Awakenings

Phelan found them both standing there not too much later, shoulder to shoulder, staring out at the storm, which was worsening instead of abating.  He stepped into line with them until Thom was sandwiched between them, the leader that is flanked by the leader that was and the leader still to come.

“He won’t attack until morning,” Phelan said after a moment, looking sidelong at Thom.  “He can deal with snow, but he prefers not to.”

“I thought you didn’t know that much about him,” Thom said quietly. “You said you’d never faced off with him before.”

“Not then,” he admitted.  “But I knew enough that did to know what he’ll do.  He doesn’t like to fight in weather—he’s one of those who never did well in it, so he’s always tried to avoid it.”

Thom shook his head slightly.  “Strange of him to decide on Midwinter’s Eve, then.  Weather’s always iffy.”

Phelan smiled a grim little smile.  “This is new territory for him.  Believe it or not, we’re operating from a position of strength.”

“I don’t believe it,” Thom said with a wry smile.  “But not believing it might work to our advantage.”

Strange way of looking at it.  Cameron frowned, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  His muscles twinged and he winced a little.  “You have a strange way of looking at the world,” he said.

“Yeah, but it somehow works for me,” Thom said, his lips twisting in a wry smile.  “Hasn’t gotten me killed yet.  I’m hoping that it’s not going to in the next thirty-six hours.”

Phelan clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing gently.  “You’ve survived getting shot, stabbed, clawed, and having a building collapse on you.  You’ll make it through another close encounter with Cariocecus, too.  I’m certain of it.”

Thom snorted humorlessly as Cameron looked at him askance.

“Shot, stabbed, clawed, and a build collapse?”

Thom shrugged with one shoulder.  “It’s been a busy few months since the end of the world.”

“Apparently.”  Cameron took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.  “Speaking of a busy few months, when was one of you planning on telling me that I was carrying around Excalibur?”

Thom just blinked and Phelan growled under his breath, glaring at the sky beyond the tent.

“Thom didn’t know and it wasn’t my place to say,” he said, jaw set.  “Don’t tell me that Neve didn’t tell you.”

Maybe she hinted.  But she didn’t say it flat-out.

But the once and future…hell.  Cameron squeezed his eyes shut.  “That’s why she told me,” he murmured.

“Told you what?”  Thom asked.

Cameron shook his head slightly.  “She said something about prophecies and the Once and Future King.  I should’ve really started putting it together when the whole princess of Avalon thing came up.”

One corner of Phelan’s mouth twitched toward a smile.  “One would think sleeping with the last princess of Avalon would have been a clue.”

“I’m not the once and future king,” Cameron said.  The bottom dropped out of his stomach.  Christ, she’d tell me if I was, wouldn’t she?  She’d have to.  I know she would.

Wouldn’t she?

“Christ,” Cameron breathed.  “She’d tell me.  Wouldn’t she tell me?”

“Not if she was afraid of losing you,” Thom said quietly.  He stared at the ground without really seeing it, his eyes focused on something else, something no one could see—perhaps the past, perhaps the future.  Cameron couldn’t be sure.  “You’d be shocked the lengths someone goes to when they love someone.”

Phelan put an arm across Thom’s shoulders.  “Secrets are painful,” he said, speaking to both of them at once.  “Some are kept for good reason.  Others are kept for piss-poor reasons.”

Thom snorted.  “Thanks, Phelan.  Way to make me feel even worse about it.”

Cameron wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut, brows knitting.  “So why do you think she didn’t tell me?”

“Probably the same reason Thom keeps secrets from Marin about what he’s seen,” Phelan said quietly.  “Because she’s afraid.”

“What does she have to be afraid of?”  Cameron wondered aloud, his stomach twisting, uncomfortably unsettled.

Thom smiled grimly.  “What anyone who loves another person is afraid of.  Losing the person they love the most.”

Cameron stood a few feet shy of the opening in the tent’s walls, watching the wind-driven snow.  His jacket was draped over his shoulders rather than actually on, and his breath steamed in the air.  His back was warm while his cheeks stung from the tendrils of wind that gusted in through the gap.

“Pretty nasty, huh?”  Thom asked as he wandered up behind him.

Cameron nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Glad I’m not out in it.”  Flying, riding, or otherwise.  His gaze slid sidelong to the other man.  “Maybe it’ll delay whatever attack is coming.”

Thom shrugged.  “We can hope, but I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky.  All it’s really doing is hindering our final prep, if you ask me.”  His breath steamed a little in the air.  “Surprised to see you up.  I didn’t even know you were awake.”

“I wasn’t up until an hour ago,” Cameron said, his gaze lingering on the steel-colored clouds above, just barely visible through the white of the snow.  “Hate those things.  They get a piece of you and you pay for it for weeks afterward.”  His hand unconsciously drifted to the older wound, the one that was supposedly healed but still hurt sometimes—like now—with a deep, throbbing ache.  He frowned slightly at Thom.  “You were bleeding the other night, weren’t you?  Didn’t they get a piece of you, too?”

“No, I was bleeding before the fight,” Thom said.  “Was helping my brother-in-law with something and got sliced.  You and J.T. got clipped.  Rory caught a knife, not a claw, which I guess is good because they got his face.”

Cameron winced sympathetically.  “Bad?”

“Two stitches.  Matt took worse when he had a radio explode in his face a few months back.”

Cameron nodded, trying to pretend that he remembered who Thom was talking about.  He knew he’d met a Matt, but there hadn’t been much time to get know much of anyone before things had gone sideways—again.

That’s got to stop happening eventually, right?  I can’t be that unlucky.

