Prince by Blood and Bone: A Fantasy Romance of the Black Court (Tales of the Black Court) (29 page)

“Check it for me,” Trina begged. “Check the baby.” Her color was wrong, the cobalt veins still pulsing on her icy skin.

“I will, but first I need to make sure that thing’s gone and not coming back.”

“Bryanna!”

“I will, Trina. I promise. But I need to make sure you’re safe.”

The first rule of emergency care was to secure the area. She touched the bowl of water with her Gift. It seemed to be inert. No sign of the attacker, no sign of Trina’s scrying spell. Bryanna used the athame to cut a door in their circle and ran the bowl of water out into the next room. For good measure she grabbed the half-full pitcher of water and took it out, too. Then she came back in and sealed up the circle. Sending a quick prayer to the Goddess for protection, she opened her Gift and let her healing powers touch Trina.

Her cousin was icy to the touch, the cold going deep under her skin. Bryanna opened her inner sight. The trace of blue that started on Trina’s throat was moving down her chest, aiming for the tiny spark of light inside her womb.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Bryanna sucked in air, she couldn’t get enough. This was her fault. She’d been so focused on getting something done that she’d exposed Trina and her baby to danger, and now something was wrong with the baby. A sheen of frost gleamed on her cousin’s pale skin and the dark cobalt veins twining down her torso.

“Fight it, Trina. Use your Gift,” Bryanna urged.

Her cousin’s teeth chattered. “I’m trying, but I’m so cold.”

Bryanna held tight to her cousin, ice spreading along her palm, tracing blue light along her skin. She dropped Trina’s nearly blue hand and her own palms pinked back into their normal hue.

“It’s spreading,” she said.

She could hardly breathe. This was so far out of her sphere. Trina’s green magic was wilting under the withering cold, and she had no idea what to do to save her cousin, or the baby inside her belly that was no bigger than a clenched fist.

“You have to do something.”

The dark veins snaked another inch closer to the tiny soul-light curled up inside her cousin. The withered edge of Trina’s brown and green magic wound tighter around the baby and intensified into a richer hue as Trina pushed more of her magic to protect the babe. Frost crystallized on Trina’s skin but the veins’ encroachment slowed.

“Hurry Bree, I can’t hold it back much longer.”

“I’m no good at this!” She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m barely a healer, let alone a warrior.”

“You have to,” Trina panted. Small curls of frost hung off of her eyelashes and trembled on her lips.

“I’ll try to slow it down, but you need to use your Gift and help me fight.” Bryanna blew out a breath, and inhaled a deeper one into the vise her lungs had become. She planted her feet and called on the Goddess with more desperation than she’d ever felt in her life. Power pulsed into the soles of her feet, dark, rich power that slumbered far below winter’s crust. She reached up to space and called again, rewarded with a surge of star energy, lighting every tingling cell alive.

She placed her buzzing hands on either side of Trina’s freezing neck, touching the dark blue fingerprint bruises left by the disembodied hand. Aching cold seeped into her palms and crept up into her fingers, edging its way toward her wrists. It terrified her, but she didn’t dare let go.

Bracing her feet, she braced her magic. She shoved the cold out of her hands, but a last painful trace of it stayed in her bones. “Trina, you’ve got to try harder, it’s not working.”

Trina didn’t respond. Her green eyes were frosted half open, the pupils frozen and staring. Bryanna checked her cousin’s aura. It was weak throughout Trina’s body, but had formed a massive shield around Trina’s heart, lungs and inner organs, and the tiny light of the baby.

Her mouth went dry, and her chest squeezed tight. This wasn’t working. Despite the green glow of Trina’s magic the ice continued to spread, edging ever closer to the baby. And now, it crept towards Trina’s heart. She couldn’t lose anybody else. She wouldn’t. She had to try something now or both Trina and her baby were dead.

