Awakenings

“It’s all right,” Marin said. “I understand, Seamus. I’d have made the same choice.”

He startled, staring at her in the dim. Marin smiled and shook her head.

“Like I said. I know that there are things you didn’t tell him and I’m sure it wasn’t just because there wasn’t time. You wanted to give him a chance.” She set off across the snow, along the wall to the next warding point. Seamus watched her for a moment before he jogged a few steps to catch up to her.

“He deserved to be happy.”

“I know he does.” Marin turned toward him again. “I said I didn’t blame you, didn’t I?”

“There’s just so much—”

“I’m aware.” She turned away again, tugging one of her gloves off to press her bare palm against the sigils they’d etched into the concrete and stone. “Seamus, you know what I am. Think about what I must have seen.”

What is she– His lips thinned as he stared at her. “I thought I was mistaken.”

“About which part? Being a Seer, or being a reincarnation of her?”

He shifted uncomfortably. Brighíd had been more than just a friend to him. “How much do you remember?”

“It comes in fragments. Sometimes dreams. If you’re asking if I knew what you two did, the answer is yes, but she didn’t hate you for leaving. She knew she didn’t love you—and she knew that she wasn’t what you needed. Still…she might have liked it if you’d stayed, found a way out of the noose that had been knotted for you.”

“She was a good woman,” Marin said softly. “I’m not just saying that because I’m the current owner of that soul. Everything I’ve—everything that’s been said leads me to believe that she was.”

“She was a hero,” Seamus murmured. “And a greater lady than our forsaken island deserved.”

“She didn’t think it was forsaken.”

“I know.” Seamus smiled faintly. “Maybe she was right.”

“I thought you might be out here.”

Marin turned toward Seamus and he could just barely see her smile in the dim predawn light. She was wrapped in her parka, boots laced up to mid-calf as she stood in the snow near the gate. “You’re up early,” she observed, her hands shoved deep into her pockets. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“I could make the same observation and ask the same question,” Seamus said as he walked toward the wall. “Let’s assume that our answers match. How do the wards look?”

“Solid,” she said, glancing back toward the wall. Seamus could sense more than see the faint glimmer of power that ran beneath the wall and shimmered up through the seams and cracks in the concrete and brick barrier. “Of course, there’s no reason they wouldn’t be,” she said, following his gaze. “Kellin and I keep too close of an eye on them for it to be otherwise.”

“They’ve been on you to share that load,” Seamus observed quietly.

She nodded. “Yeah, they have been. It just doesn’t feel right. I set these, Seamus. They’re mine to tend until I can’t anymore.”

He felt a pang. “Until you can’t anymore?” he echoed.

Marin sighed. “That day will come.” There was a sad certainty in her voice that sent shivers down his spine.

How much do they already know?

He glanced away. “What makes you say that?”

“Don’t play coy,” she said quietly. “You were the Taliesin before Phelan. You know things—maybe more things that he does. There are things that you didn’t tell him, aren’t there?”

“There wasn’t time to tell him everything,” Seamus murmured, and the words were true. What he neglected to add was that he’d purposely omitted other things to spare his cousin pain—things that hadn’t seemed important then, things that Seamus didn’t regret keeping to himself at all.

They deserve to be happy for as long as they can be. I know that better than anyone—and more than I’ve known or believed anything in my life.

Leinth shivered and closed her eyes. Seamus looked away, feeling sick to his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice breaking. “I know she’s—”

“My sister,” Leinth finished. “But she deserves your wrath more than anyone else. She made Thesan into what she is, her and my father.” She kissed his cheek and slid her arms around his shoulders, holding him close for a long moment. “It’s all right. I understand.”

“But she’s your sister,” Seamus whispered.

“And I hate her more than anyone,” Leinth whispered back. “She took you from me. One of her many crimes.” She gave him a squeeze and stepped away, starting to dress. “How far are they? When will they get here?”

“Not until evening, I think,” he said. “Maybe not until full dark. Earlier if they push. I can’t—” His voice hitched. “They’re too far away for me to tell if they’re upset enough to rush.”

She touched his shoulder. “Seamus, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” he said, then sighed. “But thank you for saying so.”

Leinth squeezed his shoulder and picked up her cloak. “Are you going to go take a walk, then?”