I hope not, at least.  He cleared his throat.  “What about J.T.?”  At least I remember him.  He was helping Jacqueline take care of Neve.

“Bad, like you,” Thom said with a faint grimace.  “He woke up today, too.  Makes me feel a little better that you guys’ll have a conscious medic down in the tunnels.”

Cameron raised a brow.  “Tunnels?”

“Yeah, there’re steam tunnels that run around here.  We’ve got a section warded off from the rest where we’ve been sending Tala and Angie and Jac when things start to get rough.  Jac doesn’t like it much, but we really can’t afford to risk her up top.  She and J.T. are the only medics we’ve got.”

Cameron shivered at the memory of a faint glow surrounding the small woman’s hands as she worked on Neve.  “She’s more than that, isn’t she?  She’s got some kind of talent.”

“You noticed?”  Thom said with an arched brow.

“I was there while she was working on Neve,” Cameron said.  He swallowed at the memory.  Caliburn had grown warm against his back, as if it recognized the power Jacqueline had been wielding.  He hadn’t mentioned that to anyone yet and wasn’t sure that he would anytime soon.

Some things, his gut and better judgment said, were better left unsaid.

“Mm,” Thom said, not looking at him, instead following his gaze out at the snow, at the clouds.  “We saw it for the first time a few months ago.  She saved Kellin’s life.”  He smiled wryly and motioned to his throat.  “She’s the one that looks like she survived some kind of murder attempt.”

“I remember wondering about the scar,” Cameron said.  Hell, I remember wondering how she lived.  “What happened?”

“The last fight with Cariocecus,” Thom said, then shook his head slightly.  “Be glad that you and Neve aren’t going to be involved in the fighting,” he said quietly.  “He could’ve killed all of us that day.  I’m still not sure how we managed to wiggle out of that noose.  Fate smiled, I guess.”

“I suppose so,” Cameron said, staring at the sky.  “Still, I wish we could help.”

“Someday you will,” Thom said.  “I know it.”

Cameron looked askance at him.  Thom smiled.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”

“I hear that a lot,” Cameron said.

“Around here it’s true.”  He paused.  “Marin and I see things.”

“Things?”

“The future,” Thom elaborated.  “Possibilities.  So it’ll go easier on you if you don’t ask.”

“Right,” Cameron said, eyeing him sidelong.  “You’ve seen me, then?”

“And your wife.”

Cameron swallowed.  “She’s not—”

Thom met his gaze head-on, expression serious, eyes dark with certainty and pain.  “She might as well be.  She will be soon.”  He looked away again.  “And then there’s something about our sons.”

A shiver worked its way down Cameron’s spine.  “Our sons?”

“Yeah,” Thom murmured.  “I can’t quite see it, but there’s something.  Enough to know.”

“Know what?”

Thom shook his head slowly.  “That I wish I couldn’t see the future.”

Cameron shivered.  “I don’t envy you, then.”

“You’re smarter than most, then.”  A bitter little laugh escaped Thom’s list.  “You’re smarter than most.”

Teague shivered in the afternoon chill, watching the sun sink slowly beyond the horizon and boiling a set of sheets from their bed as he stood in the yard between the barn the cottage.

They had a son.

His first cries still echoed in his ears, almost obliterating the sound of Kira’s pain while she was in labor.  He could still taste the sourness of his fear from that time, fear that was only abating now.

Now, since she was safely tucked into the freshly-made bed, clean and secure, their son cradled in her arms.

He wanted to join them so badly it hurt.

But he lingered outside instead, staring at the western horizon, a frown creasing his brow, jaw tight, muscles taut.

What in blazes is about to happen?  I’m wound too tightly for this to be leftover nerves from delivering my own son.  His fingers curled into fists, breath steaming in the chill as he exhaled slowly.  He looked toward the cottage, thinking of Kira.  She’d known something was bothering him all day.  He wished he could put his finger on it.

Teague pulled the sheets out of the water and swapped it for fresh.  He flexed his hands, itching for his sword for some inexplicable reason.  It was leaned up against the bed-stand inside, easily within Kira’s reach.  He hadn’t thought he’d need it out here.  There hadn’t been any sign of Dirae or any other enemy of theirs since Neve and Cameron rode away.

He missed her, his little sister, the last princess of Avalon, but he didn’t regret letting them ride away—not even when he’d felt the pain in his leg and back so sharply that he’d known something terrible had happened.

Have faith, Teague.  Have faith.  That’s what Kira had said to him as she’d held him, curled in their bed as fear-born tears had poured down his face.  They’ll be fine, just like we are. They’ll be fine.

It was one of the things he loved about her—the fact that she would hold him when the fear came and not judge him for it.  She was the only one he had now that he could do that with.

Exiled or not, he was still a king—even to his sister and his cousins.

It should have been you, Seamus, he thought as he poured the sheets back into the caldron.  I was never meant for it.

He checked the fire before turning away from the caldron, sure that the sheets would boil for a while now, and headed toward the cottage.  In the distance, he heard a wolf call to another.  They had been moving steadily south since winter had set in, but he wasn’t worried.  He’d dealt with worse before.  Far worse and far bigger in the days of old.

But these aren’t the days of old, are they?

He ducked back into the cottage and shucked off his boots, heading back toward the bedroom.  A fire crackled merrily on the grate and Kira was still snuggled in the bed under a thick quilt.  She peeked up over the edge of it and smiled at him.

“Are you going to stay in here for a while?” she asked.

Teague nodded, taking off his coat and hanging it across the back of a chair.  “Yeah,” he said softly.  “I’m going to stay in here a while.  Cold out there.”

