Shadow Spell

  “A canny businessman he’s always been,” Branna said. “She’ll fall in love and pay any price.” But she said it with humor, not sting. “And it is a fine notion. More, it’s saved me a quandary, for the field behind here is for Connor. But with Iona being family, I’ve been torn about it—even though . . . I’ve walked it countless times, and it never said Iona. I could never see you and Boyle making your home there, though you’d have been in sight of our own, and it’s a pretty spot with a lovely view of things. I never could understand the way of that. Now I do. You’ll have your cottage in the woods.”

  She lifted her glass in turn. “Blessed be.”

  * * *

  BRANNA BROUGHT OUT HER VIOLIN AFTER THE MEAL, AND joined her voice with Meara’s. Only happy tunes, and lively ones. Connor fetched the boden drum from his room, added a tribal beat. To Iona’s surprise and delight, Boyle disappeared for a few moments and came back with a melodeon.

  “You play?” Iona gaped at Boyle, at the little button accordion he held. “I didn’t know you could play!”

  “I can’t, not a note. But Fin can.”

  “I haven’t played, not a note, in years,” Fin protested.

  “And who’s fault is that?” Boyle shoved the instrument at him.

  “Play it, Fin,” Meara encouraged. “Let’s have a proper seisiún.”

  “Then no complaints when I make a muck of it.” He glanced at Branna. After a moment she shrugged, tapped her foot, and began something light and jumpy. With a laugh, Connor danced fingers and stick over the colorful drum.

  Fin caught the time and the tune, joined in.

  Music rang out, paused only for more wine or a discussion of what should be next. Iona scrambled up for a notepad.

  “I need the names of some of these! We’ll want some of them at the wedding reception. They’re so full of fun and happy.” Imagining herself in her perfect wedding dress, dancing to all that lively joy with Boyle, surrounded by friends and family, she beamed at him. “The way our life together’s going to be.”

  At Meara’s long, exaggerated awwww, Boyle kissed Iona soundly.

  So in the warm, bright kitchen there was laughter and song, a deliberate and defiant celebration of life, of futures, of the light.

  Outside, the dark deepened, the shadows spread, and the fog slunk along the ground.

  In its anger, and its envy, it did what it could to smother the house. But protections carefully laid repelled it so it could only skulk and plot and rage against the brilliance—searching, searching for any chink in the circle.

  Meara switched to water to wet her throat, brought a glass over to Branna. She felt suddenly tired, and a little drunk. It was air she needed more than water, she thought. Air cool and damp and dark.

  “After Samhain,” Connor said, “we’ll have a real céilie, invite the neighbors and those all around as Ma and Da did. Near Christmas, do you think, Branna?”

  “With a tree in the window, and lights everywhere. With enough food to set the tables groaning. I’ve a fondness for Yule, so that would suit me.”

  It was rare for Connor to slide into her mind, but he did now.

  He’s close, circling close, pressing hard. Do you feel him?

  Branna nodded, but kept smiling. The music draws him like a wasp to the light. But we’re not ready, not altogether ready to take him on.

  Here’s a chance to try, and we shouldn’t miss taking it.

  Then tell the others, this way. We’ll try the chance, and hope surprise is enough.

  Connor saw, as Branna did, that Fin already felt that pressure, those dark fingers scrabbling against the bright. He saw Iona jolt, just a little, as he slid his thoughts into her head.

  Her hand squeezed Boyle’s.

  He glanced toward Meara.

  The instant he realized she wasn’t there he felt her, saw her reach out to open the front door of the cottage.

  The fear gripped his throat like claws, all but drawing blood. He shouted for her, in his mind, with his voice, and rushed out of the room.

  Nearly half asleep, floating on the shadows soft and dim, she stepped outside. Here’s what she needed, here’s what she had to have. The dark, the thick and quiet dark.

  Even as she started to draw in a deep breath, Connor caught her around the waist, all but threw her back into the cottage.

  Everything shook—the floor, the ground, the air. To her stunned eyes, the dark mists outside the door bowed inward as if something large and terrible pushed its weight against them. Boyle slammed the door on it, and the dull roar—like an angry surf—that rolled with it.

  “What happened? What is it?” Meara shoved against Connor, who’d thrown his body over hers.

