“I need to do it alone.”
She waited until they left her. “The choices you made brought you here. I swear on my life over your death, your woman and what you made between you will end as you did. Not for vengeance. For justice.”
From where he sat in the shadows with his grief, Duncan watched her call the fire, spread it over the body at her feet. He heard the words she spoke, but only understood some of the Irish.
Fire of light. Body and soul.
She took handfuls of salt from a pouch, spread it over the ashes, drizzled liquid over it that squirmed, then stilled. With fingers curling through the air, she brought what remained of Eric Fallon up and into a box. She sealed it with a finger, with a line of light.
Slipping the box into the pouch, she called her horse, her wolf, her owl. Then lifting her sword toward the moon, vanished.
He thought he saw, as he sat in the shadows, light streak across the sky, send a shower of stars like rain.
The One rides to honor her blood, to protect the light, he thought as he got to his feet.
And so, until the end, would he.
EPILOGUE
Exhausted from the battle, from the healing, from the travel and the ritual, Fallon tended her horse, and freed her owl and wolf to hunt.
She wanted her bed, and nothing else. No questions, no comfort. No dreams.
Tomorrow, she’d speak to Colin, tell him her pride in his quick thinking, in his willingness to stay back with Travis and Ethan and protect the children.
Tomorrow she’d talk to the recruits, visit the wounded, speak to the loved ones of the dead.
Tomorrow she would plan and plot, but tonight, she only wanted sleep.
She went in the side entrance, forced herself into the shower to wash away the blood, the grime, the stench of battle, the smoke of spells.
She came out of the bath, intending on falling into bed. Duncan sat sprawled in the single chair she’d put in her sitting area. That was jolt enough, but the second was remembering she wore nothing but skin.
She hurled a curse at him, and embarrassed herself only more by the instinctive move to cover herself with arms and hands.
“Get out.”
“I didn’t come to catch you naked. It’s a nice bonus, but it’s not on me you’re not wearing anything. I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you or anyone tonight. I’m tired. I’m naked. Go away. If my father catches you in here, he’ll knock you senseless.”
“I’ll risk it.” Duncan flicked a hand at the dresser, yanking open drawers. “Put something on if it bothers you so much. I’ve seen naked girls before. You barely qualify.”
He closed his eyes, held up a hand as a ripple of pain moved over her face. “I’m sorry for that. No call for that. Get dressed, would you? I’ll wait outside.”
He walked out, wandered. He wondered if they’d put water in the pool. He wondered why people wanted a kitchen outside. He wondered why he couldn’t have stayed away until he had better control of himself.
He heard her come out, kept looking up at the sky. “I was still in the park when you dealt with your uncle’s body.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“You’re right. Where did you take the ashes?”
“Away. Far. Where his whore and his bitch won’t find them, won’t find solace in mourning him.”
“Good enough.” He turned, saw she’d put on a T-shirt, cotton pants, was barefoot. “I brought her here. She set it up so Tonia and me, we’d be the ones to bring her to New Hope. She bragged about it, after … She had cupcakes.”
“Cupcakes?”
“Raspberry and wild violet. Fruit and flowers. She offered me one, and then I knew. All the time she’s been here, I didn’t see the dark in her.”
“Did you look?”
“Not really, not especially. I bought it. I helped save a traumatized kid. I’m a hero.”
“I looked. In her, in Starr.”
“Starr?”
“I saw almost nothing in either. Both block. Tonight, I could in Starr, could see she blocks rage and grief and fear. It wasn’t until tonight I saw what was in Petra.”
“You’ve had days. I’ve had years.”
“Just you?” She arched both eyebrows. “Is that because you’re a hero?”
“Kiss ass. If you hadn’t warned me about the damn cupcakes, the fruit and the flowers, I’d have taken one. Poison and black snakes. I’d be dead because a pretty girl baked me a goddamn cupcake.”
He looked older, she realized. Closer to the man at the circle of stones than the boy on a motorcycle.
“I don’t think so. I think before you took it, you’d have seen.”
“Well, we’ll never know, will we? I didn’t take her out on the spot. She had more than I bargained for, and that was stupid. Stupid.”
“Maybe, but she was prepared and you weren’t. She was someone you helped, someone you thought needed help.”
“I didn’t move fast enough, hard enough, so she got Denzel. Then I could only think of making her let him go, keeping it between us. She snapped his neck while I stood there. Snapped his neck like you’d break a stick in two.”
Grief soaked his words. “He didn’t mean anything. He was harmless.”
“She killed him to hurt you, to damage you.”
Fury slapped back. “You think I don’t know that?”
His grief nearly flattened her, and opened something inside her that made her step to him, made her put her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your friend.”
Duncan stiffened against the comfort, then dropped into it. “He never hurt anyone. Lots of big talk about being a warrior, but he never hurt anyone. It wasn’t in him. And she killed him like he was nothing. She killed Carlee. Her father found her in her room with her throat slit. She killed Carlee because we … shit.”
“You loved her. I’m so sorry.”
“No, no, not … We just got together sometimes. She was as harmless as Denzel. She wasn’t a threat. She killed Mina, and would have killed Bill Anderson, but he was over at Will’s. He wasn’t home when she went into his place and wrecked it. Why did she do all that? They didn’t matter. I mattered, you mattered, Tonia mattered.”
She started to draw back, but he was holding on now, so she gave it another minute. “You didn’t look straight into her.”
He pulled back. “Fuck that. What’s that mean?”
“You saw evil. You saw the dark and the vicious. You didn’t see the product of the two who made her.”
“One black wing, one white, the weird hair and eyes. I get it.”
“You didn’t see those as symbols. You didn’t see that the dark in her, merging from them, is twisted. It’s … flawed.”
“You’re saying she’s crazy.”
“I’m saying she’s crazy.”
He paced away. “Well, that … makes perfect sense.”
“She’s sly with it, a rabid fox. And they’re patient, Duncan, really patient. All these years they waited, plotting, planning. They sent their child to … infiltrate.”
“She could’ve done a lot more damage once she was in. She could’ve done more than plan an ambush.”
“She probably did. Little things. An illness, an accident. When we look, we’re going to find the place she held her rituals. We’ll purify it. We hurt them, as my father did in the mountains, as my mother did on that same field. They’ll take time, again. And so will we. Petra’s father died for her. She won’t forget it. I know. They loved.”
“That’s not love.”
“It is. As real as any. Parent for child, child for parent, mate for mate. They loved. Now they’re grieving, and they’re hurt.”
“So are we.” Sticking his hands in his pockets, he looked up at the stars. “She liked killing. I saw that when she killed Denzel.”
“It gives her joy, causing death and pain. I … understand that better now. I felt, for a moment, I felt joy when I put my sword in Eric. I never want to feel that again.”
“I got that,” he murmured. “I get that.”
“We wanted revenge, both of us, so there was chaos. People fought, but there was chaos. There won’t be the next time. We’ll get more soldiers, make more, and we’ll have leadership instead of chaos.”
She let out a breath. “I failed.”