“One gift.”
The one he’d called Dak and others came out of the woods to stand near the falls.
“Our purpose, one purpose.”
“One purpose.”
Mahon flew over the river, put an arm around Sedric. He flew him straight into the falls. As Mahon flew back to the bank, Sedric stood in the thundering water like a statue.
“He holds the portal,” Harken explained as he yanked off his boots. “And holding it there, would know if any try to come through.”
It had to be freezing, Breen thought, and pounding on him. Yet he stood as a man might in a pleasant meadow, his palms cupped up to catch sunlight.
“What should I do first?”
Keegan glanced at her. “Strip.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Boots and clothes will weigh you down in the river.” As Harken had, he pulled off his boots, tossed his duster aside, then unhooked his trousers. “Take them off. You’ll go in between Harken and me, show us the breach. With one light, one gift, one purpose, we close it, seal it.”
He tossed aside his tunic, stood naked and impatient. “Hurry up with it.”
“It’s a matter of practicality.” Harken, obviously perfectly comfortable standing naked in front of more than a dozen others, spoke more gently. “And safety as well.”
“Ah, balls.” With a flick of his hand, Keegan had her clothes scattered around her.
“Jesus!” Mortified, Breen used hands and arms. “You can’t just—”
“The water’ll cover you modestly enough, even though it be cold as winter’s bitch.”
Keegan dealt with it by scooping her up and leaping in.
She’d have screamed if the icy shock of the water had left her any breath.
Harken closed a hand around her arm. “Catch your breath now, and catch it well, as you’ll need it. As we need you to show us what we don’t see.”
“Don’t think, don’t question,” Keegan told her. “Feel and take. One light, one gift, one purpose. Now hold your breath. We go together.”
Since he pulled her under, she had little choice. But she could see clearly through the eerie green. He had her hand, and Harken the other, so with them, she kicked down, and forward toward the thunder of the falls.
As her heartbeat steadied, she lost the panicked urge to kick up toward the air.
What she felt inside was stronger. Sedric’s quiet courage, her grandmother’s unbreakable faith, the light from all who stood on the banks.
The united purpose of the men who held her hands.
She saw the rocks and silt below, the wild churning of the water ahead. In her mind she saw Yseult dragging Shana to the chink—black against the churn of green and white. Black with the red of blood threaded through it.
She tugged her hands free to swim forward to the crack, ink black, thread thin in the water. As she held her hands out to it, the light, the gift, the purpose joined.
The force of the water wanted to shove her back. She fought it as Keegan and Harken pushed with her.
The light, the one light, bathed the water in warmth, glowed like the sun as, white and pure, it covered the crack.
She felt it closing, inch by laborious inch, felt the dark that had breached it struggle to open like a maw. She thought of the child who’d been dragged through the maw to face death, and let the fury come.
For an instant, the heat sizzled and snapped, then with a bare whisper of sound, the breach sealed.
She kicked and clawed her way to the surface to gulp in air. Keegan would have put an arm around her to support her, but she had enough fury left in her that her fist swung out before she thought about it.
And landed handily on his jaw.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
Harken scrambled up the bank, and grabbing her cloak, helped her out of the water, draped the cloak over her shoulders. “There you are now, Breen darling.”
She mustered the tattered shreds of her dignity. “Thank you.”
“It’s done.” Keegan leaped onto the bank. “Thanks to you all. We’ll keep watch as we have, here and across Talamh.”
He dragged on his trousers as Breen struggled to keep the cloak around her and pull on her own. While he issued orders, she managed to dress. She reached Sedric first when Mahon brought him back.
And she wrapped her arms around him to greet him, and to warm and dry him. “I saw you, with the girl, on Odran’s side. How you found her, saved her. They were so close behind, so close. I couldn’t see them, but I felt them. So did you.”
“She was a brave young thing, and asked about you. The goddess with the red hair who broke her chains.”
“I don’t know how I did it.”
“And yet you did. How proud your da would be.”
“I saw you fight in the south. How proud your son would be.”
Emotion swirled into his eyes before he leaned down to kiss her cheek. “That is the world to me. The world to me you’d say it. Rest now, and there’ll be lemon biscuits for you tomorrow. And something for you,” he added, and rubbed Bollocks. “He jumped right in after you,” Sedric told her. “Not to play, but to guard.”
He smiled over her head. “Come now, Marg, call your fierce dragon and let’s put these old bones to bed.”
“That I will.” She hugged Breen first. “Don’t be too hard on him,” she said. “He carries such weight. A little hard, of course.” She smiled as she drew back. “For he earned it.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Morena told her. “And Aisling as well, as she had as fierce a dislike for Shana as I—and we’re proven right, which is no small satisfaction. Mahon needs to get her home, but we’ll hear all there is to hear tomorrow. It was a fine punch,” she added, then strolled to Harken as he called his dragon.
When Keegan walked back to her, the faint bruise on his jaw more than made up for her throbbing hand. For a moment, he just looked at her—straight and deep and silent.
“I’ll take you to the farm or to Marg’s or—”
“My cottage. I want my own bed, and I want the quiet.”
“As you like.”
When Cróga glided down, she climbed on before he could help her. A delighted Bollocks scrambled up behind her.
After he mounted, they flew over the trees, over the fields. She saw her grandmother’s dragon and Harken’s, both riderless now, soaring north.
They shot through the portal at the Welcoming Tree, into Ireland, and a gentle rain.
At the cottage, Bollocks leaped down, then surprised her by sitting, waiting, rather than streaking straight for the bay. She slid off, then felt surprise again as Keegan dismounted rather than flying away.
“I’d speak to you a moment. Out of the rain,” he added when she said nothing. “If it’s the same to you.”
She wanted a warm drink, a blazing fire, and time alone to brood, but she turned and walked into the cottage.
Keegan brought in the bag she’d forgotten, set it on the table.
“I’ll not apologize to you, as I’ve apologized to you more in these past months than to all and any in the whole of my life.”
Breen hung up her cloak, then walked into the kitchen to make herself tea.
“There wasn’t time to waste with you being delicate about the matter.”
“Delicate.” She’d worked hard on the cool and aloof, but felt the ice crack. “Is that what you call my reaction to being stripped naked, without my permission, against my will, in front of a dozen?”
“They weren’t there to gawk at you, and what needed doing needed doing quickly. Bugger it.” He strode away, slapped a hand toward the fire to start it, strode back. “It’s a body, for gods’ sake. Everyone’s got one.”
Since Bollocks stood beside her, head ticking back and forth from her to Keegan, she got a biscuit out of the jar for him.