“Except for now. Keegan.” He pointed out. “Looks like he’s coming down, and you guys need to talk. I’m going to go see if I’ve still got a room in the castle.”
He gave her a hard kiss, then left her.
Cróga glided down. When Keegan dismounted, she wondered if she looked anything like him. Blood on her face, her clothes. Were her eyes that exhausted?
They stood a moment, a dozen feet apart while the sea breeze blew away most of the battle stink. She wasn’t sure what to say to him, how to begin, but when he started toward her, she met him halfway.
“Are you hurt?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Are you?”
“Nothing. No.”
But she knew, felt, some of the blood he wore was his own.
“I didn’t protect you. They separated us, and I couldn’t protect you.”
“You trained me to fight. With a sword, with my fists, with my power. And I did. It’s not like the training field. You tried to teach me that, too, but I didn’t know.” Her throat clogged; her eyes welled. “I didn’t know. Now I do.”
“Don’t cry, I beg you. Your tears would break me.”
“I came to help—the dream, the portal. But he wanted me to come. He needed me to, to use me to open it. And I didn’t see that.”
“How could you? None of us did. His tactics, his strategy, all very well planned out for this. To make us believe he’d use the falls for his way in, while he worked here. But we turned that on him, and had troops massed here.”
He looked away, back toward the woods. “Not enough, not for the ambush, not without Harken bringing more. We’d seal it, I thought, find it, seal it, and wouldn’t that fuck his fucking plans.”
“And I opened it.”
“The fault’s not yours.”
“No, it’s not, and not yours. It’s his. Phelin died.” The tears wanted to come again. “Morena—”
“I know it.” Closing his eyes a moment, he scrubbed his hands over his face. “He was a friend, a friend since childhood. I don’t know all we lost as yet.”
But he would, Breen thought. He’d know all the names, speak to all the families, and lead another Leaving.
“Loren.” At his nod, she continued. “You don’t know how. I was there. It was Shana.”
“Ah, gods.”
“You need to know. He stepped between her and me. I think, I believe, to try to save both of us. And he took the knife she intended for me. He said it was poisoned, and I couldn’t heal him. Keegan, it happened so fast, and I couldn’t … She laughed, and there was something different about her. In her.”
“She’s Odran’s now. But he couldn’t have wanted you dead, so the knife and the poison, that was hers.”
“I killed today.” She said it flatly, and drew his gaze back to hers. “I’ll never be exactly the same because of that.”
“I’m sorry for it.”
“Don’t be. I know who I am now. I fought for Talamh today, and for you, for myself, my father. When Yseult told me—”
“Yseult?” He touched her for the first time, gripping a hand on her arm.
“Didn’t your mother tell you?”
“There wasn’t time for talk. I know she’s well, and she with you and Marg closed and sealed the portal. But I … I had to see you for myself, so there wasn’t time for talk.”
“She found me—or lured me away enough, I don’t know. She tried the fog trick again.” Breen’s eyes hardened. “It didn’t work. She told me I’d caused all this. I didn’t,” she said when Keegan started to speak. “And she told me Nan and Sedric were dead. That you were dead. I said I didn’t believe her, but part of me did. I believed her, and I hurt her. I should’ve killed her quickly, but I didn’t want quick. I wanted her pain. She used the fog to get away because I didn’t want quick.”
“Wait.” He cupped her face now to keep her gaze on his. “She had you alone, and she ran from you?”
“Screaming. Shrieking, really. And bleeding. A thousand barbs, that’s what came into my head. Or not my head, I don’t know where it came from.”
“She’s as powerful as any I’ve known, and surely more since she chose Odran. And she ran from you. I took you to your dragon because you’d become. But it’s today, in full, in truth, you’ve become.”