“Do you think it’s going to snow again?” she asked, shifting in the bed to sit up a little further.  Their son stirred in the crook of her arm, then quieted.

“What’s his name?” he’d asked her.  “What are we going to name him?”

“Seamus,” she’d whispered back.  “For your brother.  Seamus Michael, for my father, too.”

His brother the healer and the healing archangel.  It still made him smile.  It made him dare to hope a little harder that they’d win the war that was coming, the one they might watch from afar—the one they might get sucked into.

“Maybe,” Teague said as he sat down on the edge of the bed.  He leaned in to brush his lips against hers, then to gently kiss their son.  He already had a faint, fine spray of reddish-gold hair.  Teague smiled.

Kira reached up and stroked his cheek.  “Are you all right?”

“For once, yes,” Teague whispered, looking at her, spirit buoyed at least momentarily.  “For the moment.”

“It’s the calm before the storm, isn’t it?”  Kira asked softly.  “It’s all about to begin.”

Teague eased beneath the covers with her and wrapped his arms around his little family.  “Yes,” he said.  “But not yet.

“Not quite yet, not now.  We have right now and that’s all I want.”

Kira closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his neck.  Whatever tomorrow or the next day brought, they would face it together—the same way they had since the day they’d met on a sun-dappled green in the middle of Chicago’s concrete jungle.

That was the way it was meant to be.  In a world where nothing else was sure anymore, he knew that to be true.

And it was enough and always would be.

The way he seized up made her think, just for a moment, that she’d given him a heart attack or something.  Then he sucked in a breath and his arm tightened around her.

“Really?”  Wonder mixed with pain and fear in his voice as he slowly turned to look at her.  His breath warmed her ear as she stared at her hands, resting limply in her lap.  “You are?”

She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut.  “Gods help us, I am.”

“When—how long have you—?”

“Not long,” she said, finally starting to relax.  She leaned into his arms, forgetting for a moment that he was hurting at least as much as she was, not much stronger than she was right then.  “I’m still half trying to figure out how Jacqueline figured it out, but I guess she’s got some kind of healing gift.  She figured it out.”  She turned toward him and slid her arms around him, buried her face in his neck.  “I told my cousin before I told you.  I’m sorry.”

Cameron laughed weakly, wrapping her up in a tight hug and holding her there against his chest.  “I was mostly unconscious.  Hard to tell anyone anything when they’re in that state, right?”

“I guess so.”  Gods and monsters, this feels so much better than it has any right to.  Neve sighed and sagged.  “Still, Cam, I should’ve told you first.  You had a right to be the first to know.”

“Water under the bridge,” he told her.  “I know now.  That’s what’s important.”  He rested his chin against her temple.  “Though how we’re going to handle it in the long run is another story entirely.”

She laughed weakly.  “Don’t I know it.  We’ll figure it out.  Somehow.”  She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, straightening again to give him a long, hard look.  “You look like shit,” she finally said, a wry smile twisting her lips.

Cameron laughed.  “You don’t look too hot yourself.”  He kissed her jaw and stretched again.  “Christ.  You’re right, I do need to stop having chunks taken out of me.”  He held her silently for a few long moments before he sighed and shifted, moving as if he intended to get out of bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Seeing if I’m any better this time than I was the last time.”  He swung his legs over the side of the bed with a slight wince.  “How many days did I sleep this time?”

“Fewer,” she said, brows knitting.  “I don’t think you should get up, though.”

He looked at her sidelong.  “It’s not like I’m intending to try to fight or anything like that, Neve,” he said softly.  “But you sure as hell can’t gainsay me wanting to help, can you?”

Neve caught her lower lip between her teeth, watching him as he sat there at the edge of the bed, arms trembling slightly as he gripped the edge of the mattress.

“No,” she finally whispered.  “I guess not.  But that doesn’t mean I have to like the risks you’re about to take.”

“Risks?  I’m not about to take any risks.  I’m going to take a walk down the frigging hallway, Neve.  Nothing more strenuous than that, I promise.”  He cupped her cheek with one hand and kissed her cheek, his thumb brushing against her jaw.  “Don’t worry,” he said, a smile lighting his eyes.  “I’m not going to abandon you—you’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.”

She gave a nervous little laugh and put her arms around him.  “I’m glad you didn’t make me stay behind,” she said quietly.  “I know I say it, but sometimes I don’t feel like I’ve said it often enough.  I’m lucky you let me be with you this far.”

“And you’re going to be stuck with me for a long time to come if I’ve got anything to say about it.”  He kissed her soundly and stood, shaky and wavering on his feet at first before he straightened fully.  He winced as he did, putting one hand against his side with a soft hiss.  “Hurts a little more this time,” he said.  “I think it does, anyway, but that might be because I’m awake sooner.”  He turned slowly, watching her as she sat amidst the tangled blankets.

“Go on,” she said softly.  “Bring me back something hot to drink, will you?”

“You don’t want to come?”

She shook her head.  “No.  I’m going to rest a little longer.  I’ll wait for you here where it’s warm.”

Cameron smiled a bright, rakish smile.  “And you’ll be here to warm me up when I come back.”

Neve had to laugh as he leered at her.  “I’ll think about it anyway.  Shoo.”

He stole one more kiss.  “I’ll be back.”

“Of that,” she said softly.  “I have no doubt.”

Neve woke with a faint start when Jacqueline touched her forehead to check for fever.  She blinked blearily at the younger woman, then slowly sat up.

“How’s Cameron?” were the first words that passed her lips.

“His fever broke,” Jacqueline said, “so based on what you and Phelan said, I’m thinking he’ll make it.”

