Then Iona—no Teagan, the youngest—Teagan, held a cup to her lips, and the taste on her tongue, down her throat, was lovely.
Now when she drew in breath, true and deep, it tasted the same—of the green and the earth, the peat fire, and the herbs thriving nearby.
“I’m all right.”
“Another moment, just another moment. How could he come here?” Brannaugh asked Connor. “We’re beyond him here.”
“But I’m not. Somehow I brought him, gave him passage. A trap it was after all. Using me to get to you, Eamon, and your sisters. I led him here, led him to this.”
“No, he used us both, our dreams.”
“And drew us in as well,” Brannaugh said. “There’s none of his dark left in you, my lady. Can you sit now, easy and slow?”
“I’m fine. Better than I was before the wound. You have her skill, or she has yours.”
“You stood for my brother. If you hadn’t risked yourself, he would be hurt, or worse, for Cabhan wanted his blood, his death.”
“Your sword.” Teagan laid it over Meara’s legs.
“There’s blood on it. I thought the strike missed.”
“You struck true.”
“’Tis shadow magick,” Brannaugh stated.
“It is,” Connor agreed. “As long as I’m here, he can come again. I do you more harm than good by staying.”
“Would you take this, if you please?” Teagan held out a flower topping its bulb. “And when you can, if you’d plant this near our mother’s grave. She favored bluebells.”
“I will, yes, soon as I’m able. I must go, must take Meara back.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“I’m not. Have a care, all of you.” He wrapped his arms tight around Meara, pressed his face into her hair.
She woke in bed, sitting up with Connor’s arms around her, with him rocking her as he might a baby.
“I had a dream.”
“Not a dream, or not only a dream. Shh now, give me a moment.”
His lips pressed onto her hair, her temples, her cheeks, all slow and deliberate.
“Let me see your side.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she insisted as he shifted her, ran his hands over her. “In fact I feel someone dosed me with a magick elixir. And I suppose that’s just what happened. How did it happen? Any of it, all of it?”
“Eamon dreamed of me and I of him. He drew me to him, and I drew you with me. And likely Cabhan set the stage for it all.”
His hands fisted in her hair until he carefully relaxed them again.
“To use me, my dreaming, to attack Eamon.”
“You pushed me behind you.”
“And you did the same with Eamon. We do what we do.” On a sigh, he laid his forehead on hers. “Your sword struck his flank, and his claws yours, but he was still part in shadow so the blade drew his blood, but didn’t stop him. That’s my theory on it.”
“He came out of the air, Connor. How do we fight what comes out of the air?”