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But this…you will remember this.
The cold lessened. A susurration of ice, a flutter of storm. Mist dwindling.
You are stronger than he thinks.
You will be strong, we think.
We approve.
We honor you.
The last whisper touched Aric’s skin like the trail of a shroud, a drying tear, a vanishing sunrise. The voices stopped. The rain pattered to a standstill. The rocks and skies and snowbanks stood deafeningly silent.
Em sighed softly, and then, with the soundlessness of a broken feather, crumpled against him.
Chapter 7
Aric’s heart clawed at his chest. He was holding on, crying out Em’s name, begging; but Em was already awake, eyes open, ordering, “Aric—break the circle, move a stone—pick up mine—”
Rocks. Fairy-circles. Magic. Em’s magic. Aric balanced Emrys in an arm, shoved rocks into a spray of scattered mud, grabbed the dull grey glint splashed with scarlet. “Here—”
“I don’t need it, as such. We shouldn’t leave it lying around.” Em sounded weak but as practical and efficient as ever. “The rest will be safe; they’re only pebbles.”
“You sent them on. The ghosts.” He heard his voice catch. “You nearly went with them, didn’t you?”
“Oh, no. It wasn’t that close.” Em shut his eyes, opened them. He looked like himself, like the human version of himself Aric had woken up with, bandaged after a kelpie-fight, kissed. “I’m just tired. I wasn’t going anywhere; I had you with me. I don’t entirely know where I sent them. Might’ve been my father’s country. Wherever I opened the door.”
“Bet he’ll love that.”
“What’s one more annoyance between family? I can stand up, I think.”
“Can you?”
Em could, with Aric’s arm for assistance. He already looked better: upright, alert, moving smoothly if wearily. His finger left a smudge of ugly color on the snow.
“You’re hurt.” Aric dove for spare cloth and healing salve. He’d brought supplies just in case. Not knowing what they’d find. “How bad is it?”
“Not much. It’s magic, that’s all, and I did it to myself.” Em let Aric cradle his hand, wrap the sluggishly dripping fingertip. “I’ll heal about as fast as an ordinary human would.”
“How’s this? Not too tight?”
“No, perfect. Thanks.”
“I’m good with pebbles and bandages,” Aric said, because his heart had twisted at the sight of red, because the joke helped, “you know, heroic deeds.”
“Everything I need,” Em agreed tiredly, and let Aric lead the way back down the mountain.
Around them, snow did not immediately vanish, and frost did not peel away from straggling trees or brown earth. That would take some time.
But the air lacked the bite of phantom rage, and the pass lay open, and the path was muddy but ghost-free. Trading caravans could come through; the guard towers could be rebuilt; and Matilda of Silverscarp and her people would not starve in isolation.
Success. One more heroic deed, as per his joke. Saving a town, and more. Aric put a hand under Em’s arm during a slippery steepness.
He thought that Em would say it had been worth the cost. It had been, he knew: Em wasn’t badly hurt, they’d done what they’d set out to do, they were both here and the specters weren’t.
He understood that. He just hated seeing blood on Em’s hands.
But Emrys was smiling faintly, at his side. Aric breathed out, offered devoted assistance as needed, and thanked his ancestors that Em was brilliant.