Shuddering relief raced through her limbs and Neve nodded slightly.  Thank all the powers that are and may become.  “He needs to be more careful.”

“He’s right here and not completely asleep,” Cameron muttered, cracking one eye open blearily to peer up at her.  “Light sensitivity isn’t as bad this time.”

“Good,” Neve said, brushing her hand over his sweat-dampened hair.  Either he’s building some kind of tolerance or the wound wasn’t nearly as bad as the first time. Maybe both.

He smiled at her, then stretched with a slight wince.  “Oof.  Still feels like there’s digging into my side, though.  Hate that feeling.  Especially when I know there’s nothing there.”  He relaxed, glancing toward Jacqueline.  “What day is it?  How long was I sleeping?”

She snorted humorlessly and shook her head. “Believe me, you don’t actually want to know the answer to that question.”

“Well, either we’ve already survived the Midwinter Eve show-down that they were going on about or we haven’t.”

Neve winced.  “No.  Tomorrow,” she said.  “That’ll be tomorrow.”  And my cousin will be right on the front line.  At least he’ll have Thordin here to back him up.  That’s something, at least.  And the rest…they’re all capable enough, I guess, but that still doesn’t fill me with as much confidence as I’d hope to feel going into this kind of situation.  Her lips thinned and one hand drifted down to find Cameron’s beneath the covers.

His fingers tangled in hers and squeezed.  “Then there’s still time,” he murmured, looking up at her.

She swallowed hard.  “Time for what?”

One corner of his mouth twitched toward a smile.  “Everything.  Endless possibility.”

“The fever’s scrambled your brains,” Neve said.  “You’re sounding like…I don’t know who you’re sounding like.”

Jacqueline shook her head as she stood up from her position at their bedside.  “Regardless of who he’s sounding like, I find the optimism refreshing.  There’s been a lot of determined fatalism around here lately.”

“What, are people saying that you guys can’t win this fight?”  Cameron asked, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand.  Be blinked to clear the last vestiges of sleep from his vision and stretched again, a little more carefully this time.

Neve smothered a frown.  Don’t you dare be thinking about getting out of bed and trying to fight tomorrow.  You’ll never make it, and then where will I be?

“Not so much that as they’re saying they don’t know how we’re going to win, just that we have to.”  The healer shook her head as she cleaned her hands and dried them and packed up her kit.  “I’m not saying that it’s not true, but after you hear it for the nine-hundredth time, it starts to get pretty old and maybe a little trite.”

Cameron nodded, his gaze sliding toward Neve.  “What do you think?”

“I think we’re here for a reason,” she said.  “I don’t know what it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not so we could get ourselves killed tomorrow.”

Jacqueline nodded.  “Probably true.”  She paused on her way to the door.  “A couple of us will be back in a few hours to help you guys move down to the steam tunnels.  That’s where you’ll be while the fighting’s going on, just in case something violates the wards and makes a run at the housing.”  Her eyes drifted toward Neve.  “You should probably get something off your chest,” she said to her, then disappeared out the door and into the hall.

Cameron blinked. “What did she mean by that?”

“You can’t possibly expect to fight tomorrow,” Neve said, pointedly ignoring Jacqueline’s comment about unburdening herself.  He doesn’t need to know yet.  How does she know?  Did Phelan tell her?

He wouldn’t, would he?

Oh yes he would.  If he thought it was important for her to know—and I guess that it was—he’d tell her.

Neve closed her eyes for a moment.

Cameron snorted and shook his head.  “That’s not what I was talking about, but since you brought it up…”

Her eyes snapped open.  “Cam, you can’t.  Please.”

“You’re right, I probably can’t,” he said, gingerly pushing himself on an elbow.  His body trembled slightly with the effort, but he was still much, much better off than he’d been the last time something like this had happened.  “But even if I could, would you let me?”

A lump built in her throat as she reached down and brushed her fingertips along his hairline, down the side of his face and along the curve of his cheek to his jaw.  “I don’t know,” she whispered.  “Part of me would help you armor up for it.  Another part of me just wants to wrap myself around you and not let go.  I don’t know which part would win if you were going to take the field tomorrow.”

He nodded slightly, his gaze steady.  “What was she talking about when she said that you needed to get something off your chest, Neve?  What’s going on?”

She looked away, biting her lip.  The covers rasped and he grunted in pain as he sat up next to her.  One of his arms slid around her, shaky but still strong, and drew her against his side.

“Neve, come on.  Whatever it is, you can tell me.  How bad could it be?”

Phelan seems to think it’s the end of the bloody world.

“I’m pregnant, Cam,” she whispered.  “And the baby is definitely yours.”

“I have to admit that I’m curious, though,” Thom said as they headed out into the makeshift corridor.  “About her motivations—about why she’s so gung-ho about sinking her claws into someone of your late cousin’s bloodline.”

Phelan’s lips thinned in the dimness.  Wind and snow rasped against the roof above them and Thom tried not to wince, hoping against hope that they’d made everything solid enough to weather the storms of winter—a winter that would linger for at least four more months, if he was guessing right.

Thordin glanced at him.  “Do you even have an answer to that question?” he asked curiously.

“Yes,” Phelan said slowly, “though I suppose I didn’t quite have it until this moment.  The pieces are finally starting to fall into place.  She must have known something that I didn’t—that’s why they were always keen to get their hands on him, all of them, I guess.”

“Are you going to share with the class?”  Thom asked with a weak, wry smile.

Phelan laughed weakly.  “I suppose I could, couldn’t I?  I’m thinking that she was playing the long game.  She must have known the prophecies were talking about someone from his bloodline.  If you want to control the new world at this point in the game, you control that bloodline.”

