Page 150 of Threadbound

TheNeach-Cogaidhhad been called into battle—his brothers and sisters, both by blood and by arms—and even though he had been released from his oath, Bran could not simply wait for them to die on the field or be dragged back to the keep, their bodies broken and bloodied. Bran knew that he was likely to be among those who returned under power other than their own—he could only hope, for his own sake and for Jamie’s, that he would be among the broken rather than the dead.

He hadn’t been able to say what he probably should have to Jamie. To tell him again that he loved him. Tell him that he never wanted to leave his side—that even now he didn’t want to leave Jamie, but that hehadto. He was willing to give his life for his people.

I am willing to give everything for Jamie.

Bran’s fingers paused as he buckled on a sword belt. He had to see theBean Nighe.Because his final wish—for his father to be successful—required him to answer her question.

But finding the hag in a keep full of frightened Sluagh and a handful of Sidhe who called Sluagh family… Assuming she was even here. On the one hand, Bran couldn’t afford to give up the time it would take to find her. On the other, he didn’t know if he could afford not to.

Indecision was a killer—he knew that. So he finished buckling on the belt, drew and tested the edge of the sword, took a deep breath, and walked out into battle.

Jamie—followedby Trixie and Rob—had found his way into the infirmary, since, as Trixie put it, they all understood the basics of medieval medicine, and it wasn’t that hard to put pressure on bleeding wounds. Rob was evenactuallyuseful, since he’d been a life guard, which came with first aid training.

Trixie hadn’t been wrong, although Jamie had seen more than enough blood and protruding bones within the first few hours that he never wanted to so much as look at a first aid kit ever again. He was also sharing an unusual amount of sympathy with the fictional Lady Macbeth, since he was pretty sure his hands would never again feel clean.

“Jamie.” Bran’s sister, a smear of blood across her cheek, came up to him, breathless and pale. Of course, Jamie wasn’t sure what color skin a finfolk was supposed to have.

“Yeah?” He wasn’t entirely certain he’d pronounce her name correctly, although Trixie didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

“Do you know how to sew?” she asked him.

“Um. Yeah? Why?”

“I canna keep up with the stitching.”

Jamie felt himself go pale. Then he saw Maigdeann’s expression fall, and he couldn’t refuse. Instead he swallowed, then forced himself to nod. “Okay.” He swallowed again. “Just like canvas or leather, right?”

She pressed a hand into his arm with a thin smile. Then she handed him a roll of suede, which, he discovered upon undoing the tie, held a suture kit that looked like it belonged somewhere in the middle ages. Cleaner and newer, but still. Bone needle. Coarse thread. Pieces of linen to cover the wound.

It wasn’t until she was on the other side of the infirmary that Jamie realized she hadn’t actually confirmed the answer to his question.

He really hoped he didn’t end up maiming or scarring anyone too badly.

Jamie nearly jumpedout of his skin when one of the goat-footed people—apùca, he’d learned they were called—came running into the infirmary, horizontally-slitted eyes wide. “Lady Maigdeann!”

The finfolk woman turned, her bright blue eyes worried. “What is it, Alltdannsair?” she asked, her voice urgent.

“Your father, Lady Maigdeann! He’s awake!”

Jamie sat down abruptly on the edge of the empty bed he’d been putting fresh linens on while trying not to think about the reason that bed was empty. That fae—his black eyes fixed and wide, his skin swirled grey and white and smeared with blood—had lost his battle with death, while it seemed Cairn had somehow won his.We did it. We actually did it.

Yet Jamie felt a strange mix of disappointment along with the elation at having succeeded in brewing the draught. Almost as though the life they’d given back to Cairn had been taken from the young fae whose hand Jamie had held as he drowned in his own blood, nothing any of them could do to save him as the Sidhe poison had slowly suffocated him from the inside. Jamie didn’t actually want to think of it that way. Didn’t want the responsibility for the fae’s death.

Intellectually, Jamie knew that wasn’t how it worked. There weren’t a finite number of lives to be lived, and if one person got to keep living, someone else had to die. But it felt that way, all the same.

Maigdeann, her eyes brimming with tears, followed the pùca out of the room at a run.

Eadar came over and squeezed Jamie’s bicep, a grin on his golden-hued features. “You did it,” the fae whispered.

Jamie nodded dumbly.

“Jamie…” Trixie had joined them, her own eyes as wide as the pùca’s had been. “We… we did it?”

He nodded again.

Rob—who had come up behind him—let out a whoop that made Jamie jump again.

“How much did you make?” Eadar asked, then, his blue eyes sharp.

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