He dodged the knife easily. She was clumsy, Keegan thought, and slower than she’d once been.
“Shana.”
Her mind was gone, her heart pitch-dark, and he knew therewould be no retrieving either. But he had to try, one last time. “Odran doesn’t care a whit which of us falls here. He’s only for the blood and the death.”
“You’ll die, and Talamh burn. He’ll give me your bitch of a mother to kill with my golden blade, and your whore, emptied of power, as a slave.”
She did a spin, wobbled, spun again. “Oh, I’ll pay you back for the pain, pay you back double. It might be I’ll take your brother to my bed before I gut him like a fish. He has the look of you, after all, and I’ll snip the sneering Sidhe’s wings from her back while he watches.
“I am a god now, you see?” Those mad eyes gleamed as she spread her arms wide. “Your powers don’t touch me. I am Odran’s chosen. Come now, I can make it quick, or it’s a scratch here, a cut there. It only takes the one, but a good clean blow will end it quicker.”
They heard it together, her elf ears, and the elf in him he’d explored. Coming fast down the path.
“Company!” She spun, and vanished.
Did she think he couldn’t see? Keegan thought. Did she think she’d blurred so he wouldn’t know she’d slid into the tree, her knife lifted, ready to strike?
Making his choice, he drew his sword.
Even as the dog charged down the path with Breen racing behind, he saw Shana, the shadow of her on the bark of the wide trunk. And he saw the dark hate come into her eyes, and the thirst for murder in them.
As she started to lunge again, now toward Breen, he plunged the sword into her.
She made no sound, not even a gasp, but for a moment, endless to him, her eyes met his. And in them he saw confusion and nothing more.
She fell out of the tree at his feet, with the knife thudding on the path.
“Don’t touch it. Stop,” he snapped at Bollocks. “It’s made of poison. Back now, well back.”
He shot fire at the blade, held it while the knife bubbled and smoked. Over Shana’s body, he looked at Breen.
“I couldn’t reach her. There was nothing in her to reach.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He sent her for this. In hopes to kill me, but knowing she’d never live long enough to get back to the damned and bloody world she’d chosen. Is he so hell-bent, Breen, that he couldn’t see she wanted your death more than she ever wanted mine?”
He sheathed his sword.
“I’ll need salt, and I carry none with me. Salt for the stain the poison’s left on the ground. And more, if you’d get some for me, for her. I’ll take her to the Bitter Caves.”
“I’ll get the salt, and I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you,” she repeated when he shook his head. “You don’t do this alone. We’ll go with you,” she said, and laid a hand on Bollocks.
“Cróga will carry us, and her. When it’s done, we’ll bring you back. I’ll go to the midlands and tell her parents.”
“Don’t.” She went around the body, went to him. “Don’t do that, Keegan.”
“Don’t tell her family she’s dead at my hand?”
“They’ve already lost her, already grieved.”
“I took her life.”
“She ended it when she chose Odran. You finished what she began, and what good would it do to tell them this, what happened here? They’d lose her a second time and have fresh grief over the old. And more, every memory of her they hold would be scarred by it. How could they ever heal from that?”
“Aye, aye, you’ve the right of it.”
He called for his dragon and waited while Breen got the salt. And waiting, bent to stroke the dog, who stayed at his side.