[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
“Leannán?”
I came awake groggy, my eyelids feeling heavier than I’d ever known them to be. Opening my eyes required a herculean effort, one that I was more than willing to undertake as I heard the worry underlying Phelan’s rasping voice.
“Leannán, please.”
“I’m still here,” I managed to mumble, one eye struggling open, then the other. Every muscle ached, as if they’d been tensed for too long. Perhaps they had been, though I had no real idea of how long I had been out.
It couldn’t have been that long, I realized as it struck me that Phelan and I were still alone down here. It couldn’t have been more than a matter of a few minutes. I took a deep breath. “Did it work?”
“Think so,” Phelan managed. He was still slumped against the wall, his eyes open but sunken into deep hollows around his eyes, as if somehow Thesan had managed to leech some of the life from him through whatever connection she’d had—one I’d hopefully been able to sever. “Was it her?”
“You didn’t know?” I pushed myself up into a sitting position slowly—I must have collapsed into a heap when I’d blacked out and found myself in that strange dreamscape, facing off with Thesan.
He shook his head slightly, then winced, as if the movement hurt. “No,” he rasped. “I suspected. Wasn’t sure.”
It seemed like even breathing hurt as I watched him. What sort of war of wills had he been waging before I intervened? Or was it the magic he’d been channeling when Leinth had brought him back to us that had left him this way? Was it both? I didn’t know—had no way to know.
I reached for his hand, my fingers curling around his and squeezing hard. He exhaled with a shudder.
“Just had to fight it,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut for a long moment. “Didn’t know more than that.”
“They’re coming.”
“I know,” he said, his voice growing even quieter. He swallowed hard.
It should have struck me as strange that he didn’t ask who. I guess maybe it didn’t matter—either that or he already knew.
Somehow, even I knew who was coming.
“They hate who we were,” I said. “They hate who you are. They won’t spare us.”
“Can’t let them win,” Phelan breathed. His fingers tightened around mine, though weakly. “Not this time.”
No one had really won the last war we had with them.
Don’t worry about the war yet. Worry about this battle.
One fight at a time, Marin. One fight at a time.
I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my free hand against my belly. My son kicked at my hand, as if reminding me what we had to fight for—for him, for Tala’s twins and for Neve’s unborn children, for Angie and all the other children I’d seen in my visions of things to come.
Nothing is certain.
Some things are certain.
Phelan squeezed my hand again and I opened my eyes to look at him. He met my gaze steadily, though I could tell he was tired, far more tired than he’d admit. “Faith, leannán,” he said faintly. “Hang tight to it. It’ll get us through when all else fails.”
“Faith in what?” I asked in a whisper.
“Hope,” he said, then closed his eyes again.
I bit my lip and curled against his side, tugging his free arm around me. He rested his head against mine and together we sat there in silence, waiting for the others to come.
Waiting for the war to come.
