Page 149 of Threadbound

Bran looked up, meeting those painfully blue eyes. “I’ll do it,” he said softly.

Jamie studied him for a long moment. “Okay,” the halfbreed agreed. “But I’m coming with you.”

Neither Rob nor Trixie offered to accompany them, which was, Bran supposed, just as well. They didn’t know Cairn, didn’t know the twisting halls of the Court of Shades, a place that could be dangerous if you didn’t know where you were going. Not that the danger had ever stopped Jamie from wandering its halls, although Bran couldn’t have said whether Jamie had known that or just been extremely lucky.

Then again, perhaps Jamie’s magic—oddly buoyant as it was—had kept him safe from the secrets of the Court keep. Bran found that he couldn’t quite manage the proper level of concern, exhaustion and stress keeping him from focusing too intently on what could have been.

In the end, Jamie had to help him down the stairs twice, a fact for which Bran was more grateful than irritated, which told him just how utterly spent he really was.

The door to his father’s hospice chambers was heavy, the wood cold and the silver ring of the door handle like ice. Cairn mac Darach, despite his half-Sidhe blood, was a wight through and through, a creature of stone and death. He was more comfortable in the cold than his more warm-blooded children—although Bran’s sister Deigh and brother Puinnsean both shared their father’s liking for the graveyard chill.

Bran did not, and he shivered as Jamie held open the doorway for him to step inside.

For a moment, Bran thought that perhaps they were too late—that Cairn had already passed into death. And then Cairn’s chest rose, slow and a little hitched, and Bran let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, waiting for his father to draw his own.

Bran entered the room, coming to sit at his father’s bedside, grateful for Jamie’s warm and steady presence at his back. “Athair?” He asked softly, setting the silver cup with its precious contents on the table next to the bed.

Cairn didn’t stir.

Bran set one hand on his father’s upper arm. “Athair?” he repeated.

Around them, the stones of the keep shuddered yet again, and one of Jamie’s hands grasped Bran’s shoulder, his fingers tense.

“Athair?” A third time was no more effective at rousing his father, and Bran felt the thin hope he’d clung to for so long slipping away as tears threatened to overfill his eyes.

Jamie’s fingers squeezed. “It’s okay,” the halfbreed murmured. “It’ll just take longer to get it in him.”

Bran looked up at him. “What?” His expression was at once hopeful and heartbroken.

“He doesn’t have to be awake for us to feed it to him,” Jamie explained. “It just takes longer.” Jamie had spooned liquid into his mother long after she was capable of understanding either that she needed to eat or drink or how to do it. Jamie had sat beside her, helping the nurses feed her until her heart forgot how to beat.

So Jamie showed Bran how to do the same, carefully holding Cairn’s cool head, gently spooning the liquid into his mouth, massaging his throat until he swallowed, then doing it again and again until the cup had all been drunk.

Then all they could do was wait.

The keep shuddered around them, although this time shouts and cries could be heard not long after. Jamie’s heart pounded in his chest. He knew nothing of fae warfare, but it didn’t sound to him like they were winning.

Bran looked up at him again, tearing his eyes away from his father with what looked like a physical effort. “I?—”

“Give it time,” Jamie said softly, knowing full well it was easier said than done.

Bran glanced back down at his father, lips pressed together. “We dinna have time,” he rasped. “Without him, we canna hold back the Sidhe.”

Jamie let out a breath, fear settling thick in his stomach—although, oddly, it was a fear that didn’t steal his breath. Instead, it coiled around his spine, helping somehow to steel his resolve. “We have to try,” he replied.

Bran didn’t take his eyes off his father as he let out a long breath. “Aye.”

Bran tightenedthe belt around the heavy enchanted mail he’d pulled over his head, pretending its weight didn’t make him feel as though he were drowning in the air. His muscles felt thick, his bones ached, and he was having trouble making his eyes focus on small things, like buttons and belt buckles.

He had left his father’s side with despair heavy in his stomach—Cairn’s condition was unchanged. Jamie had told him not to give up hope. That they didn’t know how long the draught would take to begin to work.

Bran could no longer afford to hold on to impossible hope. Not with the walls shaking around them and the cries of the wounded and grief-stricken echoing in the air. He no longer had the time to wait for Cairn to recover. War had come to the Court of Shades, and the Sluagh had to meet it. Although Bran was the youngest of Cairn mac Darach’s children, he couldn’t shirk the duty that came with being the great-nephew of the Sluagh King.

Before he’d come to the armory, Bran had taken a potion of his own—one he knew would work better than their faileddraught. It was acnàmh-droma an laoch, a potion designed to fortify the strength and endurance of warriors in battle—to help them not to feel fatigue or succumb so quickly to their wounds. Bran was hoping it would keep him from losing consciousness too soon.

He knew thecnàmh-droma an laochwould leave him exhausted and all-but-useless after a half-day. Bran had no expectation that he would be conscious—or even alive—that long, even with the potion’s fortifying aid.

He knew he was likely walking to his death, but he no longer had a choice.

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