“For your life, for ours, for our purpose. Do you think I don’t feel what you feel?” Even the secret fear drowned in an icy wave of rage. “That it stabbed a thousand times to do nothing? He has power. Not what he had, but different. Not more, but less, and still different. I don’t know how to fight him. Yet. We don’t know, Eamon, and we must know.”
“He’s coming. Not tonight, not tomorrow, but he’ll come. He knows you . . .” Eamon flushed again, looked away.
“He knows I can bear children,” Brannaugh finished. “He thinks to get a son from me. He never will. But he’s coming. I felt it as well.”
“Then we must go.” Teagan tipped her head to Kathel’s flank. “We must never bring him here.”
“We must go,” Brannaugh agreed. “We must be what we are.”
“Where will we go?”
“South.” Brannaugh looked at Eamon for confirmation.
“Aye, south, as he is still north. He remains in Mayo.”
“We will find a place, and there we will learn more, find more. And one day we will go home.”
She rose, took both their hands again, let the power spark from one to one. “I swear by our blood we will go home again.”
“I swear by our blood,” Eamon said, “we or what comes from us will destroy even the thought of him.”
“I swear by our blood,” Teagan said, “we are the three, and will ever be.”
“Now we close the circle, but never again close off what we are, what we have, what we were given.” Brannaugh released their hands. “We leave on the morrow.”
* * *
EYES WEEPY, AILISH WATCHED BRANNAUGH PACK HER SHAWL. “I beg you to stay. Think of Teagan. She’s but a child.”
“The age I was when we came to you.”
“As you were a child,” she said.
“I was more. We are more, and must be what we are.”
“I frightened you by speaking of Fial. You cannot think we would force a marriage upon you.”
“No. Oh no.” Brannaugh turned then, took her cousin’s hands. “You never would. It is not for Fial we leave you, cousin.”
Turning, Brannaugh packed the last of her things.
“Your mother would not want this for you.”
“My mother would want us to be home, happy and safe with her and our father. But that was not to be. My mother gave her life for us, gave her power to us. And now her purpose to us. We must live our lives, embrace our power, complete our purpose.”
“Where will you go?”
“To Clare, I think. For now. We will come back. And we will go home. I feel it as true as life. He will not come here.”
Turning back, she looked into her cousin’s eyes, her own like smoke. “He will not come here or harm you or any of yours. This I swear to you on my mother’s blood.”
“How can you know?”
“I am one of three. I am a dark witch of Mayo, first daughter of Sorcha. He shall not come here nor harm you or yours. You are protected for all of your life. This I have done. I would not leave you unprotected.”
“Brannaugh . . .”
“You worry.” Brannaugh laid her hands over her cousin’s hands, which rested on the mound of her belly. “Have I not told you your son is well and healthy? The birthing will go easy, and quickly as well. This I can promise as well, and I do. But . . .”