Pain woke him when they tried to move him. He sucked in a rasping breath, eyes blinking open to see the sky. He couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes, though cold was nibbling at his nose, his fingers, and the tips of his ears.
“What in blazes were you thinking?” Cariocecus asked, almost shouting. “Do you have any idea what you did?” His voice was close, though not too close—not inside the wardings, it seemed.
Phelan sucked in a deep breath and shifted slightly, earning a sharp, “Hold still!” from Jacqueline. She had both hands wrapped around the spear that was still stuck in him, he realized, and J.T. had produced a pair of scissors from somewhere and was cutting away the fabric of his shirt and coat to get to the wound.
Phelan put his head back down and glanced to the side. Cariocecus looked as angry as he’d ever seen the southron godling, though Phelan suspected it was less anger than fear that was fueling the expression and his tirade.
“You just rang the entire bloody world like a bell,” Cariocecus snarled, his ire focused not on Phelan, but on Marin. “You started to rewrite the lines of magic around this place! Do you have any idea what kind of beacon that is to—to—”
“To bad guys like you?” Kellin suggested, her eyes narrowing for a moment as she came to her friend’s defense, Phelan’s fallen staff in her hands.
Cariocecus actually flinched. “I deserved that,” he said, his voice quieter, more even. “But that doesn’t mean that what just happened here wasn’t insane and dangerous.”
“It’s my job to tell them that,” Phelan croaked, wincing at the sound of his own voice. He swallowed and tried again, voice more normal this time. “Besides, it couldn’t have been her. It must have been me. I wasn’t in control.”
“No offense to you, Wanderer, but I don’t think you quite have that kind of power.”
“Neither does she.” At least, I’m fairly certain she doesn’t. The power to see the future, yes, the power to change it and to ward like no one I’ve ever encountered, yes. But to reweave the very fabric of the world? I doubt that very much.
Cariocecus was silent for a long moment. “Then it must be the child.”
He didn’t just– Phelan started to jerk upright, only to be shoved back down forcefully by Jacqueline.
“Dammit!” she cursed. “Matt, get over here and hold him down.” She glared at Cariocecus. “And shut him up.”
“No,” Marin said. “No, don’t shut him up. I want to hear this. “What are you talking about?”
Phelan wanted to pound his head against the ground a little harder than he was able to, though he bounced it lightly off the snow-covered ground beneath him even as Matt came to hold him down. He could feel the cold against the flesh of his abdomen, now. J.T. would be trying to extract the spear soon enough.
I guess it’s better than them trying to carry me back to shelter with it sticking out of me. At least it’s not snowing.
Not snowing yet, anyway.
“Sometimes when a woman is carrying a child of great and special talent, their abilities begin to manifest through her temporarily,” Cariocecus said, his tone even but his voice soft. “It’s rare and usually only happens in times of great stress and only when the child will hold great power.” He stared pointedly at Marin’s belly for a moment, still showing no sign of her condition. Then his gaze flicked toward her face, then toward Thom, who stood nearby, the point of his bared blade hovering just above the crust of snow.
“It seems,” he said softly, “that the pairing of the two most powerful Seers left in the world may be producing the most gifted child to walk this earth since the days of old.”