  “Cabhan. Stay back,” Branna snapped, and flung the door open again.

  A storm raged outside, the shadows twisting, knotting. Under them came a kind of high shriek and a rumble that was thousands of wings beating.

  “Bats, is it?” Branna said in disgust. “Try as you might,” she shouted, fists clenched at her sides. “Try your worst, then try again. But this is my home, and never will you cross the threshold.”

  “Jesus,” Meara whispered as the mists thinned enough for her to see the bats. Like a living, undulating wall, red eyes gleaming, spiked wings beating.

  “Stay here.” Connor shouted against the din, then leaped up to join his sister. And with him, Iona and Fin moved to form a line.

  “In our light you’ll twist and turn,” Connor began.

  “In our flame you’ll scorch and burn,” Iona continued.

  “Here merge the power of one and three,” Fin added.

  “As we will, so mote it be,” Branna finished.

  Meara, dragged back by Boyle, watched as the bats lit like torches. Hated herself for cringing as they screamed, as they burst, as smoking bodies twisted.

  Ash fell like black rain, whipped in the terrible wind.

  Then all went quiet.

  “You’re not welcome here,” Branna murmured, then firmly shut the door.

  “Are you hurt?” With the danger passed, Connor dropped to his knees beside Meara.

  “No, no. God, did I let it in? Did I open us up to that?”

  “Nothing got in.” But Connor gathered her up, pressed his lips to her hair. “You opened nothing but the door.”

  “I had to. Felt I couldn’t breathe, and wanted—craved—the dark and quiet.” Shaken, she balled her hands, pressed them to her temple. “He used me again, tried to use me against all of us.”

  “And failed,” Iona said crisply.

  “He sees you as weak. Look at me now.” Fin crouched down to her. “He sees you as weak as you’re a woman, and no witch. But he’s wrong, as there’s nothing weak about or in you.”

  “And still he used me.”

  “He wanted you to go out, beyond the protections and charms.” Connor brushed her hair away from her face. “He tried to lure you out, away from us. Not to use you, darling, but to harm you. For he’s enraged by what we’re doing here. The music, the light, the simple joy of it all. He’d have hurt you, if he could, for only that.”

  “You’re sure of it? The music, the lights?” Meara looked from Connor to Branna, and back. “Well then. We’ll play louder, and if you’d do me a favor considering, use what you will to make the lights brighter.”

  Connor kissed her, helped her to her feet. “No, not a bit of weak in or about you.”

  * * *

  LATE INTO THE NIGHT WHEN THEY’D PLAYED THEMSELVES out, Connor held her close against him in his bed. He couldn’t seem to let her go. The image played in his mind—the dazed look on her face as she’d stepped from light to dark.

  “It’s mind tricks he’s using, and he’s enough of them, enough in him to slither through the shields.” As he spoke, he traced a finger over the beads she wore. “We’ll work on something stronger.”

  “He doesn’t go after Boyle the same way. Is Fin right? It’s because I’m not a man?”

  “He
preys on women more, doesn’t he? He killed Sorcha’s man to be sure, but he killed Daithi to torment her, to break her heart and spirit. And he tormented her again and again over that last winter. The history of it says he took girls from the castle and around.”

  “Yet it’s the boy, Eamon, he’s tried to get to.”

  “Take out the boy, and he’d see the girls as more vulnerable to him. He wants Brannaugh—both the one who was and our own. I feel it whenever I let him in.”

  She shifted. “Let him in?”

  “Into my head—a bit. Or when I’m able to slip through, as he does, and get into his. It’s cold, and it’s dark, and so full of hunger and rage it’s hard to understand any of it.”

  “But letting him in, even for a moment, is dangerous. He could see your thoughts as well, couldn’t he—use them against us? Against you.”

  “I’ve ways around that. He doesn’t have what I have, or only a whisper of it. What Eamon has as well, and he’d love to drain the boy of his power, take it for his own.”

  Idly, he stroked her hair, loose from its braid. Despite all, he found himself oddly content to just be with her, bodies warm and close, voices hushed in the dark.

  “He bothered us so little before Iona came. With Fin he’s been relentless since the day the mark burned into Fin’s shoulder.”

  “He never speaks of it, our Fin, or rarely.”

