Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“Gone? How?” Kaja asks.
Shim comes to my side. “The hag took her, but Bron wanted to go.”
Dellacourt snarls our direction. “She wanted to be taken? She wanted a hag to cart her back to the very man who had her killed in the first place?”
Charlie, the boy from Aoibhneas, walks with an arm around each of his fathers. “I can hear her.”
Shim steps forward. “What do you mean?”
Nate looks down at his son. “He’s stronger now, but maybe his time there is still affecting him.”
I’m not about to put up with that. I was marginalized for far too long. “No. Listen to him. Let him speak. If he says he hears Bronwyn, then I want to know what she’s saying.”
Charlie looks me in the eye. “She’s not really saying anything, but she’s feeling. She’s feeling strong and she wants the rest of us to feel strong, too. She’s ready.” Charlie pushes his fathers away a bit so he can stand on his own. “I’m ready. We’re all going to be ready.”
I nod, my mission clear. To bring the battle to Bronwyn. Like it or not, I am her soldier now.
“Lach, you have to come quick.” Gillian is suddenly at my side. Tears streak down her face. Harry stands behind her, a deep frown creasing his brow.
Gillian grasps my hand and I allow myself to be pulled as I look back at Roan.
“Prepare to move. We’re heading into Aoibhneas. Someone find that damn phooka. He’ll know a way. He’s herded us to this point. The least he can do is get us where we need to be.” I follow after Gillian and then my heart nearly breaks.
Duffy.
It’s time. I put it off and put it off and it’s still here. It still found me.
Time to say good-bye.
“He saved me.” Gillian weeps. “He fought so hard, but they kept attacking him. Lach, do something. I should be able to heal that wound. I’ve laid hands on him. I’ve sent him everything I have. Why won’t he heal?”
Tears well in my eyes. “Because the dead don’t heal.”
Shim gasps behind me. “Oh, gods. He died days ago. That’s how you knew I was alive. Because Duffy died and you’ve kept him with us.”
Duffy’s eyes come open.
“I’m so sorry, brother.” I stare down at the wee gnome who was my heart friend for as long as I’ve known what a heart is. Duffy was our companion, our playmate.
“I knew it. I always knew it, brother.” Duffy sits up, looking down at the wound on his chest. It isn’t bleeding. “I was mad at first, but now I know why I got to stay. I did it, Lach. I fought and I won. I got me battle and I saved me girl. Even though she never was me girl. It don’t matter. I get that now. It don’t matter that she couldn’t love me back. It only matters that I loved her and I got to be a better man because I loved her.”
Gillian. All those long years, Duffy still loved Gillian, his childhood crush on her forming the core of his being. I knew Duffy had a thing for Gillian. Even from a young age he refused to call her sister. He loved her from afar and now he sacrificed for her.
Bronwyn loves us back. She doesn’t deserve any less. Love is something I’ve worried about all my life. I call what I feel for Bronwyn love, but I always worried it was more about possession and obsession, that my dark heart can’t hold a softer emotion.
I was wrong. I love my brothers. Love my father and mother. Love my sister.
Gods, I love Bronwyn Finn, and there is nothing dark about it. She is my light, not Shim. However our soul split, it is in me to love. My heart isn’t a cold, dead thing. It’s huge and it can only get larger. I love Bronwyn and that means loving every piece of her, including the part of her soul that demands she fight.
I adore the girl who ran through my dreams. I lust after the lover, but I worship the woman she is today. Not simply a princess, but a queen. A woman is always a queen. She is the queen of her home and her family. Bron’s family is simply bigger than most, and like every woman with a family, she will sacrifice. She will make the world right for them, giving her body and soul to those she nurtures and loves.
I will be strong. My woman taught me what my father never had—how to truly be a king.
I look at my sister and whisper. “He’s loved you for always. Give him something.”
She nods and sinks to her knees, tears falling like raindrops. She leans over and kisses him. “You are my hero, Duffy.”