the death cantering toward him in the form of my wife.

Slipping the Craobh into one of the pouches on my belt, I sprint to where my brother is too still and too quiet on the ground.

Grabbing his shoulder, I heft Brodie so that I cradle his massive upper body in my arms and over my lap. So much blood coats the grass, black and red merging to make a thick sludge that covers my knees and Brodie’s side.

The ropes of liquid that streamed down his torso when Tavish shoved his talons beneath the breastplate have slowed to a trickle, and Brodie’s heart is sluggish in his chest.

“Brodie? Brodie, stay with me,” I plead.

His tanned complexion has turned sickeningly gray, with none of the life that has been my constant companion for most of my life.

“SOMEONE GET A FUCKING HEALER!”

There’s a flurry of motion as someone rushes to find one of the healers hidden deep in the trees.

Eòghann is by my side then, Reyne not far behind him, and they slide to a stop around our friend.

“Help me get his armor off,” I command. “Quickly.”

Both of them reach for the ties at his shoulders, and between the three of us, we wrestle the metal away from him.