Awakenings

Marin dashed the last few yards down the hill toward Sif, leaving Phelan to follow at a less frantic pace. Bile rose in his throat as panic rooted itself in his breast, setting his heart out of rhythm. He tried to keep his breathing even as he watched Marin touch Sif’s shoulder, seeing the other woman flinch, hands tightening around the edges of her blade.

Bloody hell, Sif. You’ve finally up and cracked, haven’ t you?

“My god, Sif, your hands…what did you do?”

She didn’t look at Marin, turning to Phelan instead, her face streaked with drying tears. “Something stirs in the deep,” she said, her voice cracking. “It comes for the one who slew its father, but I was told that man doesn’t exist anymore. So why would it be here if that were true?”

“Let it go,” Phelan said quietly, staring at the blade in her hands and the blood running down its edges. He eased up alongside Sif, reaching for the blade’s hilt slowly. “Sif, drop the blade. You’ll cut your finger clear off and then what good would you be to the bloody idiot?”

“He can’t even stand the sight of me,” she said, bitter laughter bubbling up from her throat. “Why would he want my help?”

“Regardless of whether he wants it or not, he needs it.” Phelan wrapped his hand around the hilt of her blade. “Look at me, Sif.” Anger replaced panic as she stubbornly kept staring at the snow. “Damn you, woman, look at me! It’s not coming, it’s already here.”

Sif’s head snapped up and her eyes met his. Her hands spasmed, the blade falling away from bleeding fingers and palms. Phelan snatched it away as Marin grasped both of Sif’s hands. She gasped in pain, then gritted her teeth, eyes narrowing as she glared at Phelan. “What do you mean, ‘it’s already here’?”

“Just what I said.” Phelan set his jaw. “The creature is here, near the lakeshore, already hunting—and Thordin’s gone after it.”

Sif swore viciously and tore herself from their grasp. She marched across the barrow, leaving a trail of blood in her wake, pausing only once to look back at the two of them.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Get horses. We have to catch him before he gets himself killed for a second time in his life.”

No one stopped us to ask where we were going, as if Phelan and I walking around armed wasn’t unusual. I guess in some ways, it really wasn’t. A few minutes later, our feet hit the bridge over the ravine and we were well on our way to retrieving Sif and figuring out this water monster business.

“Tell me about dragons,” I said abruptly.

Phelan looked at me, blinking slowly. “Dragons?”

“I think you heard me,” I said, giving him a withering look. He let out a little laugh and shook his head.

“You startled me, that’s all. Why are you asking about dragons all of a sudden?”

“Big giant monster in the water that’s making people a hell of a lot older than I am pretty squicked out,” I said. “My head says dragons. Don’t ask me why.”

“You’ve played too much D&D, that’s why,” Phelan said, his wry smile and tone saying he was teasing me. “I don’t think it’s a dragon, Mar, so I really wouldn’t worry about it.”

“And if I still want to know about dragons?”

“Then I’ll tell you once we’re done dealing with whatever’s out in the water.”

I eyed him for a moment, then shrugged. “All right. This round to you.”

“We’re keeping score now?”

“Maybe.”

We climbed the small hill where the remnants of the Shakespeare Garden still stood, half-buried in a winter’s worth of snow and ice, hiding the destruction that the camazotzi had wrought the past autumn. That had been the event that had driven the faeries to their new home among us, hidden in the tents and cots and the environs within our wards. Carolyn could see them. Sometimes, a few of us—me included—could catch fleeting glimpses of our tiny neighbors. She could see them as easily as breathing.

The barrow where we’d buried our dead was below that hill, in a lower spot. Lawn torches still stood at the four corners of the space, somehow still standing despite the weather that had hammered campus over the long winter. I could feel the strength of the wards we’d laid there, of the protections we’d granted our dead.

Standing at the edge of the barrow was Sif, her head bowed as she stared blankly at the snow in front of her feet, blood dripping into the snow as she clutched the blade of her sword in both hands, edge biting into the tender flesh of fingers and palms, her shoulders shaking silently and the sun glinting off her hair.

Whatever had driven her here probably wasn’t good.

“Where do you think she is?” I asked as I waited outside his bunk while he gathered up his staff and his satchel of herbs.

“Sif?” He shook his head. “Probably by the barrow. She’s been spending a lot of time out there lately looking for wisdom that she’s not going to find among the dead.”

“Have you told her that?”

“What’s the point?”

“I think you’re the only one she’ll listen to.”

He snorted humorlessly as he shouldered his bag and motioned me back out into the corridor. “Not bloody likely, leánnan. She’ll listen to you, I’m thinking. Probably your brother, too. She had great respect for—well.”

“For Brighíd and Ciar,” I surmised, stepping out into the shadows and heading for the bunk I shared with Thom. “She knows we’re not them, right?”

