She pushed up quickly. “Liam, Liam, you’ll watch the children.”
Though he’d chafed at being assigned to the duty here, he rushed over.
“What is it?”
“I need to go over, and now. I need to tell Keegan.”
“You’re not to go over until they come to say it’s safe again.”
She took the knife from her belt in one hand, her wand in the other. “Do you think I can’t do what needs doing? Watch the children.”
Morena flew to Marg. “They said Marco— Ah gods, Sedric. Marg—”
“Yseult. She has Breen.”
“But no, she’s with Marco. Keegan said—”
“Yseult has her. Yseult did this. I don’t know for certain how long it’s been, for the trail of her cursed fog stunned me. Don’t leave him like this, Morena. Get him to shelter.”
“Let me get Keegan.”
“I don’t know how long,” she repeated as her dragon landed on the road. “This part began with me, and I won’t let them take her. I won’t.”
She mounted and streaked off as Aisling ran down the road.
“Fetch her back, Morena! Breen’s crossed over into Odran’s world. Fetch her back! Oh, no, no, Sedric.”
“Bloody, buggering hell. Marg has gone after Yseult, who did this and took Breen. I need to get to Keegan, and so we go take the fight to Odran after all. Please, Aisling, don’t leave Sedric here. The healing station’s just there, as you see. Marco’s in there.”
“He’s hurt?”
“Aye. Please, I need to—”
“Go, go. I’ll see to Sedric, and to Marco. Go!”
The air changed here. Even through the fog, Breen could sense it. It held thicker, colder. And she knew, as she used the fog as cover as much as Yseult did, that some of Odran’s forces had fled back to this world.
She knew in his rage, he’d slain many of them himself.
She heard the angry beat of the sea, the churning spin of the sky.
Because she willed it, she saw herself, draped in the fog, crossing to the cliffs beyond the walls and the sacrificial pool on this side, even now running with blood. She saw the cliffs, jagged and high, and the bodies strewn on them.
She climbed by Toric’s body, dead on the rocks as she’d told him he’d end. So as Keegan expected, Odran had freed the banished.
Only to lead them to their death.
So she climbed, as if unable to resist the pull.
Until she stood, in the thinning fog, on the highmost cliff, facing Odran.
She had blood on her hands, her face. Some of it Marco’s, some Sedric’s. And he who’d caused all the blood stood pristine, clad in black, his mane of hair shining gold.
“There you are, Granddaughter.”
“My grandfather is dead, a hero of Talamh. And you are a murderer of children, with your followers defeated.”
“There are always more. Yseult, you’ve pleased me well. Go now, seal the portal so I have this time, uninterrupted, with my granddaughter.”