What had once been snow gathering on the ground and falling from the sky turned to ice. It fell, hard and sharp. The frozen pellets that quickly covered the ground began to grow. Ice crept up around Doyle’s feet. Ryder, prone on the ground, was not touched by the ice, not at first. Doyle was the target. In a matter of seconds a thick sheet of ice covered his shoes, then climbed up his ankles like frozen kudzu, a cold vine that trapped him in place. The ground around him began to turn white as the ice edged toward Ryder’s body.
Doyle looked at the blood on his hands, he looked at a fallen Ryder and then—puzzled—he glanced down at his frozen feet. The knife in his hand waved about in an almost-wild manner.
Echo ran into the circle and dropped beside Ryder. There was so much blood. It soaked his shirt and ran onto the ground, bright red against the white snow and ice. He was already so pale; his eyes were weak. So soon, so quick, he was almost gone.
“He’s all that I am now,” Ryder whispered, and then his eyes drifted closed. “He is all that I was when I walked into this circle for the last time.”
Echo rose and faced Doyle, who was flailing about as if he were on fire. The ice had reached his knees, and just beyond. The knife he’d used to stab Ryder fell from his hand, clinked against the hard ice at his feet. Trapped as he was in ice, he could not bend over to retrieve it.
“I don’t feel any different, and I can’t do anything,” he said. The ice continued to grow. “What the hell? How do I make it stop?” There was panic in his voice, in his movements. “It’s damn cold, and I don’t like it.”
“You did not take all that Ryder is,” Echo said angrily, “no matter what you thought your blasted spell would do. He’s a good man with love in his heart. He cares about people, cares about this town and the people in it. You can’t take that. You can’t become what you’re not.”
Ice climbed high on Doyle’s thighs. He was solidly frozen in place. “I just wanted his magic!” he shouted. “I don’t want to be tied down by caring about people or places, and love...love just makes you weak.”
Her heart was breaking, and still, Echo smiled. She flicked a finger against the hard ice on the side of Doyle’s leg. “Weak? Who’s weak now?”
Frustrated, he shouted, “I just wanted his abilities. I wanted to be a wizard.”
“Unfortunately for you, Ryder doesn’t have any abilities, not anymore.”
Doyle frowned. Again, he waved one hand like a bad magician trying to make a rabbit appear out of thin air. He knitted his brow, moved his hands while he still could. How long before he was completely encased in ice? “I don’t even have my own powers anymore!” He turned toward Cassidy, who stood—pale and shaking with the cold and the shock—several feet away. “Come here, girl. Hand me my knife! I command you!” Cassidy didn’t move, and once again Doyle tried to use his old abilities, the ones he’d been born with. He looked down at his knife and squinted as he attempted to make it rise. Nothing happened.
Half a dozen townspeople swarmed into the circle. Echo had not heard them coming. Her attention had been entirely on the three she’d come here to find. Suddenly, the others were there. Behind her, beside her. One kicked the knife away. It skittered over ice and into the soft grass, where it stopped. Another, and then another, attempted to knock Doyle to the ground. After a couple of tries the ice cracked and shattered, and given the way Doyle screamed a few of his bones did the same. The ice had been quite sturdy, Echo would admit. Ice born out of pain and heartbreak.
Nevan placed a heavy booted foot on Doyle’s chest and said, “I never liked you, and your vegetable soup is no better than dirty dishwater.” With just a few glances, those with abilities gathered the power of the circle and erased knowledge of the spell from Doyle. He’d never be able to try to steal another’s power.
With Doyle surrounded and no longer a threat, Cassidy ran to her father. Since others were seeing to a wounded and powerless Doyle, Echo joined the young girl. Together they bracketed the unconscious man they loved.
“I don’t suppose healing is one of your abilities,” Echo said. Ryder was alive and breathing, but barely. If he was going to die, wouldn’t she know? Wouldn’t she see or feel it? Maybe. Maybe not. Brigid was tending to the wounded in town, and by her own admission she was a minor healer. Ryder needed more than minor healing. He’d never survive the trip to town.
Cassidy looked at Echo with big, sad eyes. She was scared, and rightly so. So much responsibility rested in her young hands. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I never tried to heal anyone before.”
Echo took one of the girl’s cold hands and squeezed, and she whispered as the snow stopped falling, “Now is the time to try.”
* * *
By the time Gideon and Hope arrived at the stone circle, led there by a couple of tired and bruised townspeople, the worst was over. Doyle had been taken into custody by the town constable, the one who had green lightning in his fingertips. Nevan, Gideon heard the man called. Echo and a young girl—older than Emma but not by much—were hunched over Ryder Duncan’s body.
Hope kept stride with him, and had since they’d left Cloughban behind. “I knew when I married you that our life would never be dull.”
“A battle every five to ten years should keep things lively.”
She sighed. “Lively is overrated. Dammit, I don’t want the girls to fight battles, not ever.”
Neither did he, but the occasional battle came with the territory. He, his wife, their girls...they would forever hide a large part of themselves from the rest of the world. They would, on occasion, have to fight for what was right.
This particular battle hadn’t been much of a challenge—though he did have a nasty bump on the head. And a headache.
For now, part of his job as a father was to make sure his daughters didn’t know too much about the dark side of magic. He didn’t even want them to know there were battles in the world. They’d find out soon enough.
He glanced around. “Why the hell is there snow?”
* * *
Rye opened his eyes. Echo and Cassidy leaned over him, their faces beautiful and near, and...worried. Behind and well above them, the moon peeked out from behind a cloud. He wished it were the sun instead of the moon. He was so damn cold.
He’d realized Echo was close when the snow had started to fall, but he had imagined she’d arrive too late to help him. It had been a relief to know that she’d be here for Cassidy. Someone had to be here for Cassidy.