“Time out, back up.”  Thom stared at him, noting that from the glimpse of Thordin that he’d caught out of the corner of his eye that the big warrior didn’t look at all surprised by what Phelan had just said.  “What prophecy are we talking about here?  Let me guess, it has something to do with the magic sword he’s carrying.”

Phelan winced.  “Did I tell you it was a magic sword?”

“It doesn’t matter, after what happened with the firbolg, I was going to figure it out.”  Thom frowned.  “Does it?”

“Probably,” Phelan muttered.

“No probably about it,” Thordin said, looking at Phelan sternly.  “It most certainly does.  It has to do with the damned blade, the last princess of Avalon, and prophecy.”  His gaze slid toward Thom.  “But he doesn’t want to tell you because he’s afraid that you’ll start asking questions about how you and Marin and your son are all caught up in it all, too.”

A strange, queasy feeling gripped Thom’s stomach and he frowned, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.  That just confirms that we’re caught up in the same prophecies they are.  How is that anything new?  He frowned at the ground in front of his feet as they emerged from the corridor and out into the tent beyond.  “Well,” Thom said quietly, “he’d be right to be worrying about that, because I would start asking.”  He glanced toward Phelan.  “And those aren’t tales you’re willing to tell yet, are they?”

“I don’t know,” Phelan said quietly.  “Part of me is.  The rest thinks it’d be a bad idea.”  He shook his head, his gaze drifting to the darkened sky and the white-out beyond the tent’s walls, visible through the flaps left open for ventilation.  “All I know for sure is that I need the two of you alive, Thom,” Phelan murmured.  “I need both of you alive and preferably whole—the same as Cameron and Neve.”  His eyes slid shut for a moment.  “Some prophecies say that your sons are the important ones.  I don’t believe them.  I believe the others that tell me that you’re just as important—if not moreso.” His throat convulsed as he swallowed.  “I have to believe that, Thom.  I don’t have any choice.”

Thom shivered.  He wanted to ask why, but his gut warned him not to.  The answer, he somehow knew, was one he wouldn’t like.

He threw his arm around Phelan’s shoulders.  “Right, well.  Better make sure we live to fight another day.  Let’s see to our arsenal.”

“Aye,” Phelan murmured.  “Let’s do that.”

They walked on, Thordin trailing in their wake.

The vision came almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He wrapped his mount’s reins tightly around a gloved fist, frowning at the horizon as his horse pranced restlessly beneath him.  Rory spoke at his elbow, a pace behind and trying to hold an equally antsy creature in check.

“He’s late.”

“Or we’re early,” Thom said, brows knitting.  There was a bite in the air, either the chill of winter not yet gone or just beginning to settle in.

“He’s late,” Rory repeated, then went on to elaborate, “and the last time he was late, he showed up with three bullet holes with him.”

“He said he wouldn’t pull any stunts like that again,” Thom said.  “His wife would kill him.”

“Yeah, well, we left Neve at home, didn’t we?”

Thom frowned.  They had left her at home, and not without good reason.  Marin was close to time and though Thom hadn’t wanted to leave her in the first place, some duties had to come first, and Cameron had expected him or J.T., and Jay couldn’t ride with a broken leg.  Even Phelan would be a surprise, given how little the Wandering One left the safety of the wards and the comfort of home and family these days.  Thom was more than half convinced that if he hadn’t brought Phelan along, Marin would’ve insisted on coming, too.

And the last thing I need is my pregnant wife at my back if a fight starts.  He’d promised her two days.  It’d already been a day and a half.  They didn’t have much time to sit around waiting for Cameron if he was going to keep his promise.

They’d stay and wait, though.  Marin would understand.  Somehow, she always did.  Always.

The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck started to rise.  Thom straightened in his stirrups, standing to peer over his horse’s head out into the cold, misty distance.  “Phelan?”

“I feel it too,” Phelan said, his voice strange.  “I think that we need to find some cover, and fast.”

A huge, roaring shadow plunged out of the mists and abruptly, they were out of time.

Thom jerked awake with a quiet gasp, then blinked at the pair of men that lurked in his doorway.  He squinted in the dim, making out Phelan’s familiar features and the less-familiar Thordin there, looking slightly guilty as they met his gaze.

“What is it?”  Thom asked as he threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed.  His eyes were gritty and he scrubbed the sleep-sand from them, wondering how long he’d been allowed to sleep.  It felt like a lot more than two hours.

“I see that Marin got you to get some sleep after all,” Phelan said, brow furrowing.  “I didn’t think she’d do it.”

“I’m learning not to argue too much with her when she’s right.  What are you two up to?  I know you’ve got to be up to something because you came looking for me instead of the other way around.”

Phelan cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “Thordin’s been expressing some concerns.”

Thom arched a brow.  “Concerns?  Like what?”  His gaze slid toward the big man, who met it for a moment before looking away.

“What kind of game is the bastard playing?”  Thordin asked after a moment, studying the shed’s framing.  “He’s in this for something.”

“Well, he certainly wants this patch of ground because of some kind of power nodes here,” Thom said, sinking back down onto the corner of his bunk and stretching.  His bad leg was a little stiff and he could feel a bone-deep ache already starting.  That didn’t bode well for the night and day to come. “Has it started to snow yet?”

“Two hours ago,” Thordin said.  “And Cariocecus wanting the land doesn’t explain why he’s interested in you and your wife.”

Thom glanced at Phelan, who shrugged slightly.  “I’ve tried to convince him that maybe it’s just our interpretation of what he’s said and done, but he doesn’t want to believe me.”