“If Marin can’t sleep, she’ll be checking the wards on the walls,” Seamus murmured. “I might as well go keep her company.”

“Phelan’s worried about her,” Leinth said softly.

“They’re all worried,” Seamus muttered. Even I’m starting to worry, and I barely know her. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It’ll be what it’ll be. They have to accept that.”

“They don’t seem like the type to just sit back and accept things like that,” Leinth said.

Seamus sighed.

At least they haven’t asked me what I might know.

Something told him that it was only a matter of time before they did, though.

He still wasn’t sure what he would tell them when they did.

Leinth moved her finger and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, peering at him with a serious, penetrating gaze. “Now what’s going on with them that’s gotten you all tied in a knot?”

He managed to smile. “How do you know something’s going on?”

“You didn’t sleep well,” she said quietly. “When you don’t sleep well, I don’t sleep well—but you were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you to ask. So I let you be and decided I’d ask in the morning. So what is it?”

Seamus shook his head, trying not to sigh. “Just paranoid foolishness, that’s all,” he said. “They’re on their way back, the group that took Thesan away. I’ve got no idea what they did with her.”

His lover shivered. “Do you really want to know?”

“No,” he admitted. “No, I don’t really want to know. But I’m afraid they’ll bring her back—or she’ll find her way back somehow.”

For all that Thesan was his daughter, he was terrified she’d find them again. Raised by her mother, Leinth’s sister and Seamus’s estranged wife, Thesan had been warped into a monster that sent shivers down her father’s spine. She blamed the world and more for depriving her of her father, who had been betrayed and given to the Wild Hunt before she was ever born, an innocent casualty of her mother’s cruelty and her grandfather’s plotting. If he’d encountered her under different circumstances, Seamus would have been inclined to try to help her, to repair the damage that had been done. When she’d sundered his cousin’s soul and tried to hold it for ransom, though, then refused to help them fix what she’d done, she’d lost that privilege and he’d lost hope.

There’s no saving her. Not now. Not the way she was when she left.

“Talk to me,” Leinth whispered.

“My daughter is a monster,” he whispered. “And if your sister isn’t already dead, I’m going to kill her myself.”

“You can still sense them.”

Seamus froze at his lover’s soft-spoken words, halfway through the motion of tugging his shirt on. It was early and the sun would just be peeking over the horizon beyond the walls, beyond the tents and trees and shattered remains of dormitories and lecture halls.

He swallowed hard. “Sense who?”

“The Hunt,” Leinth said. “They’ve released you, but you’ll never truly be free of them, will you?”

“That’s a question I don’t know the answer to,” Seamus said, reaching for a sweater. “There may come a day when I don’t hear the call or feel the tug on my soul.”

“Then you can still sense them.” There was only a bare hint of accusation in her voice—for the most part, there was just a note of tired, sad acceptance, perhaps a trace of hurt. His connection to the Wild Hunt was a connection that he didn’t share with her, one he couldn’t share with her—not that either of them would ever truly want to.

Seamus straightened, staring at her for a long moment, heart feeling like it was being squeezed by a vise. “I can,” he admitted quietly. “I—Leinth, don’t worry. They won’t call me back. They’ve released me.”

“But you still hear them, still feel them.” She got up from the bed, moving toward him with a furrowed brow, a worried look. “Can you blame me for being concerned? They may not call you back, but if they needed help, you would answer.”

He opened his mouth to protest. She pressed a finger against his lips.

“Don’t lie to us both, Seamus,” she whispered. “You would answer because they were your men once, and I know you.

“You won’t abandon them. Not completely. You can’t. It’s not in you.”

He hated the fact that she was right.

“Your faith in them is so endearing,” Phelan said, grinning at her for a moment. “They’re grown men and they’ll be fine.”

“Mmhm,” she said, sounding as wholly unconvinced as they both knew she was. She couldn’t help but grin back at him, though, and he laughed.

“They will,” he assured her. “They’ll be fine, Jac. Like I said, they’re grown men.”

“They will not be fine if those two figure out what they’re up to before any of them actually tell them.” Jacqueline checked the tea and shook her head, planting one hand on her hip. “You know what they’ll do and I won’t stop them.”

