Once again, she opened herself, and tried, for the first time, to call her dragon.
The air held a chill, but not an unpleasant one. A man galloped by on a bay and gave her a tip of his cap. The black-faced sheep grazed behind her.
And Lonrach streamed, ruby red, out of the sky.
Her heart just overflowed. “He’s coming, Bollocks.” She stood with the dog beside her. “Do you want to fly?”
The way his tail whipped, she took it as a hell, yeah.
He landed gracefully, and still the ground shook. Then he turned his head so his eyes looked into hers.
“I want to go see Nan, and Sedric if he’s there, but I wanted to fly first. Wanted this.” She laid a hand on his head.
Lonrach dipped a wing so Bollocks could run up it and onto his back. Breen did the same.
“Wherever you want,” she murmured, and he rose up.
She saw Harken raise a hand to wave up at her.
They soared over the green, over the bay, over cottages and bored sheep. She saw her father’s grave below and sent her thoughts to him.
“They’re still there, trapped.” She studied the ruins below. “We have to find a way.”
She’d talk to her grandmother about it.
She thought about asking Lonrach to fly south. She wanted to see the village there, how much of the Prayer House they’d razed, but when he veered off, she realized she’d thought of somewhere else.
The forest, the stream, the waterfall. The portal.
Pulled there, she thought now, without fully knowing it. But pulled so the dragon was pulled.
And little licks of fear slid cold over her skin as they flew closer. “Do you feel it, too?”
Because he trembled, Breen wrapped her arms around Bollocks.
She saw Cróga circling, so Keegan must be there. At the portal.
Checking. The seal needed to be checked, of course. Guarded well, because …
She saw Keegan and other Fey below. Some horses. Sedric, silver hair gleaming.
She arrowed down, wind rushing into her face as Keegan looked up. She caught the flicker of irritation, ignored it as both she and Bollocks jumped down.
“I’ve too much to do to—”
“They’re at the portal, on the other side.” She snapped it out. “Trying to open it again. Can you feel it?”
She snatched his hand. “Feel it now.”
Through her, he did. “It’s holding. We knew they’d try, and it’s holding.”
“Yes, but…”
“It holds, Breen.”
“There’s blood, blood in the water. Demon blood, and next it will be Fey, a sacrifice of their own, as they have no more of ours. For now. And it is now. Happening now.”
“What do you see?”
“The blood, so much blood. Yseult wading in it, and the sleep snakes wound around her shoulders like a scarf. She points. An elf, but he’s not quick enough, and the others drag him to her. The snakes, they strike and strike, and he screams and screams.”
“Enough,” Keegan said when she covered her ears with her hands. “Enough now.”
“No, no, no. She takes the knife, plunges it into his throat. Blood, more blood. It gushes into the water. Her hands, painted with it. But the seal holds.
“He’s not there, but he watches. Odran watches from his tower. And she falls to her knees in the blood and the water when he slaps out with power. Blood on her face now, her own. He turns his back on her, and goes inside. And outside in the storm he brings, she bleeds.”
“All right now. Bring her some water.”
“It’s not right.”
“The seal holds,” he said again. “And as it does, Talamh holds.”
“It’s not right, Keegan.” She took the offered water, drank deep. “He didn’t look at me. He didn’t look, but he saw me. I know, I felt. But he didn’t look.”
“You bested him.”
“It’s not right,” she said again. “It’s not, but I don’t know why. I wasn’t coming here, but I felt pulled. Like it was urgent I come. But the seal’s holding, and you were expecting them to try. Why did I need to come?”
Keegan looked back at the falls, brought the portal into his mind.
“To see what he wanted you to see, and feel what he wanted you to feel. There’ll be a purpose in that. Call your dragon. You’ll bring Marg to the farm. I need to get Mahon. If his purpose is what I think it may be, we have work to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They sat around the big farm table in sturdy chairs. Breen imagined the generations who’d done the same for family meals. How they’d talked and argued, laughed and cried.