“Yeah,” Phelan said as he trailed behind me. “But at the same time, the souls are the same—just bigger, older. You know that as well as I do.”

I exhaled. He was right, of course—I knew full well he was, just as well as I knew that I shared the same soul as a chieftain that had united half of ancient Ireland against enemies forgotten by time in an era that was lost to history, and that Matt shared his soul with her brother, the man once known as the Ridden Druid. Ciar of the Imbolg had been the only other man to ever leave the Wild Hunt and live to tell the tale before Seamus was freed from their service.

“What I don’t understand is why,” I said, shouldering open my door.

Phelan shrugged. “Ask her.”

“She won’t answer.”

“Maybe she will eventually.”

I snorted humorlessly, picking up my bow and my quiver of arrows. Phelan and Neve had made them for me while he was recuperating from the last round of attacks against him, keeping a promise he’d made months ago.

“I still owe you a spear,” he said after a moment of watching me.

I smirked. “I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”

“You’d be bloody well surprised,” he said, straightening from his lean. “Let’s go.”

Matt was the first one to remember how to talk. “How do you know?” he asked Vasily, eyes wide and saucer-round.

“There is no way that they would not fly again, with everything that has awakened,” Vasily said. “They hunted in times of old and now they will soar again, to hunt and kill and do the things as they had always did in times of old.”

“Bloody hell,” J.T. muttered.

A shudder crept through me and I bit my lip. Dragons. What else, now? I stared at the walls of the forge, the thick bricks insulating us from the wind and weather. “Damn,” I whispered.

The door swung open, momentarily blinding us as Phelan stepped inside, gaze fastening on me for a few seconds before it flicked toward Vasily. “What’s this about something under the ice and Thordin storming off?”

“Where’s Thom?” I asked.

“Went off after Thordin. Someone going to explain?”

Went off after… “Did he leave, Phelan?”

The Taliesin frowned, crossing his arms. “Took a horse, a bow, and his axe and rode out maybe ten minutes ago.”

I swore. Matt’s hammer clanged off the anvil on its way to the floor. My brother pushed past me toward the door. “Bank the flames,” he barked at J.T. “Leave that blade I was working to cool. I’m going after him.”

“Not alone,” I said, but he was already out the door. I swore again and looked at J.T. as he unfolded from his seat along the wall.

“I’m going after him,” I said, chin lifting, as if I was somehow daring J.T. to stop me.wall.

1. “or a few seconds before it flicked toward Vasily. “, chin lifting, as if I was somehow daring J.T. to stop me. He just stared at me.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else,” J.T. said quietly. “But if I were you, I’d try to find Sif and take her along.” He looked at Phelan, who nodded slowly.

“I think I know where she is,” he said, turning toward the door. “I imagine by riding out, I’ll see for myself what this creature beneath the ice might be.” He threw his arm around my shoulders and smiled the wry, lopsided smile I’d come to miss over the last few months, so rarely had I seen it. “Let’s go find her and catch up with Thordin. He’s probably halfway to the new lakeshore by now.”

“I hope not.”

“Hope’s all we have, leannán. Hang onto it tight. This could be a nasty one.”

“I’m used to that,” I said as we stepped out into the snow.

Phelan’s smile faded. “Aye. I know.”

We headed back to the tents.

“It’s close, then,” Matt said quietly, crossing his arms. “And not in very deep water, either.”

“We don’t know how deep that water might be now, Matt. The lake’s risen a lot.”

“Not that much,” he said, his gaze drifting toward the coals trapped in his forge. I stared at him for a long, hard moment, my brow furrowing.

“Let him think, Mar,” J.T. said before I could open my mouth. I looked at him funny, brow creasing.

“What makes you think I—”

“Because it’s what you do,” he said, tempering his chiding with a smile. “I know you, remember?”

I mock-glowered at him a moment before I remembered that Vasily was there, standing and watching us. He must have thought we were absolutely batshit crazy—as if he and his companions in the Wild Hunt hadn’t figured that out already.

After all, we were letting them make a home with us here. No one entirely sane would choose to allow that to happen. Not only were they a band of hardened warriors—killers, really—they had more than a few enemies. When combined with our own growing list of adversaries, combining the two lists probably wasn’t the smartest of ideas.

The price had been Seamus’s freedom, though, and we couldn’t deny him that, nor could we deny the weary riders of the Hunt a place they could finally call home again for the first time in a very long time for mos.

“Do you think Phelan will know something?” I asked J.T. after a moment.

J.T. shrugged. “Phelan knows a little bit about everything, so I guess we just have to hope. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t. Thordin certainly seemed to have an inkling.”