“I don’t think you should, either,” Phelan admitted. “Is the tea ready?”

“Almost.” She watched him. “You seem a little too unconcerned.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

He considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “They’re writing their own story, Jac. Kind of like we are.”

“So says the Taliesin,” she said softly. She brought him his mug and nudged her work basket aside, settling against his hip. “You’re certainly singing a different tune now. You’ve been different since Seamus came.”

“No,” Phelan said softly. “I’ve been different since Thesan ripped my soul out of my body and split it in two.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed temple. “But I’m all right. You don’t need to worry.”

“Don’t I?” she asked softly. “I love you, Phelan. Someone has to keep you safe.”

The smile he gave her made her heart skip a beat and left her warm from head to toe.

“Safe,” he said softly. “I don’t need to be safe. But I do need to be loved.” He kissed her again. “And you do that better than anyone I’ve ever known or seen. After thousands of years, I’ve finally met my match.”

Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded trite or cheesy, regardless of whether or not it was true. From his lips, though, it sounded right.

“Drink your tea,” Jacqueline whispered. “And then I’m done working for the day.”

His brows rose and she shot him a wicked grin.

He laughed and drank his tea.

“You’re pale,” she said as he came to the fire, shrugging slowly out of his coat and unwinding his scarf.

Phelan shrugged slightly. “I reinforced the wardings on the barrow,” he said as he set his coat down on top of one of the shelves that held their dishes. “Is there hot water?”

Jacqueline watched him as he sat down slowly, stiffly, as if the chill outside had left him half-frozen. “You need some tea?” she asked.

“Probably,” he admitted as he peered into the basket of scraps she’d been sorting through. “What are you working on now?”

“Figuring out what scraps are big enough to use for quilts and which we’ll shred or something for batting.” The healer put a kettle over the fire and regarded her lover with a long, measuring look. He stared at the fire in that way he did for a few moments before he glanced up toward her.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured. “You’ve got that look.”

“I’m worried about you,” she said as she got out a pair of mugs and some tea. “You’re still overreaching.”

“I’m fine, Jac,” he said with a faint smile, patting the spot where she’d been sitting a moment before. “As fine as I get these days, anyhow. Just a little tired and cold.”

“You should probably be doing something other than rolling around in the snow, then,” she said, studying his damp blue jeans.

“Probably,” he agreed. “But I’ll dry out soon enough sitting here and the company’s better. I’m guessing it’s been quiet here?”

“Except for the explosives testing, yeah.”

Phelan grimaced. “Yeah, there’s that. Did they warn Marin and Neve before they started?”

“From the sound of things, no.” Jacqueline swung the kettle off the fire as the water neared boiling and filled the pair of mugs, leaving the tea to steep. “It’s going to be trouble. Whatever they’re really planning.”

“What makes you think they’re planning anything other than what they said?”

“Because I know them,” she said with a wry smile. “And they’re up to something. They’re always up to something. I just hope you’ll let me in on what it is so I can make sure it doesn’t spontaneously combust in your faces.”

Phelan turned away, back toward the barrow where his friends had buried their dead after the end had come. They’d hallowed the ground here months before, back when he’d first arrived on the ruined campus. A shiver crept down his spine as he thought of the night they’d laid the stronger protections over the ground, the night that Vammatar had tried to kill him.

That had been the start of it.

He cleared away a patch of snow with his boot, trying to get down to bare ground. They’d need to renew the protections after the spring melt, well before the summer solstice, but for now there was work he could do even while it was all still buried in snow.

“I take it that I was interrupting,” Cariocecus said, crossing his arms and rocking back against his heels. “Will I foul anything up by staying?”

“I doubt it,” Phelan murmured, shucking off his glove. He closed his eyes as he pressed his bare palm to the ground, taking a slow, deep breath as he cast his senses into the earth of the barrow and its surroundings. He could sense the outline of their protections, lying dormant beneath the snow. They would only activate in the face of an impending threat. His senses raced along those boundaries, looking for cracks, for flaws.

“How does it look?” J.T. asked quietly.

“Still solid,” Phelan answered, brows knitting in concentration. “Better than I expected, really, considering everything that’s happened.”

At least we haven’t had to bury anyone else.

“Seamus wanted to see this.”

