[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
Phelan touched my cheek and smiled sadly. “I wish I could say you were wrong about that,” he said quietly, then glanced toward the ravine, toward the trees. His hand fell away, dropping back to his side as he stared out there at nothing—at nothing I could see, anyway.
Who the hell knows what he’s seeing sometimes.
“Has it ever been like this before?” I asked.
He was quiet for a long moment, tilting his head slightly before asking, “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Active, I guess. Dangerous?”
“Ah.” Phelan crossed his arms, seeming to huddle in on himself for a few heartbeats before his spine straightened. A slow nod followed a few seconds later. “A couple times, for better or worse. It’s never…” his voice trailed away and he hesitated, taking a deep breath and exhaling it in a sigh before continuing. “I was going to say that the feeling hasn’t ever been this heavy, this ominous, but even that’s not quite right. It’s certainly been as bad.”
“During the big war,” I said softly. “The one that Teague and Neve’s father tried to avoid by leaving.”
“Something like that,” Phelan said, then shook his head. “That was unavoidable and we were here for at least the first half of it. It’s just that it didn’t really end for centuries. Burned hot, went cold, then a spark would catch and it would start all over again. Wasn’t until after Rome fell that it really ended. Maybe not really even then.” He closed his eyes. “And now it’s back again.”
“The wars?”
He nodded. “The old feuds, the old conflicts. All of it’s come back to haunt us again, to hurt us again. Doesn’t matter who won back then—what happened last August cleared those boards. What happens now is up to us—up to the ones who lived.” He opened his eyes and smiled crookedly at me. “The ones too stubborn or unlucky to die.”
I smiled back, taking his hand and squeezing. “It’s not a bad thing. Being too unlucky or stubborn.”
His smile grew and he nodded. “I couldn’t agree more.”
The smile faded as he turned back toward the ravine, though. “There’s something building out there, Marin. I can’t put my finger on what it is or why it is, but there’s something building out there.”
“If it comes against us, it’ll get more than it’s bargained for—whatever it is.” The words came out with more confidence and conviction than I actually felt. The look on Phelan’s face told me that he knew I was full of shit, but he didn’t call me on it—not directly, anyway.
“Keep talking that way and everyone’s going to believe you,” he murmured. His eyes were sad as he looked at me again. “This world doesn’t deserve people like you, leannan. You realize that, right?”
“Then I guess the world is lucky even if I’m not.” I smiled slightly and wrapped my arm around his waist. “There’s a reason for everything, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Even if we don’t understand what it is or why, there is. There always is. Sometimes we just never see it.” He exhaled noisily. “And sometimes, we don’t want to see it.”