I glanced toward the door, frowning. He certainly did. “Well, either he’ll come back and share with the class or he’s already gone off to either slay the dragon or raise the alarm.”

“Do you think those are out there now?”

I startled at my brother’s question. “What?”

“Dragons,” he said. “Do you think they’re out there now?”

“I don’t—”

“Without a doubt,” Vasily said, leaving the three of us to stare at him in shock.

“I wish it was,” I said, pulling the smithy door shut behind me. “Vasily and his party saw something in the water.”

“Coming up through the ice,” he said. “Broken ice, all along the shore. I don’t think the water’s very deep where we saw the cracks, either.”

Matt frowned, setting down his hammer and cleaning his hands with a soot-stained rag. “How far out?”

Vasily shrugged, his gaze drifting away from my brother and homing in on Thordin. “We thought that you and Lady Sif might be able to help us identify it.”

“Really,” Thordin said, his expression darkening as his voice dropped to a rumble. “What’s that?”

“I’ve only heard tales of serpents like what I think we saw,” Vasily said, his accent thickening as he spoke, as if fear was having more of an effect on him than he was trying to let on, bleeding into his voice. “We didn’t see much, only that it was big and it had eyes like ice, big and crystal and blue-white, like sun on a glacier.”

Thordin sat quietly for a long moment, his eyes growing distant.

Without a word, he stood up, handed J.T. the axe head he’d been honing, and slipped past Vasily and I. I watched his retreating back as he headed for the bridge, bile pooling deep in my belly.

He was scared, and that was enough to terrify me.

“I’ll find Phelan,” Thom said, abandoning the bellows. He pecked me on the cheek on his way out the door. “Maybe he’ll be able to shed some light on this, too.”

“How close to camp?” Matt asked Vasily, frowning. I could see the wheels turning behind my brother’s eyes. He’d been majoring in geology before the end of everything, and his classes had resulted in at least a passing understanding of the underwater geography of Lake Michigan. He was trying to figure out how big thing could be based on its proximity to where we were standing now.

Vasily shrugged. “Hard to say. A few miles.”

“Across the ice?” J.T. asked, eyes gleaming in the forge’s glow.

Vasily nodded. “Aye. We rode out onto the pack to see what we could. Our orders were to see if we could still cross the lake on horseback to the other side.”

“I’m guessing we can’t,” I said, stomach sinking. We knew that there was another settlement on the far side of Lake Michigan from where we were standing thanks to a report from a friendly werewolf pack. Some of them had stayed behind in that settlement for the winter, while a few had braved the frozen lake to return to us on its eastern shore.

“Not unless you want to get eaten by the creature beneath the ice,” Vasily said quietly. “Don’t go dance where angels fear to tread, koldun’ya. It’s the very best way to get yourself killed.”

“Trust me,” I said quietly. “I know.”

Bad news or not, you’ve got a job to do. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “Well, come on,” I said, turning back toward the gates. “I think I know where to find Thordin, at least. And for god’s sake, don’t let him hear you call him Odinson. It pisses him right off.”

“It’s who he is,” Vasily said.

“Not anymore.”

Vasily followed me through the gate, his companions breaking off from he and I to tend the horses and report in to the Hunt’s master.

“Do you know where he’ll be?” Vasily asked.

I nodded. “Probably at the forge with my brother—it’s where he usually is when the sun’s still showing her face to the world. We could get lucky and Sif may be there, too.” I wasn’t going to hold my breath hoping she’d be there, though. Things were still awkward between the pair, even months after Sif’s sudden arrival at our gates. At least my brother had finally forgiven her for the arrow thing.

I wasn’t quite sure I had, but that didn’t much matter.

“Weapons,” Vasily rumbled. “At least you people have priorities.”

I barely managed to prevent myself from breaking his jaw. “Nice of you to notice,” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

He wasn’t fazed.

Matt’s forge perched up on a hill overlooking the ravines, and it was pretty crowded inside when Vasily and I arrived. My brother was there, of course, face smudged with charcoal as he thrust whatever he was working for back into the coals to heat again. Thordin sat in the shadows near the door with J.T., sharpening blades, while my husband stood working the bellows. All four men looked at us as we entered, bringing a gust of chill air with us into the hot, dim space.

“Well,” my brother said with raised brows. “This can’t be good.”

Four riders from the Wild Hunt clattered onto the open field in front of the gates one chilly afternoon as storm clouds gathered on the horizon. I was perched on the wall when they arrived, watching the clouds roll in, and their leader spotted me, lifting his arm in greeting. I nodded and came down from the wall, crossing the snow to meet his party as they dismounted.

“Seamus said you would come,” I said without preamble, shoving my hands deep into my pockets and squinting in the rapidly fading light. “What’s happened? What’s going on?”

