Page 161 of Broken Veil
As soon as she uttered the words, the gold around Carys’s neck warmed, and she knew the Mothers approved.
The only hero who had ever bested the Morrígan hadn’t challenged her in battle. He had healed her wounds by inadvertently blessing her three times.
Macha’s face fell. “What?”
Duncan froze. “What did she say?”
Lachlan cocked his head. “Carys?”
“I want to heal you.” Carys lifted her hands and felt the power of Dôn’s collar flowing through her. “That’s what this collar really does, Morrígan. It protects me. It protects my life.”
Don’t do it.
“But I think… I can give you a little bit of that life to heal you,” Carys said.
“Carys, do not do this!” Lachlan said.
“I don’t know how much it would take.” Carys’s voice was thick. “A couple of years? A decade? I don’t know.”
“No!” Duncan roared and lunged forward, but though he tried to climb up the knoll, something held him back. “Carys, no!”
The Morrígan stood before her, and her wounds were grave. Her eye socket was gaping and bloody. The wound on her side wept pus and blood, and the punctures on her leg were angry and red.
“You are offering to heal me?”
“You’re not going to heal here.” Carys looked around—not a single one of the Morrígan’s faithful was left on the summit of Cley Hill. “Think about it.”
“Carys, are you daft?” Duncan shouted. “We can kill her!”
Lachlan lifted his sword and walked toward them, and Carys saw the Morrígan’s eyes light up.
Carys spun toward them. “No! That’s what she wants. She feeds off violence, Lachlan.” She turned back the Morrígan. “One condition. I will only heal you in the Shadowlands.”
The Morrígan lifted her chin. “No.”
“Then suffer here,” Carys said. “Your acolytes are gone. Your Fianna has fled. No one believes in you anymore, Macha.Everyone who was following you is watching a dragon fly right now.” She shook her head. “You can’t compete with a dragon.”
“Curse you!” The Morrígan stomped her foot, but she collapsed with pain, falling to the ground.
Carys knelt next to her. “Come back to the Shadowlands where you are feared and powerful,” she whispered. “Don’t waste your life in this place where distracted humans flit from one god to the next. Your believers are there, not here.”
The Morrígan stretched out on the ground and stared into the sky as Cadell soared over her, the shadow of the dragon shielding her from the rain for a moment before he was gone.
Her blood leaked into the soil beneath her. “Fine.”
Wait… it had worked?
“We have a bargain?”
“Yes.” She turned her eye on Carys. “I will return to the Shadowlands if you use your life to heal me.”
Do not do this. You don’t know how much of your life she will take.
“There was always going to be a price.” Carys looked at Duncan, then at Lachlan. “We have a deal.”
A moment after that, the Morrígan plunged bloody hands into the ground beneath her, and the earth fell away below them.
Whispering incantations filled her mind.She was wrapped in soft, dry clothes that smelled of rosemary and rue. She feltgentle ministrations over her skin and a cool cloth pressed to the burning gold collar at her neck.