“He’ll see it in due time,” Phelan said, setting his jaw and forcing some additional power into those boundaries, shoring them up—just in case.

In case of what, he wasn’t quite certain.

“We can bring them out here tomorrow,” Phelan said.

“Them?” J.T. echoed.

Thordin snorted. “Seamus and Leinth. One won’t come without the other. Trust me on that.”

Phelan smiled. Thordin knew them too well.

Either that, or his cousin was becoming predictable in his old age, and that was a liability that they would need to correct, and fast.

He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, forcing cheer into his voice. “At least we have allies that will array themselves against her,” Phelan said, forcing a grin and nodding sidelong to Thordin. “Sif’s remained and doesn’t seem inclined to move on anytime soon, and then there are the wolves.”

“Oh yes, they’ll be grand defense when Menhit shows up again, or someone else decides to take up Hecate’s offer of grand reward for the one who brings you to her.

“Alive, I hope,” J.T. grumbled. Phelan winced inwardly.

If she gets her claws on me, I don’t want to be alive when it happens.

“Preferably,” Cariocecus said, his tone as dry as a desert. “Though I’ve got no idea what she sees in you that she doesn’t see in everyone else, Wanderer.”

Phelan snorted. “That’s only known to her,” he said, even as his stomach lurched at the thought. He suddenly wished that Jac was there. She’d be able to sense what he was feeling and make it all better.

Now if we could just rid the world of the Hecate somehow, my world would be as close to perfect as it’ll ever get.

“You all right?”

Phelan glanced sidelong at J.T. and nodded. “I’m all right. Why?”

“You started to look green for a second there.”

Phelan choked on a laugh. “Think about it. Wouldn’t you?”

J.T. shuddered. “Right. Forget I said anything.”

This time, Phelan did laugh.

Cariocecus shook his head. “You’re all crazy. Why did I throw my lot in with you idiots?”

Sobering, Phelan shook his head. “Because we promised not to kill you for what you did to us. Don’t you forget that, either.”

“Oh, trust me,” the amber-eyed godling said quietly, “I have no intention of forgetting that. You have my word on that.”

He’d been true to that word so far. They’d have to hope he stayed that way.

“You look better, Wanderer.”

Phelan glanced up from his crouched position in the snow, toward the source of the voice. A wry smile twisted his lips as he watched the black-cloaked figure approach, carefully, gingerly, as if he were afraid that something would suddenly leap up from the ground to bite him.

Of course, the way Marin sets wardings, something just might.

“You’re late,” Phelan said mildly, straightening from his crouch. From the other end of the barrow, J.T. and Thordin gave Cariocecus wary looks, the pair ever-watchful when it came to the war godling.

“I wasn’t aware that we were on a schedule,” Cariocecus said, shifting his cloak with a slight grimace. “Damn cold winter.”

Phelan nodded. “The meteorfall screwed up the weather. It is what it is and the survivors have to deal with it now.” He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, already starting to lose feeling in the tips. Even with spring on the doorstep, it was cold in western Michigan—what was left of it. “What news?”

“They’re moving,” Cariocecus said, his gaze wandering to the snow-shrouded ruins of lecture halls and the university theatre complex. “Hecate and her allies. I’ve heard rumblings.”

“From where?” Thordin ask as he and J.T. came to Phelan’s side. “What quarters?”

Cariocecus made a face. “I’m not without my contacts and my ways, Odinson.”

Thordin held up a finger. “I am no one’s son anymore, warmonger. I am exiled and forsaken. Don’t forget that.”

“Right,” Cariocecus drawled, his focus shifting back to Phelan. “She hasn’t lost interest in you, Wanderer. She’ll come after you again.”

Phelan shook his head slowly. “She was always going to—either me or Seamus.”

“She’s not exactly interested in your cousin any longer,” Cariocecus said quietly. “It’s you she’s after, Phelan. The true Taliesin.”

“She can’t have him,” J.T. said. “Jac’s laid claim.”

He almost blushed at that and didn’t bother to hide his smile. “She has at that.” His smile faded as he regarded the serious expression on Cariocecus’s face. “How much time do we have?”

“Probably not nearly enough,” Cariocecus said quietly. “But there never is, is there?”

“No,” Phelan agreed. “There never is.”