“The ice on the water is cracking,” Vasily said, his Russian accent thick but not unintelligible. “And not because of a thaw.”

I stared at him for a long moment, uncomprehending, then turned my gaze toward his companions, Quintus, Marlowe, and Horace. All three men looked equally grim, exchanging silent looks with each other as they each pretended to be too busy with their horses to bother with my questions. It was an act, of course, but their discomfort shot shivers up and down my spine.

What could frighten the Wild Hunt?

Something that would likely take the heart out of me, that was all but certain.

“What’s out there, Vasily?” I asked, my voice soft. “What’s cracking the ice? Something beneath it?”

“Da,” he said, his voice as soft as mine. “Forgive me, koldun’ya, but it is bad news we bring, not good.”

“We thought you might,” I assured him. “What is it? Did you see it?”

“Just its eye,” he whispered. “It stared right at us and I felt cold to the depths of my soul. That eye was the size of a man, the color of ice in the sunshine. I’ve heard tales of such creatures, but I’ve never seen one.” He stared at me, face pale as the snow beneath our boots.

“Odinson and Sif will know,” he whispered. “They’ll know what it is, and hopefully how to kill it. Else…”

I shivered. I didn’t know what he’d meant to say, but it didn’t matter. I caught his meaning regardless.

Whatever was out there was trouble—and this time, we’d be facing it alone.

Teague closed his eyes, wrapping his free arm around her and resting his chin against her hair. Her arms shifted to his waist, hugging him and their son closer to her. Kira sighed softly.

“You didn’t just wake up because you heard Seamus,” she whispered. “There’s more bothering you.”

“Mm.” He shifted his weight slightly. “I was thinking, that’s all.”

“You should know better than that by now,” Kira murmured into his shirt. “What were you thinking about?”

“It’s too quiet,” Teague said, hating himself for admitting it. “It’s terrifyingly quiet.”

Her brows knit as she peered up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Think about it. We’ve been out here for how long? Nothing’s come hunting for us. The dirae that attacked Cameron and Neve on the road were chasing Cameron, not us. It doesn’t make sense when you think about how big of a target was on my back and on Phelan’s back in the city. If they’re not chasing me, who do you think they’re focused on?”

“Bloody hell,” she whispered. “Phelan. They’ll be after him if they can’t find you.” She took a shaky breath. “He’s with my cousin.”

“They’ll be fine,” Teague assured her. “They’re together, and probably with Marin. You said she was a mystic-born if you’d ever met one. I’m sure there’s talent there—more than we can predict.”

“Maybe,” his wife agreed, her voice quiet. Her arms tightened again before she let go, moving toward the fireplace and kneeling near the hearth. The flames reflected off her pale face as she stared into the fire. Teague’s throat tightened.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

“You didn’t,” she lied, drawing one knee up to her chest. “Honestly, I was thinking it was too quiet, but I didn’t want to say anything—as if saying something would somehow jinx us and something awful would show up. I was kind of enjoying the quiet, truth be known.”

So was I. He settled on the floor next to her, shifting Seamus so the infant’s head rested against his shoulder. “Maybe they’re gone. The threats, I mean.”

“You don’t believe that,” Kira said softly.

“It’s a nice lie.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

She sighed and leaned against him again. They sat there together, staring into the fire, for a long, long time.

“You know,” Teague whispered to his son, “when I met your mum in Chicago, it was chance—maybe it was fate. I didn’t see her, she didn’t see me. We walked right into each other. Then I saw her face and thought, ‘oh fate, how could you be so cruel?’ I knew your mother before we’d ever met. I knew her touch, her voice, how she would look.” His voice trailed away as he stared at his son in the moonlight. “I had loved her in a life long gone,” he said in a voice barely audible. “And I love her still.”

His lips brushed against his son’s downy hair and he shifted the babe in his arms, starting to pace the floor.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Teague startled and turned, staring at Kira in the dim light of the fire, silhouetted in the doorway to their room. He smiled weakly. “No, not well anyway. Seamus started fussing, so I brought him out here so he wouldn’t disturb you.”

She nodded and drifted across the floor to him, wrapping both of her arms around one of his and resting her head on his shoulder. She peered down at the bundle in his arms and sighed softly.

“I woke up and you weren’t there,” she said softly. “I was having a nightmare. I’d hoped that you were just out here, and you were.”

“What kind of nightmare?” Teague asked, heart turning to ice in his chest.

“The terrible kind,” Kira murmured. “The kind with nameless, faceless evils that don’t make sense. I woke up and you weren’t there, so I worried—worried that it meant something, that wasn’t just a dream.”

He took a slow, deep breath. “Perhaps it was only that. Just a dream.”

“I hope so,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against the cotton of his shirt. “Gods and monsters, do I ever hope so.”