An Immortal Descent (17 page)

Well, that was never going to happen. I would rather burst into a million ice crystals than fall prey to that man again. And without a doubt, I knew Henry would do whatever it took for Nora’s sake. And for mine.

“All right. I’ll give it a try. But if you send us to the Otherworld, I swear I’ll turn your skin green the moment we return.”

Ailish tilted her head to the side. “Can you do that?” she asked, more interested than concerned.

“Quicker than you can blink,” I lied. Then again, if my power misfired, there was no telling the outcome. For all I knew, we could both be turned to pigeons in the next minute or two.

Surely Cate could fix me if that were to happen.

“You’d be making yourself green as well. Folks would take us for a pair o’ leprechauns tromping through the countryside together.”

“Just until we reached Wexford and I got turned back. Then only one of us would be mistaken for something other than human.” My tone carried a blatant threat.

A smile stretched her otherwise small mouth. “A wicked lass you be, Selah Kilbrid. But you’ve nothing to fear from me. Just so, I’ll tuck Cailleach’s power far away to keep from interfering with Brigid’s.” The smile slipped and she widened her stance as though preparing for a blow. “Are you ready to start then?”

“In the middle of the road? Don’t you think we should move aside in case there’s a...” I grappled for the right word. Disaster? Catastrophe? Heinous malformations? “A mishap?”

“You be right. Calhoun would find us for certain if’n we lose our senses out in the open.” She headed straight to the woods.

I followed behind, my eyes swiveling every which way in an attempt to simultaneously search out trouble and to keep from tripping over gnarled tree roots and low-lying vegetation.

We arrived at a small grassy clearing, surrounded by sapling oaks. Ailish did a quick survey of the area, then squinted toward the road, I assumed to gauge our visibility. “This should do.” She dropped the burlap sack and resumed the same stance from before. “Let’s get this done.”

The saddlebags landed in the grass with a dull thud next to the sack. Relieved of the bulky weight, I stretched the kinks from my arms and fingers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same for the dread that swirled in my chest from the inevitable icy pain.

“You realize this is going to hurt?” I asked.

Her chin jutted forward. “Like being burned at the stake,” she said, temporarily disturbing my image of ice. “Be quick about it, will you, afore I lose me nerve.” Her voice trembled, and she scrunched her eyes closed until her lashes all but disappeared.

I took a deep breath to calm my own nerves. Then, pushing aside my fear, I willed a fire to life deep inside me. Flames flared bright, their familiar warmth racing the well-worn path to my fingertips. As Ailish did on the ship, I reached a hand toward her neck, no less pleased than if I were about to plunge naked into the Arctic Sea.

One of her eyes cracked open. “Don’t touch me skin,” she said before closing the lid again.

Sage advice if we wanted to avoid additional burns. I veered to her shoulder instead, my fingers hovering over the slight protrusion that rounded beneath several layers of wool. Gritting my teeth, I lowered my hand, a full stream of power at the ready.

Ice instantly bit into my fingers and palm. Ailish hissed through her teeth, and the cold grew stronger, pushed into my hand and up my arm.

“Stop fighting me,” I gritted out.

“Sorry. Couldn’t stop it. Try again.” Each word came out in a panting gasp.

A tremendous shiver cut through me, and I clenched her small shoulder to maintain contact while more power flowed into her. This time the resistance was minimal, and I could feel that despite every instinct to attack, she stayed true and held her power at bay.

Even so, the pain was excruciating. A thousand frozen needles pricked my skin, turned my breath shallow while rendering me near blind to her individual wounds. To compensate, I went straight to the top of her head, releasing a flood of power that would slowly wash over and through every square inch of her body.

Ailish whimpered in pain but made no effort to break free. Power moved over her face, warmth infusing my skin in direct correlation. When it moved lower, a gasp lifted from my throat as it passed over the burn on my neck.

It’s working...

Brigid’s fire continued to move, and I held on for dear life as hot and cold chills shook me to my boots. Though Ailish didn’t openly fight back, just my presence was enough to set her power on edge. It pushed at me, jabbed at my mind with icy fingers.

I ignored it the best I could, focusing on the slow progression downward. The ring of bruises around my rib cage tingled next. Warmth infused my abdomen, wound a healing trail through the snugly fit organs.

