Page 14 of Shadow Spell

“I am Eamon son of Daithi, son of Sorcha. I am of the three. I am the Dark Witch of Mayo.”

“As am I. Eamon.” On a shaky laugh, the man touched Eamon’s hair, his face. “I am from you. You’re out of your time, lad, and in mine. I’m Connor, of the clan O’Dwyer. I am out of Sorcha, out of you. One of three.”

“How do I know this to be true?”

“I am your blood, you are mine. You know.” Connor pulled the amulet from under his shirt, touched the one, the same one, Eamon wore.

And the man lifted an arm. Roibeard landed on the leather glove he wore.

Not Roibeard, Eamon realized, and yet...

“My hawk. Not yours, but named for him. Ask him what you will. He is yours as much as mine.”

“This is... not my place.”

“It is, yes, not your time but your place. It ever will be.”

Tears stung Eamon’s eyes, and his belly quivered with longing worse than hunger. “Did we come home?”

“You did.”

“Will we defeat him, avenge our parents?”

“We will. We will never stop until it’s done. My word to you.”

“I wish to... I’m going back. I feel it. Brannaugh, she’s calling me back. You saved me from Cabhan.”

“Saving you saved me, I’m thinking.”

“Connor of the O’Dwyers. I will not forget.”

And he flew, over the hills again, until it was soft, soft morning and he sat by Brannaugh’s fire with both his sisters shaking him.

“Leave off, now! My head is circling over the rest of me.”

“He’s so pale,” Teagan said. “Here, here, I’ll fix you tea.”

“Tea would be welcome. I went on a journey. I don’t know how, but I went home, but ’twasn’t home. I need to sort through it. But I know something I didn’t. Something we didn’t.”

He guzzled some water Brannaugh pushed on him, then shoved the skin away again. “He can’t leave there. Cabhan. He can’t leave, or not far. The farther from home, from where he traded for his new powers, the less they are. He risks death to leave there. He can’t follow us.”

“How do you know this?” Brannaugh demanded.

“I... saw it in his mind. I don’t know how. I saw it there, that weakness. I met a man, he’s ours. I...” Eamon drew a long breath, closed his eyes a moment.

“Let me have some tea, will you then? A little tea, then I have a tale to tell you. We’ll bide here awhile yet, and I’ll tell you all. Then, aye, aye, south for us, to learn, to grow, to plan. For he can’t touch us. He won’t ever touch you.”

Whatever boy he’d been, he was a man now. And power still simmered inside him.

3

Autumn 2013

WHEN CONNOR WOKE EARLIER THAN HE LIKED, HEhadn’t expected to meet an ancestor, or the greatest enemy of his blood. He certainly hadn’t anticipated starting his day with an explosion of magicks that had all but knocked him off his feet.

But, in the main, he liked the unexpected.

With the dawn barely broken, there’d been no hope his sister might be busy in the kitchen. And his skin meant too much to him to risk waking her and suggesting she might like to cook up breakfast.

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