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“You’ve tried for me before,” Yseult reminded her, “and failed. I have more now, such deep and dark powers now, and the god of all with me.”
Marg’s face was stone, her eyes blue ice.
“You’ve tried for me before, and failed. I have more now, such as you never held. And my love’s blood with me. I gave up the sword and staff, and still you took my child.”
She circled as she spoke, as more flew through the portal to destroy the last of Odran’s forces.
“In seeking to destroy the child of my child, to take all she is for the god you betray all for, you took my love, my heart.”
“I sought to destroy you.” Yseult flicked out a hand, and flame with it. Marg merely slapped it aside. The wind kicked up, whirling. “He simply got in the way.”
“So as you’d see it.”
Yseult flicked flame again, like a tease. “I see your weaknesses,Mairghread. I see your weakened power and dimming light. I see tears still drying on your cheeks. I’ll burn them away for you.”
“Try,” Marg invited, swirling a hand that stirred the wind to gutter out the flicks of flame. “You think to toy with me to gain time? Be bold. Show me how dark and deep you run now, Yseult. Show me all you have, this last time.”
“And so I will.” She, too, circled, and as her hands turned, turned, as her eyes darkened to midnight, as the air blackened between them, Marg waited.
When it hurled toward her like pitch, black, thick, burning hot, she waited. She met Yseult’s gleaming eyes, heard the laugh as the black inferno rushed toward her.
And throwing up her arms, Marg let her grief rip free, let it tear from her heart, her belly, her bones. She brought it to form in light, blinding white and clear as glass. It shook the air; it tossed the churning sea up into walls of wild water.
When the dark struck the light, a sound like a thousand cannons firing, Marg stood, unflinching.
“So damned to you, Yseult. What you send returns to you threefold.”
And shot it back.
The thick, burning black covered Odran’s witch so her own evil smothered her. For an instant, she stood like a pillar of smoking tar. Only her eyes showed through, then even they vanished in the dark.
When all that was left was a pool of simmering ooze, Marg looked down.
“I have my justice.”
“Nan,” Breen murmured. “She—”
“Did what she needed to do.”
“Hurry, please hurry. I don’t want any more death today.”
“It has to come through one world to the next. It’s not like fetching a cup from another room.”
Then, with a slap of wood to flesh, the staff was in Keegan’s hand.
“Down with Marg now.”
“No, don’t you see? It has to be me—it’s always had to be me. Agod against a god, blood against blood. Justice against evil. You have to give it to me, Keegan. Entrust it to me. I made the choice, to give my life. You saved it. Now trust me.”
“I will.” He put the staff in her hand. “But I’ll not lose you this day, or any other.”
“Take me back. Let me do to him what my grandmother did to Yseult. Let me turn the key. Lock the lock. Let me end it.”
He flew toward the black castle where Odran stood on the cliff, hurling fire and lightning.
When he threw it at Cróga, Keegan swatted it aside. But the power sang up his arm.
“He’s stronger here,mo bandia.”