  “To me he does,” Connor told her, “and sometimes to Boyle. But no, even then it’s rare. Things changed all around when Cabhan’s mark came on him. And changed all around again when Iona came. He pushed at her those weeks, as she was not only a woman but so new and inexperienced, just learning all she had in her and how to use it. He thought her weak as well.”

  “She proved him wrong.”

  “As you have more than once already.” He kissed her forehead, her temple. “But he won’t stop trying. Harming you harms us all. That he can see well enough, even if he can’t understand it, as he’s never loved in the whole of his existence. How is it, do you think, to exist for so long, so many lifetimes, and never know love, giving it, being given it?”

  “People live without it—or do for one lifetime—and don’t torment and kill.”

  “I’m not meaning it as an excuse.” Now he propped up on his elbow to look down at her. “He can bespell a woman and take her body, and her power if she has it. Lusting without love—without any love for anything or anyone—that’s the dark. Those who go through their time with only that? I think they must be sad creatures, or evil ones. It’s the heart that gets us through the hard times, and gives us joy.”

  “Branna says your power comes through your heart.” Lightly, Meara traced a cross on it.

  “That’s her thinking, and it’s true enough. I couldn’t be if I couldn’t feel. He feels. Lust and rage and greed, with nothing to lighten it. Taking what we are won’t be enough. It will never be enough. He wants us to know the dark he knows, to suffer in it.”

  It made her want to shudder, so she stiffened herself against it. “You found that in his mind?”

  “Some of it. Some I can just see. And for a moment tonight, I knew what he felt—and it was a kind of terrible joy that he would take you from me, from us. From yourself.”

  “You were inside me—in my head. He never called my name, not this time, but you did. I heard you call my name, and I stopped for just an instant. I felt like I stood on the edge of something, pulled in both directions. Then I was under you on the floor, so I don’t know which way I’d have gone.”

  “I know, and not only because there’s no weakness in you. Because of this.” He lowered his head, met her lips lightly, lightly with his. “Because it’s more than lust.”

  Nerves rose, a shiver of wings in her belly. “Connor—”

  “It’s more,” he whispered, and took her mouth.

  Soft, so soft and tender, his lips coaxing hers to give, seducing degree by aching degree. If his power came from the heart, he used it now, saturating her in pure feeling.

  She would have said no—no, it wasn’t the way for her, couldn’t be the way. But he was already gliding her along on the sweet, onto the shimmer, into the shine.

  His hands, light as air, skimmed over her, and even with such a delicate touch kindled heat.

  Quiet, so quiet and stirring, his words asking her to believe what she never had. To trust what she both feared and denied.

  In love, its simplicity, its potency. Its permanence.

  Not for her. No, not for her—she thought it, but drifted on its silky clouds. What he gave, what he brought, what he promised, was irresistible.

  For a moment, for a night, she gave herself to it. Gave herself to him.

  So he took, but gently, and gave more in return.

  He’d known, in the instant she’d stood between Cabhan’s dark and his light, he’d known the full truth of love. He’d understood it came weighted with fear, and with risks. He’d known he might be lost in the maze of it, accepted he would work through its shadows, draw on its light and live his life riding its ups, its downs, its stretches of smooth, its sudden bumps.

  With her.

  A lifetime of friendship hadn’t prepared him for this change, this tidal shift from easy love to what he felt for her.

  The one. The only. And this he would cherish.

  He didn’t ask for the words back—they would come. But for now her yielding was enough. Those breathy sighs, the tremors, the thick, unsteady beat of her heart.

  She rose up, swimming up and over a wave of pleasure so absolute it seemed to fill her body with pure white light.

  Then it was him filling her, giving her more, and more and more until tears blurred her vision. As she peaked, as she clung for glorious moments to that bright and brilliant edge, she heard his voice, once again, in her mind.

  This is more, he said to her. This is love.

  * * *

  “WHY DOES IT MAKE YOU SO UNEASY?”

  “What?” Meara stared at him, then looked around. “Where are we? Is— Is that Sorcha’s cabin? Are we dreaming?”

  “More than a dream. And love is more than the lie you try to believe it is.”

  “It’s Sorcha’s cabin, but it stands under the vines that grow around it. And this isn’t the time to talk about love and lies. Did he bring us here?”

