Page 23 of Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One 2)

“I don’t know.” Had never known.

“How could I love you and begrudge you all he is to you, and you to him? I’m grateful to him.”

“You—you are?”

“I am, and he sure as hell should be grateful to me. I made you with your mother, and with your mother he brought you into the world. Love isn’t finite, Fallon. If you take nothing else from me, take that.”

As he spoke, he stroked a hand over her hair. “Love has no end, no borders, no limits. The more you give, the more there is. Your mother gave you my name, Simon Swift gave you his. He’s your father, and so am I. I’d say that makes you blessed.”

“That’s what Mom says.”

“There you have it,” he said simply. “Is it any wonder I loved her?”

“Dad—Simon—he is grateful. He says you’re a hero, and he owes you for everything that matters most to him. Mom and me, and I have three brothers. I wish you could meet him. That’s weird.”

He laughed, put an arm around her shoulders as they walked. “The world’s full of the strange.”

“You wrote about strange things. I read your books. Mom said you were writing another when you died, and she had to run to protect me and the people of New Hope. What was it about?”

“About love and magicks, the dark and the light of both. About battle and bravery, and the rise of a Savior.”

“I don’t know how to lead people.”

“Neither did I. I’d rather have built a simple life with your mother. Simple seemed precious after the Doom. But I was needed, and so are you. I might wish a simple life for you, Fallon, but the world needs more. You’ll lead, and well. I believe it absolutely.”

“The man in my dream said I had to choose. I did.”

“What man?”

“I’m not sure. I think, maybe, it was the boy grown up. Maybe.”

“And what boy is that?”

“Duncan, I think. From New Hope. I saw him in a different dream.”

“Katie’s Duncan? Hmm.” Dead or not, Max felt a little twinge at the idea of his daughter dreaming about a boy.

“He saved people from the Purity Warriors. They’re the ones who killed you.”

“My brother killed me. The dark he chose killed me. His blood, my blood, yours.” Pausing, he gripped her hand, firmly, looked directly into her eyes.

She felt the link and the power in their joined hands.

“The same blood,” he continued, “yet Eric turned away from light and love and loyalty. He’s never to be trusted, Fallon, or underestimated.”

“Mom thinks he’s dead. She thinks she killed him and that woman.”

“Allegra. I don’t know the answer. Even the dead have questions. But if he lives, what’s in him will do all evil can do to end you. He tainted his blood and all that comes from it. Watch for him. Watch for the crows.”

“I will.” And if he’s still alive, she vowed at that moment, she would end him. “Mallick’s going to teach me to use a sword.”

“Good God.”

“You can’t only fight with magicks. The Wizard King had a sword.”

Max laughed a little. “So he did. Tell me more about your life, your brothers.”

* * *

It was amazing. It was magickal to walk and talk with the man she only knew from stories, from a picture on a book. Now she knew the sound of his voice, the way he moved, the things he thought.

Now she knew why the night had called her, had struck that beat inside her. She’d reached for him through the veil; he’d come through for her.

She took him to the faerie glade, where they sat and talked while Taibhse swept in to sit on a branch like a guard, and the wolf who’d tracked them as they walked stayed in the shadows.

When she asked him to tell her of the escape from the great city and all that came after, he didn’t censor his words as she’d always suspected her mother did.

He spoke frankly of the horrors and hardships, of the wonder and weight of feeling his power expand. And when he spoke of his brother, of trying to take Eric’s life, trying to take a life of his own family, she heard both the lingering grief and the cold determination.

“You had to choose.” As she spoke, Fallon leaned against him. “My mother, me, the others you protected.”

“Yes, I had to choose, and there was no question of what was right. But using the gift to cause harm is a hard choice, Fallon. Causing harm to family, to someone who shares your blood, harder still.”

She understood. Wanted to. Tried to. But …

“I’m here because you made that choice in the mountains, and again in New Hope. You died because your brother made his choice.”

“As a leader you’ll face hard choices.”

“Did you wish you didn’t have to be one?”

“All the time.” He turned his head, brushed his lips over her temple. “In the end, we are who we are.”

“You believe that?”

“I do, yeah.”

“Then you should stop feeling even a little bit guilty for trying to kill Eric. In the end, he was what he was.”

Max let out a half laugh. “You got me on that. You’re right.”

“Tell me more about New Hope. Mom’s told us a lot, and sometimes when we use the ham radio Dad got, we hear the reporter.”

“Arlys? Arlys Reid?”

“Yeah, she gives reports on Raiders and the Purity Warriors and rescues and things like that. And other stuff. She changes frequencies a lot, for safety. Dad said he could probably fix it so Mom could talk to her over the radio, but Mom wouldn’t.”

“She worries.”

“Yeah, that they’d figure out about the farm, or use her somehow to attack New Hope again. But I know she was really good friends with some of the people there.”

“We had good friends,” he agreed. “We traveled there with Poe and Kim and Eddie and Joe, from the mountains, and Flynn and his group from the little village below.”

“The boy with the wolf.” She glanced back, saw the white wolf in the shadows still.

“Lupa. And along the way, there were others.”

He painted a picture for her, more detailed than her mother had. And she began to see her mother, too, through his eyes. Young, brave, beautiful, learning to drive, nervous about becoming a mother, standing up to a bully at the town meeting.

She dozed off with her head on his shoulder, his voice in her head.

And his voice woke her.

“Fallon. Wak

e up, baby, it’s nearly dawn.”

“What? But … I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to.”

“You gave me the chance to hold my daughter while she slept. One more gift. Come on now. I’ll walk you back as far as I can.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“You know, it’s true when people who love you say they’ll always be with you.”

“It’s not the same,” she told him as she dragged her feet.

“I know, but that doesn’t make it less true. What will you do today?”

“Feed the chickens, gather the eggs. Mallick usually milks the cow. After breakfast we have lessons in the workroom. Sometimes it’s boring, sometimes it’s not. We have to tend the greenhouse plants, too. And today he said I can start learning how to use a sword.”

“And you look forward to that.”

“I learn with a sword chosen for the girl I am. But on a night, like my birth, wild with storm, burned in lightning, on a night after I hold the Book of Spells, after I travel in the Well of Light, I take up the sword and shield of The One. Of the daughter of the Tuatha de Danann, the Warrior of Light. With these I challenge the dark and give no quarter. In these my power and my blood run in ice and flame.”

Her eyes that had gone dark and fierce blinked. And the child came back.

“You looked like your mother just then when a vision came on her.”

“I felt different. I felt strong.”

“You are strong.” He kissed her forehead. “I have to go.”

“Dad.” She threw her arms around him, held tight. “Will I ever see you again?”

“I know you will.” He kissed her again, drew her back. “We are who we are, Fallon. I see who you are, and I’m so proud. I love you,” he said, stepping back into the shadows as the first hint of the sun shimmered over the eastern hills.

“I love you, Dad.”

* * *

Furious, and more than a little frightened, Mallick stormed out of the cottage. The girl hadn’t slept in her bed, and was nowhere to be seen. When he found her, by the gods, she’d know the punishment for a night’s foolishness.

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