A desperate groan came from Ailish. “Please hurry...”

All I could do was increase the flow of power. It moved at once to my hips before sinking into my legs.

Almost there...just a few seconds more.

Without warning, a burst of anguish rushed into me. Ailish started to writhe in pain, her control slipping away.

“Too much...” she whispered.

Cailleach’s power came out of nowhere, shooting up my arm to the very center of my head. White light flashed, and from the searing cold, it felt like my brain had been stabbed with an icicle.

There was a scream, high-pitched and unearthly. Then the world tilted upward, and my buttocks slammed into the earth. Frozen breaths tore from my throat. Ice skittered through every nerve, shaking me from head to toe and causing my teeth to clatter like a wooden clapper.

Near paralyzed, I concentrated on the fire still burning in my core. Little by little, the biting cold began to thaw, returning some control of my body. Opening my eyes, I blinked several times and found Ailish sitting at arm’s length, blinking back at me. Sweat drenched her face. A red hue tinted her pale skin, giving the impression that she had spent the day in the sun rather than shrouded by fog.

Even without the benefit of a mirror, I knew we presented contrasting images. To her red, I was undoubtedly blue, and as warm blood filled my veins, I must have looked a corpse returning to life. My head, sluggish at first, seemed to unfreeze at the same rate as my limbs. Water dripped onto my cheek from melting ice that clung to my lashes.

We stared at each other for a moment longer, too stunned yet to put our thoughts into words. No wind stirred, nor did any animals move in the nearby trees. Once my breath calmed and my teeth no longer clacked, the stillness seemed to deepen until it felt we were the only living creatures for miles around.

Was it so quiet before?

Ailish opened and closed her hands with a keen look of interest. “Do you think it worked?” she asked, the toes of her black boots tapping together.

I nodded. “The bruises are healed on your face.”

She ran a hand along the smooth skin of her cheek. “And that nick be gone from your nose.”

Anna’s attack from the barn came back to me, how the knife had grazed the tip of my nose. Only four days had passed since then, but with so many other injuries crying for attention, I’d managed to forget that particular one.

“What about your hand?” I asked. Even without stretching or poking at it, I knew the burn on my neck was gone.

She turned it over and wiggled her fingers. “Good as the day I was born.” A deep breath rushed through her nose. “And me cold’s gone.”

I did the same, testing my nose before adding a swallow for my throat. “Mine, too.” Other than a sore bottom from hitting the ground, I felt returned to perfect health.

A gruff laugh escaped her, and I caught the faintest hint of a shudder. “Brigid’s fire don’t be mixing well with Cailleach’s ice. I swore you’d turn me to ash afore we was done.”

A similar darkness haunted my own soft laugh. “You almost froze me through.”

She nodded. “Suppose it makes sense, the one giving life, and the other taking it away. There’s no telling what sort o’ havoc they may have caused together if’n you hadn’t let go when you did.”

Another droplet wet my cheek. I brushed it away, wishing I could so easily brush away the residual chill. Most likely, that would remain until I could drink a whole kettle of hot tea, while submerged to my chin in a steaming bath. Or even better, snuggled on Henry’s lap, his lips soft on mine.

A sudden heat swelled in my chest. With renewed vigor, I jumped up, anxious to make haste for Wexford. “We should go.”

Sighing, Ailish tucked her feet beneath her and stood. “I want to be in Ballyhack by nightfall.” She reached for the burlap sack. “I’ll rest easier once we’ve a river—” The air caught in her throat. “Bless me soul,” she breathed. “What happened here?”

Where her hand hovered above the ground, I spied four dark gray outlines nestled into the grass, approximately an inch thick and the precise shape of boot prints. Placed in pairs, the sharply rounded toes faced each other as though two ghosts were engaged in a standoff.

I swallowed hard. How did those get there? And why hadn’t we noticed them before? “What are they?”

Ailish knelt in the grass and ran a finger over one of the prints. “It can’t be,” she said a moment later.

“What can’t be?” Gooseflesh crept over the backs of my arms. “Tell me what it is, Ailish.”

She traced around another outline. “They be stones.”

Well, that made no sense whatsoever. I dropped to my knees beside her and peered down at the prints. “Are you sure?”

