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“I don’t see it.” Brian spoke from beside her.
“I see, I see, I see. Light in the dark. Her dark. Odran’s dark. I can close it, as I close my fist.”
When she lifted her arm, closed her hand into a fist, Brian swore he heard a snap.
With her eyes still dark and deep, Breen smiled. “Now wonder, witch, and wonder how your magicks failed here. How the crack sealed, no more to be clawed open. Wonder and fear. Fear the day that comes when I crush you.” She opened her hand, fisted it again. “When I crush you and your blood-soaked god.Ar shaol m’athar, swear mé é.”
When her eyes rolled up, her head fell back, Brian caught her.
“Don’t let me fall in the water.”
“I have you.” He cradled her as he flew to the riverbank. “Bring water!”
“I’m okay. I just got dizzy for a minute and lost my focus.”
“You drink some of this now.” Marco held a skin of water to her lips. “At this moment you’re the whitest white girl I’ve ever seen. And how the hell did you forget to tell me you could fly?”
“I can’t. I didn’t. It’s like levitating, and I never did more than a few inches before. With Nan there. Remember?”
“Hell of a lot more than a few inches this time. You gotta stop scaring the crap out of me, girl. And this boy here, too.”
She wrapped an arm around Bollocks as he pressed hard against her.
“I could feel it, up there. I had to get close.” Realizing Brian still held her, she put a hand on his chest. “I’m okay, I promise. I really have to thank you for not letting me fall.”
“Do you remember?” He set her carefully on her feet.
“Yeah. I had to really focus. I felt more—I mean more than I do now. And I felt her spell. I knew I could break it, close the crack.”
“So you did, with this.” Brian took her hand, closed it into a fist. “And the words you spoke, there was such power, and a kind of music in them. You glowed like the sun with your eyes dark as new moons.
“And when you smiled—”
“I smiled? I don’t remember that part.”
“You smiled like a warrior when the battle’s won. And spoke in Talamhish.”
“I did?” She pushed at her wet hair. “I know a few words.”
“Ar shaol m’athar, swear mé é.”
“I don’t know those. What do they mean?”
“You said, in your tongue, you would crush her—the witch—and her god with her. Then you said those words. They mean: On my father’s life, I swear it.”
“I don’t remember, but I must’ve meant them.”
“I had no doubt of it.”
“I’m going to take you home, no bullshit training today.” Marco put an arm around her. “I’m going to tuck you up by the fire, and I don’t want any sass from you about it.”
“Best to listen,” Brian advised.
“Duncan’s coming back.” But she leaned against Marco, kept a hand on Bollocks as she looked up.
The falcon danced through the trees, swooped across the river, and dropped to the ground as a man.
“I followed the raven to the Troll camp, and to the hut where he took the scroll. The one who lives there is called Thar. With the scroll, Brian, the raven brought a knife. I saw Elfin markings on it. And he read the scroll out loud, as if to push it all into himself. It tells him to use the knife on Loga of the Trolls and leave it in him. Leave it, and claim he saw an elf attack and run. The elf is Argo, from the valley.”
