I don’t know. It might be easier if you did. I used his feelings for me as weapons. I asked—all but begged him to make me like him when we were at our most intimate.”
“Below the belt,” Blair stated. “If I were going to do it, that’s the method I’d have picked. He turned you down, which tells me there can’t be any doubt what you are to him. Back to me again, I’d feel better knowing he was going to be just as miserable and alone as I was when he had to take a walk.”
Moira let out a surprised and muffled laugh. “You don’t mean that.”
“I said it to lighten things up, but down in the gut? I don’t know. I might. I’m sorry you’re getting the shaft in this. Sincerely.”
“Ah well, maybe I’ll have a bit of luck and die in battle tomorrow night. That way I won’t be miserable and alone after all.”
“Positive thinking. That’s the ticket.” In lieu of chocolate, Blair gave her a hug. And met Glenna’s eyes over Moira’s shoulder.
It was important, Moira knew, for the last of the troops to be welcomed by their queen, and to show herself to as many as she could in the final hours before the last march. She walked among the tents as twilight came, as did the other members of the royal family. She spoke to all she could. She dressed as a warrior, with her cloak pinned with a simple claddaugh brooch and the sword of Geall at her side.
It was well after dark when she returned to the house, and to what she knew would be the final strategy meeting with her circle.
They were already gathered around the long table with only Larkin standing apart, scowling down at the fire. Something new, she thought with a little quiver in her belly. Something more.
She unpinned her cloak as she studied the faces of those she’d come to know so well.
“What plans are you making that has Larkin so worried?”
“Sit down,” Glenna told her. “Hoyt and I have something. If it works,” she continued as Moira walked to the table, “it would win this.”
As Moira listened, the little quiver became a frozen knot. So many risks, she thought, so many contingencies, and so many ways to fail. For Cian most of all.
But when she looked into his eyes, she understood he’d already made his decision.
“It lays most on you,” she said to him. “The timing…if it’s off by a moment—”
“It lays on all of us. We all knew what we were taking on when we started this.”
“No one of us should be risked more than the others,” Larkin interrupted. “We may sacrifice one of us without need, without—”
“Do you think I bring this lightly?” Hoyt spoke quietly. “I lost my brother once, then found him again. Found more, I think, than either of us had before. Now doing this, doing what I was charged to do, I may lose him again.”
“I’m not getting a sense of confidence in my abilities.” There was a tankard on the table, and Cian lifted it to pour ale. “Apparently surviving over nine hundred years isn’t considered a strong point on my résumé.”
“I’d hire you,” Blair said, and held out her cup. “Yeah, it’s risky, a lot of steps, a lot of variables, but if it works, it’d be one hell of a thing. I’m figuring you’ll make it through.” She tapped her cup to Cian’s. “So this has my vote.”
“I’m not a strategist,” Moira began. “And my magic is limited. You can do this?” she asked Hoyt.
“I believe it can be done.” He reached for Glenna’s hand.
“We got the idea, actually, from something you said back at Castle Geall,” Glenna told her. “And we’re using Geall’s symbols. All of them. It would be strong magic, and—I think—though it takes blood to bind it, pure.”
“I believe separately we have more true power than Midir.” Hoyt scanned the faces around him. “Together, we’ll crush him, and the rest.”
Moira turned to Cian. “If you stayed back? A signal to you, to all of us once all the steps have been taken—”
“Lilith’s blood on the battleground is essential. She has to be wounded, at least, by one of the six of us. And Lilith’s mine,” Cian said flatly. “If I get through or don’t, she’s mine. For King.”
For King, Moira thought, and for himself as well. Once he’d been innocent, too. Once he’d been a victim and his life taken from him. She’d shed his blood, fed him hers. Now, what they’d shared might be vital to the survival of mankind.
She rose, carrying the weight of it, and walked to Larkin. “You’ve already decided.” She looked back at the four who sat at the table. “Four of the six, so it would be done as you’ve planned however Larkin and I vote on this. But it’s best if we’re together. If the circle agrees, with no breaks, no doubts.” She took Larkin’s hand now. “It’s best.”
“All right. All right.” Larkin nodded. “We’re together then.”
“If we could go over it oncemore.” Moira came back to the table. “The details and the movements of it, then we’ll pass this on to the squadron leaders.”