Page 78 of Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One 2)

Mother of Darkness, Fallon thought. And Mother of Light.

“Let it go. Mom, let it go. Help me clear the air. Duncan! I have to see.”

“They’re gone.”

Still, she urged Laoch into a climb, searching.

“Are you hurt?” she asked Duncan as she scanned the sky, as she saw the first stars blink back through the thinning haze.

“Not much. Not as much as they are. We need to go down.”

When Eric fell on the edge of the cornfield, Simon left Lana’s side. He knew the sounds of a battlefield—the cries of the wounded, the calls for medics. He knew the stench of it—smoke and blood and death.

Just as he knew death when he looked it in the eye.

Eric, what was left of him, still breathed, but it was short and bubbling bloody froth. No medic, no magick, would save him.

“You’re done. Maybe you’ll live long enough for my women, my incredible women, to say what they have to say to you.”

“Who—” Eric wheezed, coughed up blood. “Who are you?”

“I’m the man who brought The One into the world. She came into my hands.” Sidearm aimed, steady, Simon glanced over briefly as Fallon brought the horse to earth, leaped off, ran toward him.

Then he saw sweat mix with the blood on Eric’s face, saw the shaking hand form a black dagger. As Eric lifted it to throw, Simon put a bullet into him.

“That was for Max Fallon, you son of a bitch.”

Breathless, Fallon looked down, saw the dagger dissolve into muddy ash, the single eye glaze as it stared up at her.

“I wanted to be the one who ended him.”

“You did.”

Fallon shook her head, sheathed her sword, took Simon’s hands. “No, you did.” Then her mother’s as Lana ran to her. “You did. It was always meant to be you. Not standing in for my father, because you are my father. Standing for the man he betrayed, the brother he killed.”

“You’re hurt.”

Fallon glanced down at herself. Some cuts, some burns. “Not really, but others are.” She turned to her mother. “I underestimated you.”

“You’re not the only one,” Simon agreed.

“I won’t do that again.”

“Right with you.”

“You’ll help with the wounded.”

“Yes. You first. I’m your mother,” Lana said when Fallon started to object. “You first.”

While her mother tended her, she studied Eric and found the rage that had driven her ebbed just like the burning under her mother’s touch.

“He’ll be enflamed with spell fire, and the ashes salted and taken away to barren land to be buried with the head of a snake, the fang of a jackal, the head of a crow.”

She looked at Lana. “You hurt her again.”

“Not enough. They’ll come back.”

“They’ll come back, but this time we don’t run.”

“No, we’re done with that. Go on.” She touched Fallon’s cheek. “People need to see you. I’ll help the medics, and your father will deal with that.” She looked down at Eric.

“Yeah, I will.”

When Fallon moved off, Lana turned into Simon. “Max died here, right here where Eric fell. Fallon’s sword sent him here, and you finished it. Right here, Simon. Max tried to stop him. I tried. You and Fallon did. It matters, I think, it was you and Fallon.”

“It’s done.” He kissed her. “Go help patch people up. I’m going to get a couple of guys to help me move him more into the open, and we’ll keep a guard on him until we can do what Fallon wants done with him.”

It relieved Fallon to see familiar faces as she moved across what had, for the second time, become a field of battle. She saw the wisdom in Fred and some of the other faeries recharging the earth where it had been struck and scorched, and people gathering up the ruined remains of the gazebo.

Some wept, and there should always be tears over blood, but most dealt with what needed to be done with a grim determination.

She stopped Hannah.

“Can you tell me how bad it is? Dead, wounded?”

“A lot of gashes and burns, and shock. Some serious injuries.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Starr’s one. She took a hard hit, but she’s fighting treatment. She panics if they touch her. I know Flynn’s trying, but he’s hurt, too. And—and Tonia.”

Fallon gripped Hannah’s arm, hard. “How bad?”

