Page 156 of Threadbound

A shock rolled through Bran’s body as magic pulsed across the battlefield, ripping into his reanimated dead. He clung to the shreds of their spirits—the tiny bit of life force he’d been able to drag back from the world beyond to create his revenants. His eyes watered, blurring his vision with a darkish haze, but he held on, his hand scraping the bark and stone of the battlements as he struggled to keep himself upright.

He was not expecting a cool touch on his shoulder.

What he expected even less was the deep and resonant voice that murmured softly—“Be my conduit, young one.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d refused, although he did not.

Power unlike anything he’d ever felt coursed through him, laying bare flesh and bone, stripping him down to nothing but spirit and sinew as he channeled the magic of Cuileann mac Eug, Holly King and King of the Sluagh. His king.

His great-uncle.

Although Bran couldn’t see it through the bloody tears being squeezed from his eyes, his magic spread across the field surrounding the keep of the Court of Shades, raising not only the recent battle-dead, but centuries upon centuries of those whose lives ended in the fields and marshes and forests surrounding the stronghold of the Sluagh. Bedraggled dead from two thousand years dragged their rotted and mummified flesh and magically-knit-together bones from resting places long since forgotten, their brows crowned with roots and earth and studded with salt and mica from eons of rain and silt.

The innumerable dead slipped through Bran’s consciousness, the scrabbling of the shredded remains of their souls like bony fingers rifling through his brain. Wisps of names and griefs and great loves flickered like candleflame in the back of his mind, giving him just enough to bind them back to what little was left of their corpses.

As the shadows lengthened into the final twilight of the second war between the Oak King and the Holly King, the dead answered their king’s call, adding to their own numbers as the shadows presaging night slipped across the open plains.

Bran felt all of this from a strange distance, tasting copper and salt on the back of his tongue, his eyes all but blind, his body shuddering from a thousand blows and as many hexes. At his back, he could feel the steady course of power from Cuileann mac Eug, the King’s presence solid and immovable, keeping Bran on his feet.

He shuddered as Darach mac Craobh-na-Beatha, standing on the edge of the Nimh Coille in the shadows of the forest’s mighty branches, cast a blast of what looked like pure sunlight, the waves rippling over the battlefield and shattering the revenant dead.

But for every one destroyed by the Sidhe King’s magic, there were at least three more, waiting in the darkness of the earth to claw their way to the surface.

Life was powerful—but death was inevitable.

No matter how desperately one clung to life, death would come, sooner or later. It was this certainty—the only certainty—promised by Taranis, the goddess of death and Queen of Fate. This certainty that had provided an assurance that even if they had lost this war, eventually Taranis would claim the Sidhe King for her own—and the Sluagh would return.

But that was not to be their Fate today.

Today, the Sluagh King, Cuileann mac Eug, had risen from his deathbed, released by Taranis to continue to rule for some yet-unknown number of years. To restore the balance upset by Darach mac Craobh-na-Beatha. To temper life with death, and also death with life.

To use Bran as a conduit for his magic, wreaking absolute havoc on the field of war.

A last flare of light from the edge of the Nimh Coille, and the Sidhe began to retreat into the long shadows of the forest, seeking to return to the safety of the Sunlight Court before twilight gave way to night.

The battle was over, and the thousands of dead swayed with the flagging strength of their commander.

“Let go, young one. Time for all to rest.”

Bran let go and fell into darkness.

Chapter

Fifty-One

Jamie had fallen asleep with his head resting on his crossed arms, slumped over Bran’s bedside. Patch had curled herself around Jamie’s shoulders—he had no idea where thegealach marcaichehad been hiding, but he was ridiculously relieved she was safe. Rob had accepted Patch’s presence with equanimity, but Trixie had squealed with delight and lavished attention on thegealach marcaiche.Patch had allowed the attention—even purring a little—but had refused to be removed from Jamie’s shoulders once she’d settled there.

The Holly King himself, pale skin rippled and ridged like that of the tree whose crown he wore around his forehead, thick, gnarled locks of brown-grey hair woven in and through sharp leaves and jeweled berries that shone like blood, had carried Bran’s unconscious form into the infirmary, causing the entire room to cease its frantic motion. Cuileann mac Eug had eyes the same vibrant green as Bran’s, and they had settled immediately on Jamie’s drawn features.

“He is yours, I believe,” the King of the Sluagh had rumbled, gently passing Bran into Jamie’s waiting arms.

Jamie had simply nodded, uncertain how to speak.

“He needs rest,” the Holly King remarked, and Jamie nodded again.

“My lord,” Cairn murmured, and the Sluagh King turned to his nephew.

“We have much to speak of, Cairn mac Darach.”

---