  She drew her sword, grateful the dream that wasn’t a dream provided it.

  “Love’s the source of the light.”

  “The moon’s the source of the light, and we can be glad it’s full wherever and whenever we are.” She turned a slow circle, searching shadows. “Is he near? Can you feel him?”

  “If you can’t yet believe you love me, you should believe I love you. I’ve never told you a lie, or not one that mattered, in your life.”

  “Connor.” She sheathed her sword, but left her hand on the hilt. “Have you lost your senses?”

  “I’ve gained them.” He grinned at her. “It’s your senses lost because you haven’t the nerve to pick them up and hold them.”

  “I’m the one with the sword so mind what you say about my nerve.”

  He only kissed her before she shoved him away. “Not a weak thing in or about you. Your heart’s stronger than you think, and it’s going to be mine.”

  “I’m not going to stand here, of all places, and talk nonsense with you. I’m going back.”

  “That’s not the way.” Connor took her arm as she turned.

  “I know the way well enough.”

  “That’s not the way,” he repeated. “And it’s not yet time, as here he comes now.”

  Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword. “Cabhan.”

  Connor stilled her sword hand before she could draw, and took the white cobble out of his pocket. It glowed like a small moon in his palm.

  “No. It’s Eamon who comes.”

  She watched him ride into the little clearing, not a boy now, but a man. Very young, but tall and straight and so like Connor her heart jerked.
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  He wore his hair longer and braided back. He came quietly astride a tough-looking chestnut who, to her eye, could have galloped halfway across the county without losing its wind.

  “Good evening to you, cousin,” Connor called out.

  “And to you and your lady.” Eamon dismounted smoothly. Rather than tether the horse, he simply laid the reins over its back. The way the chestnut stood, like a carved statue in the moonlight, it was clear it wouldn’t stray or bolt away from its master.

  “It’s been some time for you,” Connor observed.

  “Five years. My sisters and their men bide at Ashford. Brannaugh has two children, a son and a daughter, and another son comes any day. Teagan is with child. Her first.”

  He looked to the cabin, then over to his mother’s gravestone. “And so we’ve come home.”

  “To fight him.”

  “’Tis my fondest wish. But he is in your time, and that is a truth that cannot be denied.”

  Tall and straight, with the hawk’s eye around his neck, Eamon looked over at his mother’s grave again.

  “Teagan came here before me. She saw the one who will come from her. Saw her watching while Teagan faced Cabhan. We are the three, the first, but what we are, what we have, we will pass to you. This is all I can see.”

  “We are six,” Connor said. “The three and three more. My lady, my cousin’s man, and a friend, a powerful friend.” And since the boy was now a man, Connor thought, the time had come to speak of it. “Our friend Finbar Burke. He is of Cabhan’s blood.”

  “He is marked?” Like Meara, Eamon laid a hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “Through no act of his own, no wish of his own.”

  “The blood of Cabhan—”

  “I would trust him with my life, and have. I would trust him with the life of my lady, and I love her beyond reason—though she doesn’t believe it. We are six,” Connor repeated, “and he is one of us. We will fight Cabhan. We will end him. I swear it.”

  Connor drew Meara’s sword and, taking it, stepped over to the gravestone. He scored his palm, let the red drip onto the ground. “I swear by my blood we will end him.”

  He reached in his pocket, unsurprised to find the bluebell. He used the sword to dig a small hole, and planted it. “A promise given and kept.”

  He stirred the air with a finger, pulled the moisture out of it, and let blood and water pour on the ground.

  Stepping back, he watched with the others as the flower grew, and the blooms doubled.

  “I rode away from her.” Eamon stared at the grave. “There was no choice, and it was her will and her wish. Now I come home a man. Whatever I can do, whatever power is given me, I will do, I will use. A promise kept.” He held out a hand to Connor. “I cannot trust this spawn of Cabhan’s, but I trust you and yours.”

  “He is mine.”

  Eamon looked at the grave, at the flowers, at the cabin. “Then you are six.” He touched his amulet, the twin of Connor’s, then the stone on the leather binding Connor had given him. “All we are is with you. I hope we’ll see each other again, when this is done.”

  “When it’s done,” Connor agreed.