“It’d be too easy to just believe you,” Thordin retorted. “I’ve got this feeling straight down to my bones that there’s more going on here than we’ve realized.”

“There’s not any time to belabor that,” Thom said as he started yanking his boots back on.  “We just have to make sure we’re ready to stand our ground against him.  If we’re lucky, the wards will hold and we’ll be able to just shoot them all until they quit the field.”

Thordin shook his head.  “That’s what I’m trying to get at.  If he wants more than just the land, I’m not sure he’ll quit the field so easily—and he’ll try to find a way to draw out the ones he wants from behind the lines.”

“He’s trying to tell you to be careful,” Phelan said, watching as Thom finished with the boots and then pulled on a sweater.  “This situation is probably a lot more dangerous than we’ve anticipated—and we’ve anticipated quite a bit of danger.”

Thom’s nose wrinkled. “Well, that’s just the ray of sunshine I need today, isn’t it?”  He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.  “How are Jay and Cameron?”

“Their fevers broke overnight,” Phelan said.  “But they’re not going to be able to fight tomorrow.  It’d take a miracle, and I don’t think Jacqueline has a pair of that magnitude in her right now.  I don’t think she’s even got one of that magnitude in her right now.”

Thom nodded slightly.  He hadn’t expected either of them to be ready to fight this battle, anyway.  But the next one…  “And the Hecate?  Felt or seen anything that indicates she’s around?”

Phelan shook his head.  “Thank goodness, no.  No sign.  I’ve got no idea what the bastard did with her, but she’s nowhere around that I’ve been able to divine at this  point.”

Thom’s lips twisted in a wry smile at Phelan’s choice of words.  “Well, we’ll just have to hope our luck holds in that regard.”

“Aye,” Phelan agreed.  “We will.”

“Thom?”

He turned toward the sound of her voice and managed to smile—it didn’t take much trying.  “Morning, Mar.”

“You’ve got that look,” Marin said quietly.  “Is it the fact that you’re expecting an attack inside of the next eighteen hours, or is it something else that I should know about?”

“More the former than the latter,” he said, abandoning his half-washed breakfast dishes and sliding soapy hands around her waist.  She leaned into his chest, closing her eyes for a moment.

“So there is something else bothering you.”

“One or two things,” he admitted.  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

She stood there in shocked silence, blinking at him for a few moments before she asked, “What?”

He ducked his head slightly, looking away as he felt his cheeks get hot.  There’s no reason that broaching this particular subject should be so bloody uncomfortable.

It momentarily occurred to him that he wasn’t anywhere near ready to be building any cribs or dealing with midnight feedings, though—and neither was anyone else, even with Tala already pregnant, and now Neve, too.

“I just—Phelan asked,” Thom said, still unable to meet her gaze.  “I said that you weren’t, but I realized that I really didn’t know.”

Marin frowned.  “Why would he ask that?  Wait, don’t answer that.”  She pinched the bridge of her nose.  “This has to do with all of that Taliesin and prophecy stuff, doesn’t it?”

“Probably,” Thom said, then sighed quietly, resting his forehead against hers.  “Neve’s pregnant, I guess.”

Marin frowned.  “What does that have to do with us, Thom?”

“I don’t know and I honestly didn’t ask.”  He barely managed to suppress a shiver.  “I don’t think I want to know.”

She sighed and rested her forehead against his shoulder.  “I don’t blame you.”  She straightened after a few moments, looking at him with a faint smile.  “You know, I didn’t come looking for you to get grilled about the consequences of our love life.”

“You didn’t actually answer the question, either,” Thom said.  She’s being evasive.  That can’t be good.

There must have been something close to fear in his eyes, because she laughed.

“If I am, I don’t know it,” she said.  “Honestly, with all the stress and insanity, I’d be surprised if it happens anytime soon.”

Thom nodded, surprised at the sudden regret that replaced the fear that had coiled in his belly.

She’s right, though.  We can’t handle kids right now.  We’ll be lucky to handle what’s already coming.

Like Cariocecus tomorrow.  The Hecate after that and whatever comes after her.  He closed his eyes.

“Please tell me that you’re going to grab some sleep today,” Marin said softly.

“Is that why you were looking for me?”

She smiled.  “I’m pretty transparent when it comes to that kind of thing, aren’t I?”  Her smile faded.  “Thom, I know for a fact that you barely slept last night and you’re not going to sleep tonight because you’re sure we’re going to get attacked as soon as today becomes tomorrow.  You’ve got to get some sleep, though.  I don’t care what it takes to get you to do it, but you’re going to do it.  You’re no good to anyone if you’re exhausted.”

“There’s too much to do, Mar,” he said quietly.  “I can’t sack out now.”

“Two hours isn’t going to kill us,” she said.  “That’s all I’m asking for.  We can handle the prep for two hours without you.  It’s not like I’m asking you to pass out for six or eight hours.”  Her arms tightened slightly around him.  “I don’t want you getting ready to face Cariocecus and his army and feeling like you’re ready to drop from exhaustion.  I don’t want that.”

His eyes slid shut for a moment.  “You’re really worried, huh?”

“You’re my husband and I love you,” Marin said quietly.  “And he’s gunning like crazy for the two of us, though I’ll be damned if I know why.  We need to be at the top of our games, and if you don’t get some sleep, you’re not going to be.  So please, go sleep.”

“All right,” he said.  “Do something for me, though.”

“What?”

“Snag Rory when you go to walk the wards,” he said.  “I know you’re going to do it while I’m asleep.  Don’t do it alone.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Marin said.

