A
cool cloth on her head. Warm, potent liquid easing down her throat. A quieting of the pain, a clearing of the mists.
“Rest now.” Brannaugh stroked her hair.
“I’m better. You have a strong gift for healing.”
“Teagan said the wolf burned up.”
“No. We hurt him, aye, we hurt him, but it lives. He lives.”
“We’ll kill it. We’ll set a trap and kill it.”
“It may come to that, when I’m stronger. He has more than he did, this shifting of shapes. I can’t say what price he paid for the power, but it would be dear. Your sister marked him. Here.” Sorcha clutched a hand on her left shoulder. “The shape of a pentagram. Watch for this, be wary of this, and any who bear that mark.”
“We will. You don’t be fretting now. We’ll make the supper, and you’ll feel stronger for eating, and resting.”
“You’ll make a charm for me. Exactly as I say. Make the charm, and bring it to me. Supper can wait until that’s done.”
“Will it make you stronger?”
“Aye.”
Brannaugh made the charm, and Sorcha hung it around her neck, next to her heart. She sipped more potion, and though her appetite was small, forced herself to eat.
She slept, and dreamed, and woke to find Brannaugh keeping watch.
“Off to bed now. It’s late.”
“We won’t leave you. I can help you to bed.”
“I’ll sit here, by the fire.”
“Then I’ll sit with you. We’re taking turns. I’ll wake Eamon when it’s his, and Teagan will bring you morning tea.”
Too weary to argue, too proud to scold, Sorcha only smiled. “Is that the way of it?”
“Until you’re all well again.”
“I’m better, I promise you. His magick was so strong, so black. It took all I had in me, and more, to stop it. Our Teagan, you’d be proud. So fierce and bright she was. And you, running toward us with your grandda’s sword.”
“It’s very heavy.”
The laugh felt good. “He was a big man with a red beard as long as your arm.” On a sigh, she ran her hand over Brannaugh’s head. “If you won’t go to your bed, make a pallet there on the floor. We’ll both sleep awhile.”
When her child slept, Sorcha added a charm to make Brannaugh’s dreams good and sweet.
And she turned to the fire. It was time, long past, to call Daithi home. She needed his sword, she needed his strength. She needed him.
So she opened her mind to the fire, opened her heart to her love.
Her spirit traveled over the hills and fields, through the night, through woods, over water where the moon swam. She flew across all the miles that separated them to the camp of their clann.
He slept near the fire with the moonlight like a blanket over him.
When she settled down beside him, his lips curved, and his arm curled around her.
“You smell of home fires and wooded glades.”