I can’t stay here for much longer. I’m just putting all of them in more danger by staying.
It’s your duty to stay. You have to watch over them. Someone has to watch over them. That’s the task that was settled on your shoulders, the burden you agreed to carry. You knew it wouldn’t be easy when you took up the Taliesin’s mantle. You can’t shirk that duty now.
But how can I stay knowing that I’m putting them all in very real danger by my sheer presence? There are things out there that won’t stop coming until they’re dead or I am—and there’s usually more where they come from.
Phelan drew a shuddering breath. “Hellfire,” he breathed. It felt like someone had shoved a hot poker into his side where the hamrammr had lodged a spear. I might have well have been coated in some kind of poison, he thought. Even if it wasn’t, it sure as hell feels like it was.
I have to stop letting this happen. His eyes fluttered shut, though he could still see the fluttering light of the lamp through the closed lids. His mind drifted back, back to days long gone, simpler times.
“You told me I’d regret saying yes, Seamus,” he murmured to no one. “And you were right. I regret it.”
“Phelan?”
He tensed at the sound of Jacqueline’s voice, hissing as the rent muscles of his side, back, and belly protested. He forced himself to relax, eyes blinking open again. “Jac,” he said softly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I’d guess not,” she said quietly. She crossed the floor to his bedside, turning up the lamp slightly. “I’d also guess from your reaction when you heard me that your side’s not feeling much better than it was before, is it?”
Phelan watched the blonde-haired girl as she settled on the edge of his bed and gently peeled back the covers on the injured side of his body. “No,” he admitted. “Unfortunately not. I didn’t want anyone to—”
“To know, or to worry?” One corner of her mouth curved upward in a rueful smile. “Or both?”
“Both,” he whispered. “Everyone’s got enough to worry about.”
“You’re included in that enough to worry about,” Jacqueline said as she eased his shirt up to get to the bandages taped over his stitches. “We love you, Phelan. Don’t you understand that?”
“Of course I do,” he said, voice made hoarse by the sudden tightening of his throat. “It doesn’t mean that I enjoy feeling like a burden.”
“You’re not a burden.” Her pale-eyed gaze skewered him straight through the heart. “And don’t you dare say that you are ever again or else it’s me you’ll answer to and we both know you don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?” he murmured, meeting her gaze. There was fire in those eyes, a flame that burned bright and hot despite her sweet demeanor and even tempered nature.
She’s a riddle. I imagine she always has been. Jehovah’s touched child with a purpose that none of us can quite understand—not even her.
Not even me.
“Because,” she said softly. “You won’t like what happens to you. Now hold still. I’m going to have a look.”
He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. This would be uncomfortable, and not just because she was going to poke his stitches. Of that, he was certain.