“He’s not,” Thom said.  “Just backup.  If I’m going to go get some sleep for you, at least do this for me.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.  “All right. I can do that for you.”

“Thank you,” Thom said.  He kissed her gently, squeezed her against his chest for a moment.

“Are you going to go to sleep now?” she asked.

“After I do the dishes,” he said with a wry smile.  “I promised Tala, and I don’t want to be on the receiving end of our pregnant chef’s temper.”

“She’d take that sword of yours and stick it in you,” Marin said, grinning.  “All right.  Do the dishes.  If you’re not in bed in twenty minutes, though, you’re going to answer to me for it.”

He almost looked forward to getting punished for disobeying, but the weight of her worry stilled his tongue.  He’d be in bed in twenty minutes, if only to make her happy.  She was right, after all. Exhausted, he wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone—and if they were going to make it through to the day after tomorrow, he was going to need to be at the top of his game.

Just like everyone else.

She found Neve curled in the same bed as Cameron, both of them asleep, his face bathed in sweat from a fever broken and hers pale as the pillows they shared.  Thordin glanced up from the book in his lap and offered up the ghost of a smile.

“His fever broke about half an hour ago,” Thordin said quietly as he closed the book and stood up.  “After I took over for Phelan.  He said you’d be along before too long, so I thought that I would just wait.”  He pulled the chair away from the bed so she’d have more room to work and lit another lamp so she had more light.  “I’ll go get some cold water.”

“Thanks,” Jacqueline said as she began to check Cameron’s forehead and cheeks for additional signs of his fever breaking.  She’d have to check his wound soon, but that meant waking Neve.

I’ll let her sleep a little while longer before I wake her.  Cameron’s face seemed cooler, even through the sweat, and his sleep seemed easier.

“He’ll be sensitive to the light when he wakes up,” Thordin said as he returned with a small basin and a few rags.  “That’s how it seems to go with these things.”

“How do you know?”  Jacqueline asked as she dipped one of the rags into the water and wrung it out.  She sponged Cameron’s face and neck gently, though her eyes were on Thordin.  “How do you know any of them?”  Who are you?

She’d never had time to ask.  She wasn’t sure anyone had.  It didn’t matter.  He’s on our side, but someday it might—and I want to know.

Lord help me, I want to know.  I’m tired of being the sheltered one left in the dark.  I can handle this.  I’ve been handling this.  It’s time I start asking the questions that need asking and quit waiting for the others to ask the questions for me.

After a moment’s hesitation, Thordin smiled.  “Does it matter?”

“Not yet, but it might,” Jacqueline said quietly.  “I know how you got here, but…who are you?  Who are you, really?  You’re not…you’re not friends with Cameron—not like you are with Neve and Phelan.  You know them.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Thordin smiled wryly and drew up the chair next to the bed, holding the bowl for her.  “I’ve ridden out on a hunt with Neve’s brothers and Phelan in the past.  That was a very long time ago.”

“Then you’re like them.  From someplace beyond imagining.”  Jacqueline stared at him for a long moment, the rag cool and wet in her hand, her fingers tightening.  He had a strong jaw, high cheekbones.  His eyes were bright and deep blue, even if they were deep-set in his face.  A faint blonde stubble peppered his jaw, interspersed with darker, pale brown hairs.  Like a Norwegian or Swedish hockey player or something.  That’s what he reminds me of.  Like the men you see walking into the locker room in a suit and then walking out again in their jerseys and pads ready to throw each other into some boards.  Her throat tightened.  Thordin.  That—oh sweet Jesus.  “Thordin.  You—”

“Once upon a time,” he said softly with a rueful smile.  “Not anymore.  That life is lost to me now.”

“Exile?” she asked, her voice a bare whisper.

He shook his head.  “Death.”

“Gods can’t die,” she said, though the words tasted like ash on her tongue, as if she somehow knew better.

Thordin gave her a sad smile.  “You know that we can.”

She swallowed hard and nodded.  “You’re right.  I do.”  She tore her eyes away and resumed tending to Cameron.  “How did it happen?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thordin wince.  “You don’t actually want to know the answer to that question, do you?”

Her gaze snapped back to his, her brows knitting.  “Why wouldn’t I?”  Anger welled up from somewhere deep inside.

Why the hell does everyone try to shelter me?  I can handle it.  However it happened, I can handle it—I’ve got to.  If I can’t, how the hell am I going to survive this new world that we’re living in?

His expression turned to stone, eyes flinty.  “Followers of Jehovah killed me, lass,” he said, his voice quiet, raspy.  “A saint of your church.”

Jacqueline’s stomach dropped straight through the floor. “What?”

Thordin closed his eyes and told her everything.

He told her how he had been on a hunt and realized men were giving chase, how they’d set their dogs on him even as far from where he hunted in the Black Forest, his tree was hacked down in front of three dozen villagers to whom he’d sworn his protection.  He told her how the men had shot him full of arrows once their dogs had dragged him down, how he’d had belly slashed, his entrails spilled, his heart stabbed clean through.  Tears leaked from beneath closed lids as he spoke, his hands shaking around the bowl.  He told her of his dying thoughts—not of anger, but of worry for the people whom he would no longer be able to watch over, to protect.  He wondered at the men who could do what they did and yet purport to be men of mercy, men of peace—men of Christ.

Jacqueline could understand why he’d wondered, since she was starting to share the same sick curiousity.  Her throat closed up and she felt nauseous as she put her hands over his.  “Thordin, I—”

“Save your apologies,” he whispered, eyes blinking open.  His voice was ragged, but remarkably steady.  “It was not you who did this to me, and the followers of the Christus did do right by my people in the end, for better or worse.”

