“I don’t have time, I don’t know how much time there is. I need you to stay here. Don’t go to Talamh today. Don’t go until I get back.”
If she came back.
“Keep Bollocks. I have to go now.”
When she ran for the stairs, Bollocks ran ahead of her. “No, you have to stay with Marco. You stay!”
She grabbed a jacket on the way out, shoved her arms through. As she’d already called Lonrach, he waited for her outside. Even as she yanked the door open, Marco came flying down the stairs in nothing but his Baby Yoda boxers.
“What the actual fuck, Breen.”
“I don’t have time. I have to go. Stay here, promise me. I have to go or they’ll die. He’s coming.”
“You go, I go. Give me two minutes to get some clothes on.”
“Stay here.” When he grabbed her arm, she flicked him off with a little buzz of power.
“Don’t you pull that crap on me!”
He ran after her, but she mounted the dragon where Bollocks already sat.
“Get down! Stay with Marco.”
The dog just stared at her with eyes of stubborn steel.
“Damn it. I’m taking him. Stay here, Marco.”
The dragon rose up, soared over the trees.
“The hell with that.” Marco slammed the door, stormed upstairs to dress.
She wasn’t sure she knew the way, but trusted Lonrach did. Beneath her, Talamh began to wake. Lamps glowed in cottages where mothers stirred the children to dress for breakfast and chores before school. Farmers herded cows for the morning milkings. Night guards settled down to sleep, and those like Brian manned their posts.
It would not end today, she promised herself. Odran would not come through. He wouldn’t win.
She wondered if she should have tried the portal in the Far West, but calculated by the time she explained herself, tried to open it, risked using it, she could be halfway to the Capital.
She knew the tree of snakes now, and where to find it in the forest. It seemed impossible they’d searched for days and hadn’t found it, but she’d take them to it.
With Keegan, Nan, Sedric, she thought, with all that power, they’d lock it down.
She didn’t want to think about the first part of the dream, or the longing she’d felt, the war between it and duty. Did she actually wish Keegan would give everything up and come with her? Did she have that much of her mother in her?
“No. No. No. That’s not me. It was just a way to help me see the rest. It was night in the forest. I saw the moons when I came out, so it was night. We have time to stop it.”
She flew toward the rising sun.
* * *
Since the bloody rain had finally stopped, Keegan decided to stay with the search for the first few hours of the morning before beginning the laborious travel to the other portals. To check on the guards, see they remained alert.
And maybe, with the gloom lifted, they’d find this shagging tree of snakes Breen had told Sedric to look for.
Following his thoughts, Tarryn shrugged. “Portents, as we know, are tricky matters. It may be a symbol of some sort, or literal and on the other side, or we’ve simply yet to find it.”
“We’ve covered nearly every inch.”
“But not every. If we don’t find success today, you should go to her tonight. And bring her with you tomorrow. She may be what we’re missing.”
He looked around. Trees, he thought, full of squirrels and birds. He could hear the drum of a woodpecker after its breakfast, and the rustle of a fox or rabbit after theirs.
“I’m thinking I’ll go now. If she is what we’re missing, we shouldn’t waste another day. I felt it best to leave her where she is. I’m not sure altogether why, but I felt it best. But now—”
He broke off, looked up. “A dragon and rider, coming fast. Cróga sees them, and wants me to … Bloody hell, I told her to stay.”
“Breen?”
“Aye, and I told her to stay in the valley, or the cottage.”
“You were about to go get her, so this saves you time.”
“I told her to stay,” he repeated as the shadow of the dragon covered them. With the trees too thick to allow him to land, he glided on.
“I’ll get her.”
“Don’t send her back again because you’re pissed off,” his mother called after him.
Knowing he’d been tempted to do just that, he kept going.
The dog reached him first, but Breen—fleet of foot indeed—came close behind.
“I had to come.” Though she knew better, seeing him whole, alive, unharmed had her throwing her arms around him in relief. “You were dead, in the dream. You were dead, and your blood all over my hands.”