She rubbed her chilled hands together, tried to breathe through the panic, and went back over the little training she’d managed to absorb in her nomad on-the-run lifestyle. Everything said this was a battle—that she should push through and push hard—but she wasn’t a fighter, she was a healer.

Deep inside, her instincts told her this wasn’t a case of fighting, it was a case of healing. She hadn’t trusted her instincts with Kian’s spell, and now she wondered if he’d be completely cured if she had. The stakes were higher now. She had to go with her gut. Somehow she had to trust she was more than a half-trained healer and doomed to fail. She had to trust she could do this—all on her own——or Trina and the baby didn’t stand a chance.

Her cousin’s frost-traced skin had become ice, chased through by the veins of power. She couldn’t worry about that. She needed to focus on what she knew, what skills she had, and the success she’d had with Kian’s curse.

She closed her eyes and took the time to center herself solidly from within, starting with her own power deep in her belly, and spreading outward. She tugged more of the rich, moist, earth energy, and it rolled in, braiding itself into her own cornflower-blue light. She reached again for the sky, seeking out the power of the constellations.

Here, Underhill, the stars were different, bold and bright they pulsed without the light pollution of her earth. Strong, even through the weakening afternoon sunlight, the cool, healing star energy blew down into her open chakras. It greeted the earth energy like a long lost friend, mixing and twisting until dark brown swirled with starry spirals, and her own sunny blue.

Then it changed. The three colors merged into a solid strand of a color she’d never seen before in her own magic. Royal blue. A color only master healers had in their auras. Buoyed by the surge of energy and power, she moved forward and placed her hands back on Trina’s neck. This time the cold didn’t make it past her own boundaries. Her energy stroked out along the ice and painted it with a thin coating of the vibrant new blue.

And just like that the knowledge came, she knew that the next step was to create a healing fever. Bright gold licked out along the royal blue pathways of her palms and spread gleaming heat along Trina’s skin.

Lines of dark blue rimmed with gold chased scrolling lines on the ice. Tiny cracks formed, growing into deep fissures as the ice crystals shuddered and broke.

Heat traced along Trina’s skin and the golden fever melted the ice into hissing steam. Finally, the frightening cobalt veins faded away.

Bryanna let go. She sucked in huge gulps of air and examined her cousin for signs of success. Traces of pink flushed along Trina’s high cheekbones, and the green-brown of her magic already seemed stronger.

Bryanna cut another door in the circle, carefully closing it after her. She went to the great-room and picked up the silver bowl of water. Before she’d even approached the front door, the magical carvings slithered around, and the door opened wide. She ran across the wide porch, down the stone steps, and heaved the water out of the bowl. It splattered into the snow and melted a hissing, muddy circle of earth.

Back inside the lodge, she closed the circle, laid the athame on the table, and pulled her shaking cousin into her arms.

Trina bawled, and they sank down to the floor.

“Hush, it’s okay,” Bryanna whispered. She’d done it. She’d saved Trina and the tiny spark inside of her. “I did it.”

“Of course you did,” Trina said, with a teary hiccup. “You’re a MacElvy.”

“But I’ve been such a loser witch.”

“Bree, you’ve only just turned twenty. You’ve never been able to study under a healer. Hell, we’ve been on the run nearly your entire life.” Trina squeezed her hard. “Give yourself a break.”

Bryanna squeezed back. “Thanks.”

Boom!
The sound echoed through the lodge, shaking the chandelier overhead and making the athame dance across the table.

“What in the hell?” Trina pushed up out of Bryanna’s arms.

Boom…boom…boom!

“I think it came from the front door.” Bryanna stood up, nudging her cousin back down when she tried to rise. “You’re still a little blue. Stay here and rest.”

“But, I…” The floor shook.

“You have a baby to worry about. I’ll be right back.” She edged over to the window and peered out.

