On the ground, Fin dug his fingers into the torn ruff of the wolf.
“I know you,” he murmured, staring into the red eyes. “You’re mine, but I’m not yours.” He tore the stone away, held it high. “And will never be. I am of Daithi.” The brooch fell out of Fin’s shirt, and the wolf’s eyes wheeled in terror. “And I am your death. I know you. I have stood at your altar, and heard the damned call your name. I know you.”
What was in the wolf pushed its dark until Fin’s hands burned, until his own blood ran.
“In Sorcha’s name I rebuke you. In Daithi’s name, I rebuke you. In my name, I rebuke you, for I am Finbar Burke, and I know you.”
When it came into him, it all but shattered his soul. The dark pulled, so strong, tore so deep. But he held on, held on, and looked toward Branna. Looked to her light.
“Its name is Cernunnos.” He heaved the stone to Connor. “Cernunnos. Destroy
it. Now. I can’t hold much longer, much more. Get her clear.” His breath heaved as he called to Boyle, “Get Meara clear.”
“You have to let it go!” Tears streaming, Branna shouted, “Fin, let it go, come to us.”
“I can’t. He’ll go into the earth, into the belly of it, and be lost to us again. I can hold him here, but not much longer. Do what must be done for all, for me. As you love me, Branna, free me. By all we are, free me.”
To be sure of it, he threw out what he had so the stone ripped out of Connor’s hand and into the cauldron. And as the light, blinding white, towered up, he called out the name himself.
“End it!”
“He suffers,” Teagan murmured. “No more. Give him peace.”
Sobbing, Branna called out the demon’s name, and heaved the poison.
Blacker than black, thicker than tar. Through the whip of it rose wild, ululant cries; deep, throaty screams. And with it thousands of voices shrieking in tongues never heard.
She felt it, an instant before the light bloomed again, before the cauldron itself burned a pure white. The clearing, the sky, she thought the entire world flamed white.
She felt the stone crack, heard the destruction of it like great trees snapped by a giant’s hand so the ground rocked like a stormy sea.
She felt the demon’s death, and swore she felt her own.
It all drained out of her, breath, power, light, as she fell to her knees.
Blood and death follow, she thought. Blood and death.
Then she was up and running as she saw Fin, still, white, bloody, facedown on the blackened ash of what had been Cabhan, of what had birthed him.
“Hecate, Brighid, Morrigan, all the goddesses, show mercy. Don’t take him.” She pulled Fin’s head into her lap. “Take what I am, take what I have, but don’t take his life. I beg you, don’t take his life.”
She lifted her face to the sky still lit by white fire, threw her power to any who could hear. “Take what you will, what you must, but not his life.”
Her tears ran warm, dropped onto his burned skin. “Sorcha,” she prayed. “Mother. Right your wrong. Spare his life.”
“Shh.” Fin’s fingers curled in hers. “I’m not gone. I’m here.”
“You survived.”
And the world righted again, the ground settled, the flames softened in the sky.
“How did you— I don’t care. You survived.” She pressed her lips to his face, to his hair. “Ah, God, you’re bleeding, everywhere. Rest easy, easy, my love. Help me.” She looked to Sorcha’s Brannaugh. “Please.”
“I will, of course. You’re all she told me.” She knelt down, laid hands on Fin’s side where his shirt and flesh were rent and scorched. “He is my own Eoghan to the life.”
“What?”
She squeezed Branna’s hand. “His face is my own love’s face, his heart, my own love’s heart. He was never Cabhan’s, not where it mattered.” She looked down at Fin, and touched her lips to his brow. “You are mine as you are hers. Healing will hurt a bit.”