Page 155 of Threadbound

And then she was gone—the wind of her departure fluttering the feathers around his face.

Live for that for which you’d be willing to die.

He was going to try.

There was lesschaos on the walls than there was beneath them, but when one was in the middle of open war, the distinction was all but meaningless. Blood ran down Bran’s forehead from a cut left behind by an arrow he’d barely dodged—the wound was fairly shallow, but it bled freely.

Below, chaos swirled, limbs and tails and wings, weapons made of wood and bronze and stone, the traces and trails of magic—fire, wind, poisons—and blood. The dead fell onto theearth, their blood churning earth to mud, given texture by trampled grass and crushed stems and petals.

Bran wiped his own blood out of his eyes, trying to gauge whether his people were managing to hold back the forces of the Sidhe King.

It was hard to tell. There were Sidhe fighting for the Court of Shadows and Sluagh who had chosen the side of the Sunlit Court. There were fae who belonged to the twilight fighting on both sides.

An osprey flew out of the fray, shifting from bird to Iolair in front of Bran, who finished casting yet another strengthening spell, feeling the magic taking with it both warmth and strength. Bran turned to meet his brother’s gaze—Iolair didn’t look much better than he felt, his armor spattered with blood, a massive bruise already discoloring one side of his face.

“We need more,” Iolair rasped.

Bran stared at him, exhaustion dragging his one working arm down to his side. “More,” he repeated.

“Give us the dead,” his brother pleaded.

Bran’s stomach lurched, but he nodded.

Iolair flew back into the whirl of battle.

Bran had brought with him everything he would need—the atmosphere of desperation that had permeated down to the stones and roots of the keep told him it would be necessary.

The problem was that while he had the herbs, tinctures, ground bone, salt, and a silver blade to draw his own blood—not that he needed it, given the gash on his forehead—he wasn’t sure he had the strength. Even if he did manage to raise enough dead to tip the battle, he knew he wouldn’t be able to lay them once again to rest.

The problem was that the awakened dead just kept pulling on the necromancer’s strength—the magic kept them alive, even as it drained the necromancer. The more dead, the stronger thedrain. Once, Bran had the strength to maintain dozens—and to once more release them.

They needed more than that today.

If the necromancer died, the dead would remain untethered, wandering the world until they crumbled to earth and dust and their spirits were finally released from sinew and bone. It could take centuries.

“I’m sorry,” Bran whispered, and he wasn’t sure if he was apologizing to the dead or to Jamie.

And then he began casting.

Jamie hadn’t realized justhow much worse things could get. If he had ever needed—which he hadn’t—confirmation that he wasn’t suited to a career in emergency medicine, he definitely had it now. An interest in historical medical practice definitely didn’t translate to actual medical practice.

Rob was doing better—by a long shot—because he was at least trained as an EMT. He hadn’t worked in years, but he understood the basics enough that he didn’t freeze when faced with something particularly traumatic, unlike Jamie, whose first glimpse of a severe compound rib fracture almost made him pass out. But he’d swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat and got on with it, telling himself it wasn’t any worse than the time Bill Eckel had broken Ginny’s wrist.

Jamie hadn’t actually believed his own lies, but it helped a little. Enough that he didn’t vomit, pass out, or scream outside of his own head.

He had no idea anymore whether it was day or night, how many days or hours they had been here, or whether he’d eaten any time in the last day. Every now and then someone—sometimes Maigdeann, sometimes Eadar, sometimes Trixie or Rob—would press a piece of bread or fruit or some sort ofdried meat into his hands and order him to eat it. He would, chewing automatically. Sometimes it was water or a tea of some sort. He drank as absently as he ate. Once or twice—he thought—someone had pushed him onto an empty cot, although there were precious few of those, and he’d slept without thought or dream.

With every new injured or dying fae brought into the infirmary, Jamie’s heart was in his throat, seeing Bran bloody and broken for a split second before features resolved into scales or fur or greens, browns, blues, greys—whatever color skin or hair or scales or feathers each person had. And every time Jamie sent up silent thanks to he-didn’t-know-who-or-what that itwasn’tBran.

And then very carefully didn’t think about the fact that it might be because Bran was already dead.

You’d know, he told himself. Bran had said as much, once. That if either of them died, the other would know. So Jamie clung to that, keeping himself sane—barely—with the promise that he wouldknow.It let him keep going—keep putting one foot in front of the other, wash the blood of yet another fae from his hands, stitch together flesh and hold the hands and claws of the dying when there was nothing more to be done.

Bran had stopped havingany real sense of where his body began or ended. Everything was pain and confusion, his awareness spread with his will across the empty bodies of the dead dragged from their ignominious beds on the battlefield. He could dimly feel the impacts of weapons and magic against their unfeeling forms—not the way they would have, if they had been alive, but as a slow punch, pushed into already-bruised flesh. Nothing he couldn’t handle—or that he couldn’t have, if all had been as it should be.

Of course, they were at war. Nothing was as it should be.

His father was alive, at least. And recovering, according to Maigdeann, who had hugged him tightly enough to draw a hiss from him, thanks to his battered ribs. His father was alive, and Jamie was safe—as long as they succeeded in defeating the Sidhe.

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