Shoulders throbbing with pain, he set the sword aside, then dropped to his knees beside Jessa and gathered her into his arms.Cradling her close, he held her tight, raining kisses upon her while rocking as if she were a babe.“I have ye, m’love.Ye truly are safe now.”
Trembling, she burrowed closer, clutching at him as if afraid he would let her go.“I knew you’d save me,” she whispered.“I knew you would.”
“And now we shall be leaving this hell,” he rasped, then pressed another kiss to her icy forehead.
“Funny,” she mumbled, “I always thought hell would be hot.”
“Aye, love.So did I.”Thankfully, he had worn his trews, waistcoat, and jacket along with his kilt, so he was plenty warm.But soaked and frozen as she was by Morrigan’s malicious waves, Jessa was in danger—badly so.“I am going to set ye down so I can give ye my coat and wrap ye in my kilt, aye?Then I’ll carry ye out of here and get ye to a fire.”
“Ye truly believe I mean to let ye leave here alive?That I will allow ye to take yer mate out of here?”Morrigan said.
“Shit,” Jessa whispered, curling tighter against him.“I knew she’d be back.”
“Stay behind me,” he told her quietly as he set her on the ground, took up the humming sword, and faced the hooded figure slowly moving toward them.
“Give me the sword,” Morrigan said, stretching out her hand, her bony fingers long and pale, curling like talons.“It is mine.”
A ripple of blinding light shot up from the haft of the sword to its tip.It warmed and molded itself more comfortably in Grant’s grip, as if settling in and readying for battle.“It appears Caladbolg means to remain with me.”
“I told ye, ye were a Defender.”
Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled in the distance.Grant wondered if it was the sword or Morrigan, since the steel was also known as the Blade of Lightning.
“I defend my wife, my future children, and my kin,” he said, widening his stance and resettling the weapon in his hands.“Ye have lost this day, Morrigan.I dinna give a damn what shape ye take.This blade will find ye.”
“Ye canna kill the likes of me.”She shoved her hood back and shook out her raven mane, assuming the form of a breathtakingly beautiful woman clad in armor.“Have ye forgotten yer teachings?”
“Aye, just as I intend to forget ye and order my clan to do the same.We will wipe yer name from every book and every tale we tell our children.Nor will it be spoken anywhere on MacAlester lands—just as it is forbidden to be uttered in Seven Cairns.”
Her dark eyes narrowed, then flared wide as if he had struck her in the face.“But ye will remember me.”She jerked a nod at Jessa.“And so will she.That will be enough.I will live in yer minds long enough to destroy the Highland Veil.”
“But that’s the thing about humans, or have ye forgotten?”Grant gave her a grin he knew would enrage her as he swept the sword back and forth, readying for attack.“As we age, we forget.Our minds dim with the fog of time.”He sliced the air, flashing the blade’s light across her as if splitting her in two.“And if ye kill us this day, Mairwen and my men will see yer name wiped from my clan and all their descendants.She gave me her word that she would do so.”
Morrigan screeched with rage, then lunged for him in the shape of the enormous wolf.
He brought the sword down with a hard slash, cleaving her skull and then her body.The grizzly halves fell to the ground, twitching and gushing blood before exploding into a cloud of ravens and swirling upward out of sight.
Grant held his breath, crouching, waiting to unleash the lethal Caladbolg again.He might not be able to kill Morrigan this day, but he could damn sure swear that she would be forgotten and thereby weakened.A forgotten goddess was a powerless goddess.Immortals only thrived when they were remembered.
The surrounding darkness exploded, knocking him off his feet.As the earth itself roared and shook, he rolled and crouched over Jessa, holding her tight in one arm while keeping the Elven sword held above them for protection.Bits of shale, chunks of rock, and debris rained down on them as the world shuddered with fearsome violence.
Jessa wrapped her arms around his neck and cried out, her lips brushing his ear, “I love you.”
He closed his eyes and tightened his embrace, acknowledging nothing but the connection with this precious woman.“I love ye, my own.Love ye ’til time ceases to be.”
Chapter 16
The stone ledge around them fell away, leaving nothing but a small platform to crouch upon atop the jagged spire.The wall of shale at their backs crumbled, becoming a waterfall of oily black shards showering down into the abyss.Grant held Jessa tighter, shielding her as much as he could from the stinging debris.
The shuddering upward thrust of their dangerous perch halted with a violent stop.As Grant lifted his head to look around, bony fingers closed around his throat, tearing him away from Jessa as they squeezed off his air.He fought to free himself, baring his teeth at the dark, empty eyes of the skull staring at him from the depths of Morrigan’s hooded cloak.
“Ye will remember me always,” she said, her voice a deadly hiss as she crushed his throat.“Ye will tell yer children of the benevolent goddess who spared ye this day because ye possess the heart and soul of a truly courageous warrior.Ye will teach them my name until they chant it in their dreams.”She shook him, nearly snapping his neck with the strength of her bony grip.The warm trickle of blood where her sharp fingertips pierced his flesh turned into a steady stream.“Tell Mairwen I’m coming for her.Our mothers canna protect her forever.When I take down the Veil, she will join Lùnastal and Valan in their crystal prison for all the rest of her days.”
Vision failing, lungs burning for air, Grant grappled a dagger out of his boot and stabbed it deep into the bony specter’s eye socket.She burst into a whirling mass of ravens that shot up into the sky, leaving him coughing and wheezing on the grassy knoll.
Must get to Jessa.He shook his head, fighting to clear his vision while wheezing in great gulps of air.He dragged himself back to her, pulled her close, and rolled to his back.The sudden brightness of the sky blinded him as he sank into the softness of the heavy sea grasses covering the top of the cliff.For that was where they were.Somehow, the cliff overlooking the sea had been restored.
Morrigan’s dark chasm, her icy hell, was gone.