“It was still wrong,” she whispered, hands tightening.  “It was still wrong.”

“That’s why the truth has never been spoken,” he said quietly.  “And that’s why it should stay that way.”  He slowly lifted his hand, the rough flesh of his thumb brushing against her cheek.

“If you died like that,” Jacqueline asked in a whisper, “then how are you here now?”

“Miracles happen,” he said with a wry smile.  “The gods—and the powers that spawned them—work in mysterious ways.”

The words sent shivers down her spine.  She knew they were true.

The certainty that those words were true scared her right down to her very core.

“What power could be greater than all the gods and monsters out there?” she breathed.

A wry smile twisted Thordin’s lips.  “Pray we never find out.”

“Believe me, I will.”  Her hand covered his for a moment before she swallowed and looked away.

“I should let you get back to work,” Thordin said.

“You don’t have to go,” Jacqueline said.

He flushed a little as he stood and set the bowl down where he’d been sitting.  “I’m afraid that I do.  Call if you need something.  I’ve a need to find Phelan.”

She watched him walk away, chewing on her lower lip.  Another mystery, I guess.  Maybe I shouldn’t ask question after all.

I just end up more curious in the end.

With a sigh, she tried to push all thoughts of Thordin from her mind and got back to work.

“I’m not going to disappear into the tunnels like some kind of terrified mouse this time,” Jacqueline said as she examined the edges of J.T.’s wound, which was finally starting to look normal after weeks of looking otherwise.  When silence met her statement, she risked a quick glance up to see Marin frowning at her as the other woman braced J.T. on his side.  “What’s that look for?”

“It wouldn’t be safe for you to stay topside,” Marin said.  “What if something happens to you?  The people that’re already hurt won’t have someone to take care of them.”

“They’ll have Jay,” Jacqueline said stubbornly.  “His fever’s broken and the wound’s finally healing.  You guys are going to need me in case something goes terribly sideways.  Remember Kellin?”

Marin winced and Jacqueline momentarily regretted bringing it up.

Of course she remembers Kellin.  We all remember that, and Kel wasn’t right after what I did for her for weeks after, but she eventually sorted it all out.  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know.  But unfortunately I also know that something like that happening again is a distinct possibility—one I didn’t want to think about.”  Marin sighed.  “Are you done there?”

“Will be in a minute,” Jacqueline said, pouring a measure of still-steaming water out of an insulated carafe into a small bowl that she’d already filled with crushed herbs.  She mixed it up into a hot paste, then began smearing it onto J.T.’s wound with her fingers.

His chest braced against Marin’s knees, J.T. hissed.

“Christ,” he muttered, his voice thick with pain and addled by long sleep, “what the hell are you doing to me, Kel?”

“Making sure you stay alive,” she retorted, trying to sound stern even as relief flooded her.  The last few times he’d woken up, he hadn’t been this lucid.  Take that as a good sign.  He really is on the mend.  “Hold still.”

He shivered, then held still.  “When is it?” he asked a few moments later, his voice a little clearer.

Marin seemed to know the answer.  “Cariocecus hits us tomorrow whether we like it or not,” she said quietly.

J.T. swore softly.  “I have to—”

“Stay put,” Jacqueline finished for him.  “Until we need you to go down to the tunnels, you’re going to stay put.  You’re not going to be any good to anyone in the state you’re in and we both know it.”  She covered the long cut with a bandage and nodded to Marin.  “You can lay him back down now.”

Marin eased their friend back down again and J.T. cursed softly a second time, squeezing his eyes shut.

“That’s not going to do any good to the people who need it,” he said stubbornly, softly.

“Unfortunately, we don’t get a vote,” Jacqueline said.  “Right now, you’re a liability in a fight.  It’s not like we can go and ask the bloody Shadow Man if he wouldn’t mind holding off his assault because we have a couple of friends who’re hurt but would love to be involved in this fight so could you pretty please postpone your plans to rain fire and destruction upon us?”

Marin stared at her for a long moment, then burst out laughing—so hard that she almost choked on it, tears gathering in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.  J.T. just stared at her, then sighed and looked away.

“Right.  Fine.  Whatever.”

“You know it’s true, so don’t you dare get like that.”  Jacqueline stood up and wiped her hands on the seat of her jeans, gathering the tools of her trade.  “You stay put.  Carolyn’ll be back soon.  We told her to go get herself something to eat while we were in here, but I’ve got to go check on Cameron and Neve now.”

“Did your magic help her?”  J.T. asked, a strange tone of reverence in his voice.

Jacqueline smiled weakly and nodded. “Seemed to do the trick.  She and Thom are a lot alike—it’s hard to keep her in bed.”

“Only sometimes,” Marin said, calmer now.  “She sticks pretty close to Cameron and worries.”

“Sounds like someone else we know,” J.T. murmured.  Marin blushed, but laughed.

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “There is that.”

Jacqueline smiled a lopsided little smile.  “Are you going to stay with him?”

“For now, anyway,” Marin said.  “Until he pisses me off or Carolyn shows up, whichever happens first.”

“Right.  Do me a favor and stick around until Carolyn makes it back?  I don’t want to leave him alone.”

“I’m not a child,” J.T. said petulantly, momentarily sounding like one.

“I know it, too,” Jacqueline said.  “You’re too big for that.”

“As long as we’re clear,” he said, closing his eyes.

“We’re clear,” Jacqueline said, her gaze flicking toward Marin, who smiled faintly.

“I’ll stick around.”

“Thanks.”  Jacqueline tossed her a jaunty salute and slipped out the door.