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“Love is a weakness,” the voice said, though it came from his lips. Did he really think that? He couldn’t recall, but it didn’t sound right. The voice fought him. Warned him. So much could be his if he only accepted them. Became them.
“Bullshit.” Her slap snapped him from his whirling thoughts. He frowned, though laughter boiled up through him. Leave it to her to resort to violence to make her point. The voice faltered, began again, but now Conor knew its game. Could fight back. Pressure built inside him as if too many shared too small a space. Pain returned. And the familiar itchy tingle of healing. Both he’d lost when the Fomorii took hold.
“Love is a strength,” she urged. Her eyes shone with tears.
“Look around you. You have cousins who risked their lives to get here to help. You have parents. A grandmother. An uncle. You have a family who love you. That makes you stronger than any
moldy, ancient power ever could.”
Breath squeezed out of his lungs. Tremors shook him. “And you love me. You wouldn’t have saved me if you didn’t.” The tears that had gathered now slid down her face, merging with the dirt. Curving into the corners of her mouth. “You wouldn’t have brought me back. The Fomorii wouldn’t care.” Her words broke to a whisper. “Conor would.”
The voice splintered into hundreds of voices. Thousands. All howling in anger, then understanding before melting back into the ground, spreading out to be lost among all the magics running beneath the earth. No longer focused into a conscious being. No longer him.
Without the will of the ancients, the injuries he’d suffered—his by right as well as those taken from the woman—exploded through his body like shrapnel. He doubled over, his lungs filling, his body a splintered mess.
Crying out, she grabbed him. Screamed for help.
He reached up, his fingertips grazing her shoulder. As she dropped her eyes to his, he smiled. “Ellery.”
Then the black pulled him under.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ellery had never felt more useless in her life. Useless and in the way. Jamys and Ruan between them had carried Conor’s limp body back to Daggerfell. Morgan had led her as if she were made of spun glass and too fragile to walk on her own. She’d tried shaking her off once, but the young amhas-draoi in training was as pig-headed as her cousin and refused to relinquish her death grip.
“You’ve been almost killed at least half a dozen times since sundown,” she scolded.
“You’ll let me help you, or I’ll heave you over my shoulder.”
This was no bluff. Ellery knew Morgan had the power in her slender frame to do just as she threatened, and so she submitted, gritting her teeth, and praying to any god listening to keep Conor alive until they could get him home.
Gram and the Blighs had met them at the door, and from then on it was a blur of snapped orders, closed doors, whispers, tears, questions, and the fog of unreality overlaying all.
She’d fought off the concerned offers of assistance to get as far as Conor’s bedchamber—what did she care about baths and clean clothes at a time like this—but once there she’d been halted by Conor’s father who paced restlessly up and down outside the door. “Heavens, child. Hasn’t anyone seen to you?” His voice was somber, his eyes shaded with exhaustion.
She glanced sheepishly down at her ruined gown, her grime-encrusted hands. “Morgan tried.”
A glimmer of amusement broke through the worry. “If you can wrestle with the will of Morgan and come out on top, you’re stronger than any among us.”
“Please, sir. Please let me go to him,” she pleaded. She needed to see Conor. Touch him. Know that he still breathed. That she hadn’t killed him by bringing him back. Had she been wrong to do so? Should she have just let him go? Let the Fomorii have him? Each question only brought more pain with it. And more doubt. And more questions. A death spiral.
A scream ripped the air, slamming her heart into her throat. The chamber door buckled, light flaring beneath the jamb, through the keyhole. White. Scorching.
She pushed past Mikhal, but he was quick, grabbing her arms. Holding her back. “Omdhiserri,” he coaxed. “Calm yourself, child. Omdhiserri. It’s for his own good.” He gentled her like a new-broke colt though she resisted, weeping and struggling. “Trust to Lowenna and Jamys. They fight Annwn for Conor’s soul no less fiercely than you did on Ilcum Bledh. They will bring him back—again.”
She collapsed on his chest, sobs tearing her in two. Her nose running, her throat sore from the wrenching grief that only now found its outlet.
Mikhal held her, smoothed her hair, and let her snivel all over his shirtfront. “It will come right in the end,” he murmured. “Shhh, my daughter. You’ll see.”
The comforting words of a father. The strength of a family that loved her. What she’d told Conor was right. Love was a strength. Family was a strength. And she had found both.
It would come right in the end. She believed that now.
The door opened. Lowenna’s silver-gray gaze glowed like moonlight, her smile wide. “He lives. And he remembers. It is truly over.”
The room was just as it had been, though it was full night, and only a candle cut the darkness. He’d walked here under his own power, an accomplishment of sorts after weeks of lying flat on his back. But even now, echoes of a pain too impossible to describe set his teeth on edge and sent spots dancing in front of his eyes. He ignored it. He’d not be coddled any longer. One more solicitous glance, and he wouldn’t be blamed for any violence that followed.
A drifting curtain sent him to the window. The lawn was a blanket of shadows. Trees, shrubbery, pathways, all shades of black and gray and silver. Just beyond the hill, a corner of the folly roof speared the night, picked out in brilliant white by a disc of a moon.