Wielding a broadsword and mounted on a chunky bay mare, rode a chain-mail-clad Agrona. A herd of troll-kin riding powerful draft horses surrounded her, their steel clad hooves churning the pristine snow into a muddy mess. A group of the creatures aimed a massive log at the house, swinging it back and running forward. The pounding impact shook the thick, front door and the lodge inside.

Bryanna’s mouth dropped open.

They were under siege.

The walk back through the forest from the square castle of the Brethren took far longer than Kian wanted it to. All he could think about was getting back to Bryanna and seeing her face light up when he told her they’d found her mother and sister. Unfortunately, he also had to inform her that her family were prisoners of the Brethren. And that getting them out would not be easy.

“You should have let me scale that wall. No one would have noticed me,” Solanum said.

“There were too many soldiers. Agrona may have more magic from the queen than the wand and the stone we lost,” Kian said. “We’ll summon Logan’s uncles, and with their aid, we’ll attack and defeat the troll-kin.”

“Come on. You’re moving too slow.” Logan waited down the trail, tapping his fingers on his leg in a nervous beat.

“We’re moving fast enough. We’ll be back at the lodge soon,” Kian said. His legs ached and he was tired. More tired than he could remember ever being. Either he was getting old or he was out of shape from the years of his incarceration.

Logan rubbed at the back of his neck. “Something’s up. I can feel it.”

“The two of you are fucking obsessed with the women.” Solanum shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets, appearing as if he were no more than a sulky child. “It’s made you weak. Women are for using, abusing and losing.”

“You’re an arse,” Logan said, falling into place next to Kian as he caught up.

“I’m fucking free, and frisky, and keeping it that way, thank you very much. How do you think I’ve survived this long?”

“Stubbornness?”

“Intelligence. I leave the women where I find them and move on. No ties. Nothing to weigh me down.”

“You might find you like a little something to weigh you down.” Logan strode down the trail. “Regardless, something pricks my nerves. We’re too close to the White Queen for my comfort.”

Kian suppressed a groan and sped up to match his man’s pace. “The lodge isn’t on the queen’s radar. It only exists because I want it to.”

“I remember staying in it on hunting trips, but I don’t remember when you built it. It seems far older than your paltry few hundred years.”

“It is.” Kian caught a low hanging branch. “It’s part of the magic of the Black Court and hidden from my mother.” He winked at Logan. At Logan’s grin, he realized that at least a wink came through his cursed shape. “I can’t remember when it wasn’t there for me. At first, it was an old tree-house that grew to hold however many I needed it for. When we got older, it became the lodge. But I think it was always the lodge, I think it re-made itself small for me, when I was young.”

“It’s the King’s Court,” Solanum said.

“The King’s Court?”

“You’re grandfather’s court and his father’s before him. It’s been around as long as I remember the Black Court.”

Kian turned to him. “You mean you remember it from before? How long…?”

“Hist.” Solanum stopped. He dropped to a squat, placing his palms on the ground, his pointed ears pricking forward. “Be still.”

Something small and squirrel-like rustled in the branches above. A cold breeze whispered through the pines letting the men know evening’s chill wasn’t far away. Kian tried to hear the rush of air in and out of his lungs.

He caught it. A distant, steady pounding, muffled by the trees, and coming from the direction of the lodge.

“Trina!” Logan reached for Solanum. The puca shifted into a large black stallion with flashing red eyes, breaking into a run even as Logan grasped the beast’s mane and swung up onto his back. The two sprinted away, becoming a blur in the distance, leaving Kian to drop to his hands and lumber on all fours at the best speed he could manage.

Long before he arrived, the clang of swords came through the trees, the sound pushing him to run faster as his lungs and muscles burned.

He barely noticed thorns puncturing his palms and the bare pads of his feet, or the blood that poured from the wounds. He ran, tripping and falling and coming up with a face full of snow. “Damn it!” He clambered to his feet.

Bryanna was inside the lodge with only a pregnant witch and the brownies to help her. Maeve and Donagh would defend the lodge to the death, but they were small. And Goddess only knew what attacked.