Page 58 of Dark Embrace

Comprehension began. Aidan would not die today. But there was no time to dwell on it. Aidan blasted Frasier and sent him backward, but not to the ground. He did not have enough power to defeat him.

Frasier leapt up and laughed. “Besides, my dear son, I am hoping to reunite you with little Ian.”

Fury exploded within Aidan, blinding him, consuming him. “Ye lie! Ian is dead!” He struck with all the power that he had.

This time, the royal lieutenant was hurled backward through Aidan’s army, landing hard on the road before his four knights.

Aidan ran toward him, blasting him repeatedly, but Frasier put his energy forth as a huge shield, and his own power was turned back onto himself and those closest to him. Men screamed, going down, wounded or dead. Aidan halted, not daring to strike again.

Frasier now slowly stood. His expression was ruthless. Aidan tensed in dreadful expectation, uncertain of what he planned.

Then Frasier looked past him, his energy blazing from his eyes, and Aidan knew whom Frasier thought to strike. He cried out, turning.

Brianna was hurled from her gray mare, across the tops of dozens of his men, until she slammed into a huge pine tree. Bones cracked loudly. For one instant she hung there, as if nailed to the wood, and then she slid limply down to the ground, where she lay unmoving.

Aidan froze in horror.

“She is a great weakness,” Frasier said softly, his breath against Aidan’s ear.

He had murdered Brianna. Aidan whirled to destroy him. Nothing could or would stop him now—and as he roared in rage, he met Frasier’s dark, bewildered eyes instead of his father’s.

“What happens?” Frasier demanded. “You dare to fight with me?” He was in disbelief. “Where is my horse?”

Aidan ignored him, his heart exploding with fear. He began running to where Brianna lay in a crumpled heap upon the ground, and the short distance felt like thousands of miles. And for the first time in many decades, he prayed to his enemies for her life.

He would do whatever the gods wished, if only they would let her live.

He would die then and there if they would resurrect her.

She lay utterly motionless on her back, as pale as a corpse, a pool of blood spreading from beneath her head.

He knelt, his heart leaping in fresh terror and renewed dread. “Brianna?”

There was no response. Her lashes did not flutter. Her chest did not rise. He knelt over her nostrils, but air did not tease his face. And he pulled her broken body into his arms, fighting a terrible desperation, a gut-wrenching fear.

She did not deserve to die.

He couldn’t let her die.

He held her, blinded by sheer panic—the same panic he’d felt the day he’d fought to save Ian’s life. It hadn’t served him well. He gasped, forcing the raw panic aside, and he focused. He fought to feel her life force.

For one moment he felt nothing at all. The panic tried to leap forth; it wished to flame.

And then he felt her life flickering weakly, bravely—the last gasps of her fading soul.

He held her tightly, fought shocking tears and summoned his white, healing powers.

He did not know how great they were. Long ago, there had been promise. Long ago, he’d begun to experiment with his healing powers, powers no one expected him to have, powers given to him by his grandmother. The last Innocent he’d healed had had but broken bones. It had taken intense effort to mend them, even in 1435.

He cupped the back of her head, where her skull was fractured in many places and bleeding in torrents into his hand. He could envision every broken line. He struggled to find the white power within him, a power he had purposefully walked away from.

Surely it was not lost. But it had been so long, and as he delved deep inside himself, he found only shadows and spaces, empty places. He almost succumbed to despair and frustration. Surely, in one of those great hollows within him, a seed of white power lived!

And suddenly warmth seeped from within him, outward, into his hands.

Relief erupted. He removed his hands from her head and stared at the white, starlike energy in his palm, then he showered the white power over her. A fine white mist began sprinkling over her. Aidan knew he had to direct the healing power to her head. He willed more white power from within into his hands. Clasping her bleeding skull, he somehow willed the mist upward from his palms, into her fractured head.

He did not know how long he sat there, filling her head with healing light. It felt as if he sat with her, her head bleeding in his hands, for hours, but when he realized the bleeding had stopped, the sun remained high and bright. Mere moments had passed.