Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

Lach felt the moment the eddy wind covered the air above him. He had a split second before there were soldiers on the ground.

And his sword was back at camp. He’d walked off without his sword.

Immediately Lach reached out to try to find the dead and call them to aid, but his power was so much weaker now.

Why couldn’t he c

all it?

“Lach?” Bron’s voice called through the trees just as the soldiers surrounded him.

How many? Too many. And he wasn’t sure where Bron was. He struck out, his fists his only weapon. There were dead around, but only animals and small ones at that. He was in a forest, far from the cemeteries and crypts that would have brought him an army.

He felt a burning sensation at his side.

He threw his elbow behind him and caught a soldier in the face. Where was Bron?

And then a shout came up and the sound of metal on metal. There was a clanging and a roar.

Duffy wielded his axe, cutting soldiers off at the legs. They fell to their knees, large hacking wounds making it impossible for them to walk. A soldier brought his sword down on Duffy’s head, but Duffy simply kept fighting.

“Get Bronwyn!” Duffy shouted. “Get her and my Gilly out of here. This is my job, brother. This is my fight.”

Lach looked down at his little brother, so much pain in his heart, but Duffy was right.

Lach fought his way out of the throng as the first sonic boom hit. Roan had found his way to them and he and his vampires were fighting. So were the men from Aoibhneas. Nate and Zane were fighting, knives in their hands.

Bron. He had to find Bron.

And then he saw her. She stood at the clearing, facing the river. She was dressed in nothing but Shim’s battered shirt, her sweetly curved legs bare and her naked feet in the grass. She looked so young and fragile.

And the hag held her by the neck.

The hag, with her midnight-black hair and even darker eyes, smiled and held up her hand and in a wink of an eye was gone, her body pulled up by the eddy wind she’d ridden. His sweet Bron vanished.

Shim came running, but the battle was done. He looked up into the air, lifting his hands. Lach could sense what he was going to do and ran to tackle him. He hit Shim full force and held his hands down.

“You can’t use your power. You don’t know what that will do.”

“My power can’t hurt Bron,” Shim insisted. “Fire can’t hurt her. She was in the middle of that fire for minutes when we found her the first time. It knows who its master is.”

“And air? How about that, Shim? If you burn away the eddy cloud and she falls a hundred or two hundred feet, how will you save her this time?” Lach felt sick.

And then he felt her. A calm presence. Bronwyn.

Bring the war to me. Bring them all to me. She won’t kill me. You have time and I have power. I love you. I love you both. Trust in me. Believe in me.

Lach sat back, her words hitting him like a hammer. He knew what she intended to do.

“We have to go after her,” Shim said, standing up. “They’ll take her to the palace.”

It would be the sensible thing to do. He could rally whatever troops were left and he could search for her. He could save her and carry her away and give the fight back to her brothers. He could still have what he wanted.

But it wasn’t what Bron wanted. What Bron wanted was a chance to end the war. She didn’t want the crown and she no longer wanted revenge. He’d felt that deep in her soul. She wanted to end the war to bring back the kingdom of her youth and to give her people their freedom.

His wife was a hero and he’d been a coward.

He shook his head. “No. We go to Aoibhneas. We gather her brothers and whatever troops we have and we march.”