Drenched, muddy, stunned, she ran toward the blaze. “Oh God! Taibhse!”
“He was wise enough to keep his distance from your temper and stupidity.”
She searched the sky, looking for the spread of white wings as the boiling clouds folded back into themselves. “He’s all right? He’s okay?”
“You’d know if he wasn’t.”
Trembling, she shoved her dripping hair out of her eyes. “I could’ve … I was so mad, but I didn’t mean to—”
“ ‘Mean to’ is nothing. You endangered others, you destroyed a living thing out of pique. You misused your gift.”
He didn’t shout; she’d have preferred it. Instead his voice dripped with a disgust that crushed her.
Tears swam into her eyes. It hurt her stomach to hold them back, but she held them. She didn’t deserve the comfort of tears.
“I’m sorry. I have no excuse. But—”
“ ‘But’ precedes an excuse.”
She swallowed it, though it went down hard and bitter.
“Clean up your mess,” he said, the words so cold she shivered. He walked away from her, closed the cottage door firmly behind him.
Sickened, shattered, she shut down the rain and walked to the smoldering remains of the tree. She watched smoke rise into the blue sky of summer, cooled the debris.
Slowly, laboriously, she gathered what could be used for firewood or kindling, carried load by load to stack. Her body ached—the ghosts had landed some hard blows—but the guilt hurt more. It took hours, as she wouldn’t use magicks for this.
When it was done, she chose a twig, held it between her hands and offered her penance. She allowed the tears now, let them and her breath coat the twig to bring the roots. She spoke the words humbly as she planted it. Holding her hands over it, she called a quiet rain to tease out the first leaves.
“From what was taken new life begins. I ask forgiveness for my sins.”
She picked up a charred stick, studied it, and began to create for herself a warning and a reminder.
Bruised, exhausted, her throat mad with thirst, she went inside. She wanted a shower, cup after cup of cool water, but she trudged up the stairs to the workshop.
Mallick sat working, a glass of wine at his elbow. He didn’t spare her a glance.
“There’s no excuse. I let pride take me over, and I used my anger to destroy. I harmed a living thing, and might have done worse because I … gave up control for temper. I had no control. I only wanted to kill, to prove you were wrong. You weren’t wrong.”
She needed him to know, to understand if not forgive. “I can use anger on the battlefield. I need to feel. Mallick, if I don’t feel—anger, joy, sorrow, and everything else—I’m less. Feeling makes me stronger. But I know now, especially now, that without control, my power, my strength, my feelings are a weakness.”
He capped a bottle of amber liquid, labeled it. “Then you learned a valuable lesson. Perhaps the most valuable.”
“I didn’t use magicks to clean up, but I did to bring life from part of the tree. To plant a new one, and ask for forgiveness.”
He turned to her then, ready to give his own. And saw the carved wooden cuff on the wrist of her sword hand.
Amazed, appalled, he whirled to her. “You made yourself a trinket? You would use what you destroyed for your own adornment.”
“No, no, not a trinket. A reminder.”
She thrust out her arm.
He gripped it, another lecture on his tongue. Then studied the cuff.
It bore the fivefold symbol and the words Solas don Saol.
Light for Life.
“I’ll shed blood. I’ll take lives. I’ll send people into battle or give them duties that may end their lives. If I accept that, I have to believe this. Light for life. To fight the war to end the war. And never, never to strike out without cause, without control, the way I did today. I’ll wear this to remind me.
“I’m sorry. Can’t you forgive me?”
He looked at her. A blackened eye, a badly scraped cheek in a face still so young. Youth couldn’t be an excuse for her, but he’d allowed himself to forget it was a reason.
“We’ll forgive each other.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I let my own anger leave you untended. Healing is a gift, and I ignored my gift to punish you. Sit now, and let me tend to you as I should have.”
In the morning, after a night of dreams, Fallon rose to bring in the tributes, and to leave her gifts. She smelled fall in the air, the spice and smoke of it. And she thought of home.
As she brewed tea she decided during her free time that day she’d go through the crystal and visit New York again. The one her mother had loved.
So many smells, she thought, so much color and movement. And noise! She’d already walked the sidewalks under the towering buildings, marveling at the wonders. Cars, so many cars making a constant thunder of sound. People, so many people, hurrying and dressed in such fine clothes. Windows filled with clothes and shoes and satchels and gems and gold and silver sparkling behind glass.
Food. Everywhere. In wagons, in windows, inside shops, even on the sidewalks. The smell of meat and flowers and gas and everything. Of humanity.
She’d watched a young Lana in her white jacket and cap cooking in a huge kitchen full of people and more noise, shouts, movement, steam, heat. It was wonderful.
She’d watched Max write in a room full of books and pictures. His fingers busy tapping letters—a keyboard, she knew a keyboard. And the letters, the words appeared like magick on the screen.
She’d go back, she decided, maybe to the day she’d watched them walk in a great green space, holding hands and laughing.
She wouldn’t look, not today, at the now as she had, and Mallick with her. She wouldn’t look through the crystal to the scorched buildings, the rubble of others, the filth and the blood. Today, she wouldn’t have the screams in her head.
She let the tea steep while she walked out to gather eggs and feed the chickens.
Mallick already stood outside, beyond their little garden.
Before him, where the old tree had stood, where she’d planted the tiny sapling, rose another tree.
Full grown, its branches spread wide, curving up as if lifted toward the sky. Leaves, shaped like hearts, grew green and thick. As she walked toward it, she judged it would take three men, hands linked, to span its massive and glossy trunk.
“You enchanted the sapling.” She studied it, smiling. “It’s beautiful.”
“I did nothing.”
“Then how … I only enchanted a twig from the old tree, used tears and breath to call the roots, and a shower to bring out the first leaves. I didn’t ask for it to grow and change. I was going to nurture it, and ask the faeries to look after it when I leave. Maybe the faeries—”
“No. This is from you and for you.”
“I swear I didn’t—”
He took her arm, tapped a finger on her bracelet. “Solas don Saol. Your light brought life, and this is a tree of life.”
“A tree of life. There’s more than one?”
“Yes. They’re rare and special, but more than one. With this, you have given, and been given, a gift.”
“It will bear fruit for nourishment and healing and comfort.”
Mallick turned to her, folded his hands while the vision took her.
“Its roots embrace the goddess of earth. Its branches rise up to the sun god. Its leaves breathe life into the air, catch the rain. It will offer a home to birds, and their songs will sweeten this place for all time. It connects all things, the earth, the air, fire, water, magicks. What walks, what flies, what crawls join through it to the light.”
She turned to him, took his hands, and in her eyes he saw more than visions. He saw the woman inside the girl.
“It is not for me, Mallick the Sorcerer, but for you. You will find rest and comfort here when your work is done. This is my gift, our gift, for your loyalty and your service and your sacrifice.
“And here.” She lifted her hand. Fruit, like a deep rainbow, an array of jewels, swelled on the branches. “The fruits of life like the fruits of your devotion are come ripe at last.”