She knocked on one, making a series of low-pitched thuds. “They belong to us.”

I frowned, the evidence undeniable. “How did it happen?”

“The grass turned where we be standing.” Ailish pried one from the ground, leaving behind a small patch of dirt.

“But that’s impossible.”

“See for yourself.” She passed one to me, practically forcing one in my hand when I hesitated. “Don’t be afraid.”

The stone weighed heavy in my palm, and I stared at it, uncertain what to expect. When it didn’t immediately bite or burst into flames, I turned it over, confirming that it was indeed the shape of my left sole. “It’s from mixing our power, isn’t it.”

Ailish had pried another stone from the ground and did a similar inspection, even holding it to the bottom of her foot. “That be me guess. The fight between Brigid’s life and Cailleach’s death changed the grass to the barest o’ living forms.” She knocked on it again.

It made perfect sense, except for one small detail. “Rocks aren’t alive, Ailish.”

She gave me an odd look. “Everything has life in this world. Some things just have more than others. Didn’t your mam teach you about that?”

“No, she didn’t. Because it’s utter nonsense.”

“Maybe where you come from, but here in Ireland plenty o’ folks be knowing the truth.” She replaced the boot print to its original spot, pressing it into the dirt. “Me mam learned it from her mam, and she learned it from her mam, all the way back to when the Tuatha Dé still lived in the human world.”

“I guess we were raised with different ideas.” Returning my rock to its place, I started to stand. “We should be—”

Ailish grabbed a handful of my skirts and yanked me to the ground where my knees collided with the grass.

Seeing her sprawled on her belly, I did the same, peeping over my hands in the direction of the road.

“Do you hear that?” she whispered, so softly I had to lean closer to catch the words. “Someone be coming this way.”

“Do you think it’s Calhoun?”

“Could be. We’ll soon find out.” She squinted, though in truth I didn’t know what she could see through the fog.

A few seconds passed before I could make out the definitive sound of horse hooves. By then, Ailish scrambled to her feet and started to brush the mud and grass from her skirts.

“Get down,” I hissed.

She retrieved the burlap sack. “Don’t worry. It’s not Calhoun.”

“How do you know?” I asked, remaining firmly on my belly.

“A single horse be pulling a cart. Get up, Selah. Could be a nice farmer willing to give us a ride to the next village.” She tossed the sack over one shoulder and started toward the road.

Hearing only confidence in her voice, I stood and grabbed the saddlebags, grunting at the weight. “What if he’s not nice?”

A branch rustled not far from the sapling oaks to our rear. Ailish stopped without warning, and I collided into her as she jerked her head around to peer over my shoulder.

I followed her gaze, when something small burst from the underbrush. I gasped, every nerve jumping at once as the creature ran straight toward us. At the last moment, brown wings appeared, and it took flight, frantically beating at the air.

It disappeared at the same time my mind finally caught up. I released a shaky breath. “It’s only a quail.”

Ailish’s gaze remained fixed on the same spot. Worry lines crept across her forehead as she drew a deep breath through her nose. The breath hitched and her eyes widened a fraction of an inch. Without a word of explanation, she resumed walking toward the road, her pace noticeably faster. Just then, another quail broke free of the underbrush to take flight. Her pace quickened even more.

Though no less eager to be out of the woods, I wasn’t about to be driven into a worse situation. “I don’t like this. For all we know, the driver’s a scoundrel of the worst sort and will have other designs than offering a simple ride in his cart.”

She grunted something unintelligible, but didn’t slow in the slightest.

We had almost reached the road. In a fit of panic, I grabbed the back of her cloak to make her stop. She spun around and stared at me, all the previous color drained from her skin.

“We don’t even know if he’s alone,” I persisted. “What if he’s accompanied by a band of miscreants?”

Ailish darted a glance over my shoulder, and the look in her eyes made my nerves squirm anew. “We’ve no choice now.”

“Of course we do—”

“Trust me, Selah, we need to be in that cart.”

“And if we’re attacked?” At the most, we could take on four men, though that assumed no one had a weapon.

“I’ll be ready with Cailleach’s power. And you can do the same as you did to Donal on the ship.” She pulled her cape free of my clutch and stepped away. “That be a neat trick you have.”