“Rachel says second- and third-degree burns, probably a concussion, whiplash. I’m not sure. Mom made her go to the clinic. She couldn’t make Duncan go, and he’s hurt, too.”

Fallon looked to where he sat, his arm around a woman who held Duncan’s dead friend. Who rocked, who keened.

“Denzel … her son … I loved him. We all loved him. And I heard Duncan tell Will to check on Carlee, and on Mina and her little boy. That Petra—oh God—that she said she’d killed Carlee and Mina. I have to go, they need me.”

“I’ll come to the clinic. I can help. I’ll be there.”

First she went to Duncan. He didn’t look at her, just held the grieving mother, kept his eyes on his friend’s face. But he jerked away when Fallon laid a hand on his wounded side.

“Leave it alone.”

“You’re more help uninjured.” Despite him, she pressed her hand against him, slid her power in. Searing, she thought, and deeper than she’d realized. She had to clamp her teeth on the shock of the burn, kept them clamped until it eased and she could breathe clear again.

“Rachel will want to have a look at you,” she said, and rose, began her walk to the clinic.

Scores injured, she saw as she went in. Some huddled in chairs with their wounds, others lay on gurneys. Some wept, some moaned, some just sat with eyes glazed in shock.

Her mother, hair pinned up, worked with other healers. She stopped by a girl she recognized as one of Tonia’s friends. April, a faerie, who shivered with shock under a blanket.

“It’s not bad. They said it’s not bad. Do you know where Barkly is? I was with Barkly.”

“I’ll find out. Look at me. April, see me.”

“It’s not bad.”

“It’ll be better.” Cuts, burns, shock, the system jolt of a lightning strike only feet away. She soothed it, closed the little gashes, healed the burns.

“My mom’s probably looking for me, worried. And Barkly.”

“Your mom’ll find you. Sleep now.”

Fallon sent her into a light, healing sleep, moved on.

She found Flynn in one of the exam rooms with Lupa at his feet. Flynn had blood on his face, on his shirt, raw burns on both hands. And still he pleaded with Starr.

“You have to let them help you. They can’t help you if they don’t touch you. You know these people Starr.”

“I knew Petra.”

There was a wildness in her that was pain, Fallon knew, and delirium. Her body shook from the burns that covered her arms, her legs, and dripped with what Fallon scented as infection already setting in.

A graze on her face oozed blood.

“You know me.” Fallon closed the door behind her, stepped to the gurney. “I’ve come to ask your forgiveness. I thought you might have been the one who betrayed us.”

“I know. Don’t touch me.”

“I was wrong. I had you come to the meeting to see if things we spoke of, things we did, would be passed on. I set a trap for you, and I was wrong.”

“I’d never betray you.”

“I know. Forgive me. Show me forgiveness by letting me help you. I have need for the brave and the true. You’re both. Without help you’ll die, and I’ll lose a warrior and a light. Flynn will lose a friend and a sister. Look at me, Starr.”

“She’ll fight a trance,” Flynn told her.

“She won’t fight me. Do you see me?” she asked Starr. “I see you. You see the light in me. I see the light in you. Trust what you fought for. Trust me as I trust you.”

She took her deep. “Get my mother, or another powerful heal

er. Tell her the burns are infected. She’ll know what to bring. Where’s Rachel?”

“Surgery.”

“Get my mother if you can, and have someone tend to you.”

“After Starr. I’ll get your mother.”

She began, and the pain turned her legs to water. She had to stop and start again, stop and start. She had the power, Fallon thought, but her experience remained limited.

Pale, drenched in sweat, she looked over as her mother came in with a tray of magickal supplies.

“Too much,” Lana said sharply. “Ease back, right now.”

“I think she’s dying.”

“It won’t help you to die with her. Slowly, Fallon. Layer by layer.”

Lana set the tray down, glided hands, light as clouds, over Starr. “We have to let the poison out. We need the athame, the cup, the healing powder. Watch.”

---