Conall narrowed his eyes to slits and looked at the space surrounding me. Could he see the darkness? Mouth pulled into a grim line he eased me onto the floor and tried to make me comfortable, gently moving my wings. I gritted my teeth at the sharp forks of pain that shot down my right pinion. My body was battered and I was not healing.
"What has happened here?" he asked and eyed Tomas with distaste.
"I wish I knew. I did something with magic and I can't say it was one of my brighter ideas. It hurts like hell."
He stared at me hard. Then he snorted. "You have shared your life with Breandan, but you are not strong enough to sustain it."
I had? I nodded weakly and my attention shifted to what the fairy-man was doing with my fairy-boy. He winced at the pole and gingerly avoided touching it.
"It is iron," he rumbled.
"Who are you?" I asked. When he did not answer, the corners of my mouth pulled down but with no time to go into the specifics of good manners, I turned to Conall, "We don't like iron?"
"It drains our strength and is poison to us. It burns." He paused and made a small waving gesture with his hand, as if brushing off an errant thought. "There are stories of iron-working fairies, but such a one is rare. I have never met one in my lifetime."
I remembered how weak I had felt when I touched it, how all my energy had drained away. Then I remembered the sizzling of flesh when Cleric Tu had cut Maeve's face. Iron drained our strength, and burned us when it touched an open wound. How quickly would we die if it was to be stabbed into us, and was there any other material that affected us so? I shuddered for the thought was hideous.
"I want you to be honest with me, I'm not too late? I mean, you can save Breandan?"
He nodded, hesitantly. "I will try, but I do not think you will like me for being able to soon." He smiled. "I did not teach you to call to another, you taught yourself?"
I grinned back at him, proud. "All I need was to be calm and focused."
My eyes darted to Tomas. I could not have done it without him.
The world blacked out, a scary thing to happen with your eyes wide open, blood pooling around you and your failing heartbeat thumping in your ears. A sweep of cold brought me to. Tomas's hand was leaving my forehead.
Conall smacked his hand away. Hissed. "Watch yourself," he said.
Tomas tried to touch me again with the same result. "Touch me again and you'll lose that hand, fairy," he growled and rolled onto his haunches.
I couldn't bear it if they started fighting. The importance of the moment held fast I opened my mouth. "Please stop."
All eyes snapped to my face.
The fairy-man stood, and lifted his chin at Conall, before glaring at me again. I took in the hard angles of his face, and the blue eye that held the warmth of a glacier, not that the green was anymore soothing. The proud set of his mouth, the shape of his jaw was so familiar I could reach out, close my eyes and map the dimensions.
"You should not be here," Conall said to Tomas and firmly pressed down on my chest wound. I barely felt the pressure of his hand.
The numbness was back, a light, seeping sensation that flowed steadily over me.
"I would rather face the sun then watch what is about to happen, but I cannot leave."
My mouth dried up. Sweat beaded my brow and ran down my temples. "What shouldn't he see?" I asked Conall in a small voice.
"Are you sure you wish for me to do this?" he asked the fairy-man, ignoring me.
He sniffed and crossed his arms across his bared chest. The muscles in his arms rippled. "You are better at healing than I. I want him whole so I can tear him apart myself."
Conall fell silent, the corner of his mouth curving up. Kneeling between Breandan and I, holding a hand over each our brows and chanted something rhythmic and urgent. The life in the forest was suspended. I sensed it was going to happen, that big pain that made you sick just to think of it. I was feeling everything Breandan felt. I'd bound my body to him and now I was dying alongside him. They were going to pull the iron pole out of Breandan and it was going to hurt. A lot. He was unconscious. I was not.
"Don't let them," I whispered.
Tomas could hear me, of course, but he was focused hard on the middle distance. I tried to yank on his arm but my fingers merely brushed his skin.
