“She’s hoping, and so’s Alastar, we’ll head to some open before it’s done for a gallop.”
“I wouldn’t mind it. I haven’t gone this way in more than a year. I’d nearly forgotten how lovely it can be in winter, how hushed and alone.”
“I’ll never get used to it,” Iona told her. “Could never take any of it for granted. I don’t know how many guideds I’ve done through here this last year, and still every one is a wonder.”
“It doesn’t bore you, a horsewoman of your skills, just plodding along?”
“You’d think it would, but it doesn’t. The people are usually interesting, and I’m getting paid for riding a horse. Then . . .” Iona wiggled her eyebrows. “I get to sleep with the boss. It’s a good deal all around.”
“We could circle around on the way back, go by your house.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. They were supposed to—maybe—start putting up drywall today. Connor’s been a champ, making time to get over there and pitch in.”
“Sure he loves the building, and he’s clever with it.”
In unison they turned to walk the horses along the river.
The air chilled, and Branna saw the first fingers of fog.
“We’ve company,” she murmured to Iona.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Keep the horses calm, won’t you, and I’ll do the same with the hounds.”
He came as a man, handsome and hard, dressed in black with silver trim. Branna noted he’d been vain enough to do a glamour as his face glowed with health and color.
He swept them a deep bow.
“Ladies. What a grand sight you make on a winter’s day.”
“Do you have so little to occupy yourself,” Branna began, “that you spend all your time sniffing about where you’re not welcome.”
“But you see I’ve been rewarded, as here are the two blooms of the three. You think to wed a mortal,” he said to Iona. “To waste your power on one who can never return it. I have so much more for you.”
“You have nothing for me, and you’re so much less than him.”
“He builds you a house of stone and stick when I would give you a palace.” He spread his arms, and over the cold, dark water of the river swam a palace shining with silver and gold. “A true home for such as you, who has never had her own. Always craved her own. This I would give you.”
Iona dug deep, turned the image to black. “Keep it.”
“I will take your power, then you will live in the ashes of what might have been. And you.” He turned to Branna. “You lay with my son.”
“He isn’t your son.”
“His blood is my blood, and this you can never deny. Take him, be taken, it only weakens you. You will bear my seed one way or the other. Choose me, choose now, while I still grant you a choice. Or when I come for you, I will give you pain not pleasure. Choose him, and his blood, the blood of all you profess to love, will be on your hands.”
She leaned forward in the saddle. “I choose myself. I choose my gift and my birthright. I choose the light, whatever the price. Where Sorcha failed, we will not. You’ll burn, Cabhan.”
Now she swept an arm out, and over that cold, dark river a tower of fire rose, and through the flame and smoke the image of Cabhan screamed.
“That is my gift to you.”
He rose a foot off the ground, and still Iona held the horses steady. “I will take the greatest pleasure in you. I will have you watch while I gut your brother, while I rip your cousin’s man in quarters. You’ll watch me slit the throat of the one you think of as sister, watch while I rape your cousin. And only then when their blood soaks the ground will I end you.”
“I am the Dark Witch of Mayo,” she said simply. “And I am your doom.”
“Watch for me,” he warned her. “But you will not see.”