She turned away to check on Laoch. Mick fell into step beside her.
“We could both use a dip in the faerie pool about now.”
She looked at him, herself, both coated with mud, streaked with blood, smeared with soot. “The faeries will have our asses if we washed this much away in their pond.”
“That’s a point. You had me worried up there.”
She rubbed a hand on his cheek, smearing more mud. “I’m down here now.”
He smeared mud back, grinned at her. “I didn’t know you could do that. You know, lock up the dark magicks.”
“We couldn’t have if you hadn’t cut down their numbers, gotten them cornered. And if we didn’t have a full coven ready with the incantation.”
She closed her eyes, breathed. “We took back New York, Mick.”
“Sure as hell did. I’m going to go find my dad. Gonna clean up, drink a bunch of faerie wine.”
“I’m right there with you.”
He did a backflip, a series of tumbles that made her laugh.
And on the final spring, the bolt struck him. In the back, and through to the heart. He fell like a stone on the boggy ground of battle.
“No, no, no!” Whipping out both sword and shield, she leaped to him, raised the shield over him to protect him from the next bolt.
The black dragon glided overhead. On his back rode Petra.
She heaved fire, scattering troops, but her eyes, those mad eyes, never left Fallon’s. Her hair, her wings flowed, black on one side, white on the other.
“You think this is over, cousin!” She shouted it, let her laugh ring out. “You think this matters? But he mattered, didn’t he, you weak, stupid bitch. He mattered to you. Oops, gone now.”
Fallon gathered her grief, let it wind with her power. Flung it into the sky.
“And me, too. Poof.”
Both Petra and the dragon vanished an instant before Fallon’s power blasted the sky, boomed across it like a comet.
“Mick. Mick.” She lifted his head into her lap. “I’ll fix it. Please. Let me fix it.” Pressing her cheek to his, she rocked.
“Fallon.” Duncan knelt beside her. “He’s gone. I’m sorry. He’s gone.”
“No. No.” She shoved Duncan back, ran her hands over Mick’s face, his hair, his chest, searching for life, for his light. “No. Stay away from me.”
But he wrapped around her, held her, as she’d once held him when he’d grieved. So she wept in Duncan’s arms on the bloody field, cradling her friend.
LIGHT FOR LIFE
Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.
—Sir Thomas Browne
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
She thought she might drown in grief. She sank under the swamping waves of that grief so every breath poured in more until it saturated her heart. She barely felt it beat.
She sent for Mick’s father, but she wouldn’t have Thomas see his son lying in the mud. Instead, she took Mick to a triage tent, dismissed everyone, and washed his body herself, let her tears mix with the water as she bent to touch her lips to his.
She cleaned his clothes of mud, of blood, dressed him again, tenderly. Though her hands shook, she braided his hair.
“I like the blue,” she managed, then touched her fingers to the bracelet she’d made him so long ago. “It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”
Thomas stepped in.
She stepped back.
To honor his grief, she pushed down her own.
“I have no words,” she began as he took his son’s hand in his. “I have nothing to give you but my own sorrow, and you have enough sorrow. But I will pledge to you, take this oath that the one who took his life, his bright, joyful life, will pay for it with her own. I swear it to you.”
She started to leave him, to give him his privacy, but Thomas reached out, took her hand in turn to stop her.
“He was bright, and joyful, and brave. And so clever. From the moment of his birth, he was my star, shining. He gave his life to fight against all that’s dark and cruel and cowardly. A father should never outlive his child, but war often demands it. I would have given my life if he could have lived his in peace and freedom.”
He let out a broken sigh as he brought Mick’s hand to his cheek. “He died a warrior, a commander, a defender of the light. He deserves our pride as much as our grief.”
“He has it.”
“He loved you.”
She couldn’t push it down any longer, so the grief swelled up again. “I know. Thomas—”
He shook his head. “That love helped make him the man he became. That’s our pride. I need…” His voice wavered. “I need to take my boy home, to the forest, to the green.”
“Yes. I’ll take you.”
“You’re needed here, for the living and the dead. Those who fought to free this city need to see you as much as they need the banners to fly. I’ll make my way home with my boy. My son. I need time with him first, then we’ll make our way home.”
She moved to the opening of the tent. “I loved him, too.”
“I know it. So did he.”
Outside, the air was crisp and clear. Cleansed, Fallon thought, with the dark and cold magicks driven out. Some, like Mick, had paid for that cleansing with their lives. Those lives would be honored, and the city would be held.
And Petra, by all the gods, Petra would pay in pain and in blood.
She saw Mallick, muddied, bloodied, and straight as an arrow. They moved toward each other.
“Even in triumph, sorrow that deep cuts to the heart. He will be missed.”
“The gods demand their pounds of flesh,” she said bitterly, “their vats of blood.”
His gaze, full of patience, stayed on hers. “Victory of light over dark requires sacrifice.”
“Like my birth father, like Mick, like scores of others. I’m aware. What demands sacrifice will have it, again and again, until this is done. And I, who was chosen to order others to fight and die, will have mine.”
“To kill with a sword coated in vengeance leads to the shadows.”
“If I wasn’t meant to feel rage, grief, fury, I shouldn’t have been given a will, a heart, a mind. I’ll do what’s asked of me, Mallick. I’ll cleanse the world as I have this city. But I will have my payment.”
She looked out to see the banner flying white over the field. “The troops need to see me, and there’s work to be done yet. Thomas … he wants to take Mick home. Would you take them?”
“Yes, of course.” He laid a hand on her arm. “It’s no comfort now, but in time it will be to know Mick is part of the light.”
“No, it’s no comfort now. He’s dead. A statue of a god shines gold in the heart of the city, and another good man who loved me is dead.”
She did her duty, walked the battlefield, visited the triage tents, the mobiles, the clinics to speak to the wounded, the medicals. With her grief frozen inside her, she did her best to give comfort to those who’d lost a friend or loved one.
She checked on Laoch, found Faol Ban and Taibhse with him. And going over the alicorn from ears to tail, found Duncan had indeed healed any wounds.