Awakenings

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]

In those first few seconds, I scarcely dared to breathe, as if the simple act would shatter the momentary peace, the silence. And it was silent, as if everyone else was holding their breath, the same as I was, waiting, watching, expecting something other than what came.

What came was nothing.

I sucked in one breath and then another, staring at that field until Seamus moved and I snapped out of whatever fugue had temporarily gripped me. He needed help, Phelan needed help—and more besides.

I exhaled with a shudder and reached for Seamus. My next breath came with a curse and he just looked at me with a grimace and a slightly arched brow.

“What is it?”

“You look like hell already,” I said as I started to lift him. I needed to get him down off that wall and to a healer—probably Jac, but maybe J.T. I’d figure it out once we were on the ground, or maybe once we were back by the fire where there was better light. The sky was still dark with stormclouds and I suspected that it would be for a while yet.

“I got shot,” he said, still staring at me as I hauled him upright. He winced, then groaned. “What were you expecting?”

“I’m going to go with not you playing hero like that.” I blew out a quiet breath. “Phelan, are you all right?”

“Just need a minute,” he rasped. “Stay where you are, I’ll help. Just let me get my bearings again.”

I glanced at him and grimaced. His complexion was almost as ashy as his cousin’s.

Nope. This has to be me.

“Is Matt okay?”

I opened my mouth to answer Phelan’s question, only to be cut off.

“I will be,” Matt said, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been screaming—though I knew he hadn’t been, at least not out loud. Hecate curled into his chest and he peeked up to look at me for a few seconds, resting his chin against her hair. “Are you okay, sis?”

“Oh yeah,” I said with a measure of wry humor. “Peachy.”

With that, I started to drag Seamus to the edge of the wall.

[This post is from Phelan’s point of view.]

“Phelan.”

Marin’s voice was low but urgent. His gaze slid toward her for the space of a heartbeat, long enough to see her widened eyes and the blood draining from her face.

“Look,” she whispered, jerking her chin toward the field.

There was a glow deep in the mists, an eerie, otherworldly light. The sight set his heart to hammering and he gulped in a breath, no longer daring to hold it for a second more.

“Is it Matt?” Marin asked. “Is he doing that?”

“I don’t know,” Phelan said, the words tasting like ash. “Probably.”

What the hell are you up to, Matt?

Another pop, then another. The skies twisted and the mists began to glow.

Far away, someone screamed. It wasn’t pain, it was terror.

“Shit,” Phelan breathed, rocking closer to the edge of the parapet, straining to see through the impenetrable, now-glowing mists. “Shit, Matt, what are you doing?”

Another series of pops rippled out, echoing and distant. Every hair on his body stood on end, the world seeming to crackle around him—around all of them.

Earth geysered sky-high at the far end of the field, the screams of terror beginning to mingle with cries of pain. On the other side of Marin, Phelan saw Seamus stiffen from the corner of his eye.

“Déithe agus arrachtaigh,” Seamus breathed, his eyes widening. “It’s been an age since I saw something like that.”

“He’s protecting her the only way he can see,” Phelan whispered, his throat suddenly tight, raw. I pushed him too hard. Gods and monsters, what have I done?

“He’s protecting all of us,” Marin said, rocking to her feet, squinting through the wind and rain. “The mist is rolling back and I don’t see anything except bodies.”

Phelan swallowed bile, following her gaze. She was right, the mists—still glowing that odd shade—were retreating, recoiling, twisting back on themselves like the clouds above. His breath caught. There were bodies, some camazotzi, some human, and others things he didn’t want to identify—things he didn’t want to get close enough to identify. He looked at Matt again, evergreen and silver light twisting faintly around him and Hecate.

He swallowed hard.

None of us know what we’ve done here and that scares the shit out of me.

[This post is from Phelan’s point of view.]

It began as a series of pops, soft and seemingly distant.  The hairs on Phelan’s arms and the back of his neck stirred and he swallowed the bile that suddenly rose in his throat, starting not out over the field as he perhaps should have been, but at Matt as the other man held Hecate tightly against his chest, his nose buried in her hair.

I don’t know what he’s doing.  I don’t think I want to know.  I just want it to work.

He could sense them now, the lampades skittering across the upper arc of the wards, waiting for a crack to open so the underworld nymphs could slip in and seek their former mistress physically.  They weren’t wraiths, weren’t truly ghosts—they were something else, something that was enough to send ice sluicing down his spine.

“What’s happening?” Marin asked in a bare whisper, glancing between the field and her brother and Hecate.  “I can feel him doing something but I don’t know what it is.”

“I don’t know,” Phelan said, the words coming a bit more sharply than he intended.  “Keep your eyes on the field.  Those bastards are still coming.”

“I noticed.”  She grimaced, tearing her gaze away and training it on the field.  Seamus had taken over directing the archers.  Above them, the clouds twisted and the rain kept coming down in sheets; Thordin’s control of the storm was nearly absolute, but Phelan knew it had to be coming at some sort of price.

A rumble started to build, like the beginnings of rolling thunder that never quite reached its apex.  A chill swept through Phelan and his throat constricted.  He groped for the edge of the wall and the fingers of his other hand tightened around the haft of his staff, seeking comfort in the solidity and strength of both.  He stared at Matt, not quite able to sense what was going on but knowing his friend was up to something—something big, as seemed to be the norm.

“Nothing by half measures,” he breathed, the words lost to the wind and rain.

The pops grew closer, sounding like explosions underwater.  The ground shivered.

Phelan held his breath.