Blade Dance (A Cold Iron Novel Book 4) (25 page)
Read Blade Dance (A Cold Iron Novel Book 4) Online
Authors: D.L. McDermott
“I promise.”
“Fae oaths are binding,” he warned, but the vulnerable look on his face told her he wanted a promise about more than axes.
“I love you, Finn,” she said. “There’s never going to be anyone else for me.”
“Nor for me,” he said.
She could feel the frisson of magic in the air, knew that their promises had been as binding as any public ceremony, and she had no regrets.
Downstairs the house was filling up and dishes were appearing on the sideboard. In the sunroom behind the parlor Miach was kneeling in front of little Davin, who sat in a wooden folding chair, holding his arms straight out in front of him, legs swinging, kicking the sorcerer in the absent way of children.
“Stop kicking the mage, Davin,” scolded his father.
Miach didn’t seem to hear. His concentration was fixed on a point in the air just above the child’s arms. A cloud of gray mist was forming, and as it grew darker, the marks on Davin’s arms grew paler, until the fog coalesced into a rope of ivy, solid, glossy, and real, and Miach snatched it out of the air.
“Cool!” exclaimed Davin, leaping out of the chair.
Miach strode to the fireplace and tossed the greenery onto the blaze.
“Thank you,” said Finn.
Ann tried not to show her surprise. Her lover had been incapable of thanking his son for saving her life a week ago, but now he was thanking his enemy. People did change. Sometimes it took losing everything once and nearly again, as Finn nearly had, but now the future stretched in front of them, full of promise.
“That was easier than I expected,” admitted Miach, accepting a glass of champagne from a teenager who bore a distinct resemblance to him. Apparently the MacCecht young had been enlisted to help in the kitchen.
“That’s because the Druid is dead,” said Finn. “Ann killed him.”
The sorcerer’s eyebrows rose. “Did she now? Will tonight be an occasion for ink, then, Miss Phillips?”
It felt right. A celebration of their victory, of family, of what she was going to build with Finn. “Yes. If we can put it somewhere that won’t upset the parents at school.”
“The inner thigh is an excellent surface for a berserker’s mark,” suggested Miach.
“No,” said Finn, immediately. “You’re not touching her thighs, inner or outer. An armband, just below the shoulder is discreet enough.”
Miach gave Ann a questioning look.
“How about just behind my shoulder? The school doesn’t have air conditioning, and I don’t want to be wearing long sleeves in June.”
They ate dinner at an impossibly long table in the dining room, and Ann wondered how many pieces had been butted together beneath the tablecloth to make up that long board and where all the chairs had come from. There were too many dishes to count. Roast beef and roast turkey and a fresh ham and honeyed turnips and creamed spinach on the sideboards and silver bowls of mashed potatoes and warm bread and sauces passed up and down the table.
There was a great deal of wine.
Ann sat beside Finn at the center of the table, and Miach and his beautiful blond wife sat next to them, and the Fianna ate and talked and recounted old stories until finally Finn leaned across the table and asked Sean to recite a ballad for them.
She did not understand the words, but the Fae language was musical, and some of the emotion reached her. Enough to realize that this was what the Prince should have shown her of their world. Family and stories and poetry. Her eyes were watering by the end.
Dessert was cleared and Miach brought out his needle and his ink. The idea of Fae ink no longer seemed so outlandish to her. It appealed, even.
“Something pretty,” said Finn to Miach, when the sorcerer suggested that Ann accept at least the gift of a small
geis,
a bracelet of ink around her wrist or ankle to help her channel her berserker gifts.
“All right,” said Ann. “A bracelet.”
“He can make it look like roses,” Finn said. “Or animals.”
Ann rolled back her lover’s sleeve and touched the tattooed bracers on his arms. There was a tiny thread of thorns running through the pattern. She’d noticed it when she’d first seen them.
“Like this,” she said. “Thorns.”
“Perfect for a berserker,” said Miach. “Being a berserker is a gift, and a burden, just like leadership.”
Ann drank a glass of whiskey, neat, and then when she saw how fine the point of the needle was, she drank another. Then Miach got to work.
The tiny jabs hurt, one after the other, and her eyes watered, but she could feel the design taking life in her, focusing her power, and she knew it would be worth it. The lines Miach inked were surprisingly delicate, forming a slender filament of silver black around her wrist. When it was done, Finn held her wrist up to the light and pronounced, “Lovely,” and the Fianna drank a toast to their lady.
After that, the drinking and songs went on late into the night, until the Lord and the Lady of the Fianna ordered everyone to find a bed or go home, and they climbed the stairs to theirs together, and Ann knew that with this man, she was finally home.
About the Author
D.L. McDERMOTT is an author and screenwriter whose credits include episodes of the animated series
Tron: Uprising
. Her short fiction has appeared in
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
and
Albedo One
. The director of several award-winning short films, her most recent project,
The Night Caller
, aired on WNET Channel 13 and was featured on
Ain’t It Cool News
. She is married with one cat and divides her time between Los Angeles and Salem.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
authors.simonandschuster.com/D-L-McDermott
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Also by D. L. McDermott
Cold Iron
Silver Skin
Stone Song
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition September 2015
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ISBN 978-1-5011-0646-0