Page 60 of Horns & Heart
Vergis said something in LaGuardia—no, Lugarra—and the others moved.Fellisse and Nokim ran toward Lissir.Vergis began shaking me by the shoulders.He was speaking, but the words made no sense.Time slowed, and everything sounded and felt as if I were packed in cotton wool.
Then, pain hit with the sharpness of a rubber band snapping back when Vergis’s slap connected with my cheek.
“Touch the Stone!Both hands.Wait until I tell you to and when I do?—”
“Wish for clear skies,” I said.Something snapped into place the moment I laid my bare hands on the Stone.“I got this.”
Vergis pulled his gun free, and the sound of it going off hurt my ears.Had the gun made it out of the lake okay?Had he cleaned it back in the wayhouse?Would Lissir be okay?And where was Inkiri?
The thoughts rushed around my head like a dog with the zoomies, but a look over my shoulder did at least give me one answer.Inkiri was right there, right behind me.Shielding me.Even now, he was protecting me when I couldn’t do a thing.
“Please.Please let them all be okay.Let my guys be okay,” I whispered against the noise of more gunfire ringing across the Hill of Kings.
Vergis’s voice rang out over the noise after several too-long moments filled with fear and uncertainty.I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and I had no idea whether that made it better or not.
What I could see without taking my hands off the stone played out in slow motion.Lissir in Fellisse’s arms.Blood and fabric erupting from Fellisse’s shoulder when he got hit.Inkiri, stumbling back against me as if he’d been hit as well.I didn’t see Nokim at all.
I wanted to do something, anything, but somewhere inside of me, there rested a certainty like an old and wise presence that didn’t feel exactly familiar, but not altogether strange either.Something rustled in my mind.
What is your wish?
A part of my mind recognized this as unusual.That was the part of me that had been cast as second tree from the left.But there was another part there as well, calm and certain.That I didn’t question speaking to this disembodied voice ringing loud and clear in my mind should’ve freaked me out.It didn’t.
I want them to be okay.Fellisse, Lissir, Nokim, Vergis, and Ink.I want them to be okay.
The presence seemed to consider this as if it were looking at files and sorting things.Then it said,As you will.
A bone-shattering noise rang out over the Hill of Tara, the Hill of Kings.The Stone of Destiny was singing.
When only the last echoes of the Stone’s song still filled the air, I felt myself floating.I was there, all right, but the present was at a polite distance from me while I observed my surroundings.
I saw Nokim, who’d been lying on his side, pull himself up and run toward us.His taupe clothes were torn and filthy with blood.
Lissir’s voice filled my ears like song, but I had no time to listen to the words in a language I didn’t understand.A hand landed on my neck, and a now-familiar warmth filled me.
Then and there, I knew for certain that I would forevermore recognize my mate by touch or scent, by even his shadow on an overcast day.I knew he’d been with me when the Stone sang, had bled for me during the song, and now, his mate call echoed in me.It was a foreign knowledge in my head, but it was there, and I couldn’t erase it.I didn’t want to.
One by one, they gathered around me and reached out to touch me.My guys.Bonds so recently forged, but forged in fire.I knew we were bound.I knew it the same way I knew Inkiri was mine.
I felt the mage—Vergis, the dark one—touch the Stone.My palms were still on the warm rock, and I knew Vergis was using some of the Stone’s magic to move us.
Farewell, Rory,said that presence in my mind.Until we meet again.
Heat and light came after the words, and Vergis’s magic took us away.All of us.We were safe.I was glad.
