Brandt shouted her name. A heavy weight slammed into her from the side, sending her flying into the wall.
Her head cracked against stone. And the world went dark.
“No!” Brandt saw Patience slide down the wall, limp and unmoving, saw Woody drop down beside her. The winikin had pushed her out of the way, but not soon enough. Iago closed on them both, raising the glowing knife. Denying what was about to happen, Brandt screamed, “Patience!”
He flung himself at Iago, slammed into the bastard’s dark shield magic, and fought to push through the faltering spell, which flayed him raw, lashing him with harsh agony. Then he was through! He went in low, tackling Iago and sending him flying backward.
They went down hard together, grappling for control of the knife.
Iago had the strength of an ajaw-makol, but Brandt was desperate. He fought dirty, ditching his martial arts moves for the “fucking get it done” techniques he’d learned from Michael. He jammed his elbow in Iago’s windpipe, grabbed his knife hand, and twisted so hard he broke the fucker’s wrist. The Xibalban bellowed in pain and Brandt wrestled the knife from him, but the enemy mage got his other hand around Brandt’s neck and squeezed hard.
“Screw. You,” Brandt grated. He reversed the first-fire knife, which vibrated with trapped Nightkeeper magic, slashed it once across Iago’s throat, and then drove the blade into the Xibalban’s gut, angling high to slice through his diaphragm to his heart. As he did so, he started reciting the head-
and-heart spell, hoping to hell they were close enough to the moment of solstice that he would be able to banish the ajaw-makol .
Iago’s body arched and he gave a high, keening cry. Dark magic broke over them both, in a shock wave that was like being inside a thunderclap. Power surged as the Xibalban overrode the energy cost that normally prevented teleportation through rock.
’Port magic rattled and the bastard vanished.
In the sudden silence, Brandt knelt on the bloodstained stone, gripping the first-fire knife white-
knuckled.
Failure drummed through him. He had beaten Iago. But he hadn’t killed him.
“Son of a bitch!” Furious with Iago, with himself, he heaved the knife, which skittered across the stone floor and banged off the far wall.
“Brandt.” Patience’s voice brought his head up; the look on her face got him on his feet.
“What’s—” He broke off at the sight of Wood lying halfway across Hannah’s lap. The twins were glued to either side of Hannah, seeming unsure of whether they should pay attention to their parents or the winikin . Wood’s eyes were closed, his skin sickly pale. Patience was leaning over him with her hands overlapped, applying direct pressure to his upper chest.
Blood streamed between her fingers.
Oh. Shit.
Brandt stumbled over. “No. Oh, no. Please, no.” The whispered plea bled from his lips in a jumbled almost-prayer. He dropped down beside Woody, his knees cracking into the stone, and took his winikin’s hand. “Shit. Woody!”
The winikin stirred and cracked his eyes. “Is Iago gone?”
“Yeah.” Brandt had to work to get the word out. “He’s gone.”
Wood’s eyes went to Patience, then up to Hannah and each of the boys in turn. His expression eased slightly. “You’re all okay.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you.” Brandt gripped his hand, voice going thick. “Hang on.
We’ll get you to Sasha. She’ll take care of that scratch.”
So much blood.
The winikin met his eyes. “Remember how I always said that you should trust your instincts, that you’d know what to do when the time came? Well . . . it’s here.”
Brandt froze. The air left his lungs, left the universe. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I know. I always knew.” The winikin shifted painfully to put his forearm beside Brandt’s, so the eagle glyphs lined up and the warrior’s emblem matched up with the aj-winikin glyph. “I serve,” Woody said softly. “Not just because it’s my blood-bound duty, but because I love you, and because I believe that you’re what this world needs.”
“Oh,” Patience breathed, closing her eyes so they spilled tears.
Emotions thundered through Brandt: guilt, grief, remorse, regret . . . and an aching sorrow for the years they had lost, the sacrifices the winikin had made for him. The one he was prepared to make now.
When a warm, quivering body pressed against his side, he looked down into Harry’s face, suddenly seeing not just himself and Patience but also the parents and brothers he barely remembered. Yet at the same time, the features belonged entirely to the boy who slowly reached to touch his and Wood’s joined hands, linking three generations.
On Woody’s other side, Braden mirrored his brother, leaning against Patience and touching the place where her hands were locked over Woody’s wound. At the winikin’s head, Hannah’s single eye was awash, but her face was soft with acceptance. With, he thought, faith.
“Do it,” Woody whispered. “Retake your oath. And remember that I love each and every one of you, whether in this life or the next.”
Heart heavy, Brandt looped his free arm around Braden. Taking solace from the small, sturdy body, he whispered a brief, heartfelt prayer for his winikin’s next life, and then recited the oath that had been burned deep in his memory: “Kabal ku bootik teach a suut.”
He lifted his head to meet Patience’s tear-drenched eyes, and said, “As the gods once paid for my life out of the balance, now I repay that debt, three for one. A triad for the Triad.”
Pain seared the numb spot on his scarred leg. He didn’t look; he didn’t need to. He knew that he once again wore the Akbal glyph.
Wood’s breathing hitched, then hitched again. Brandt was peripherally aware of a clamor in the tunnel that rose as teammates arrived, bloody and battered but alive, then fell silent when they saw what was going on.
Sasha pushed through and knelt beside Woody, but after touching him for only a moment, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m too drained.”
“It’s okay. The sky is calling me,” Woody said with a soft smile, his eyes going faraway.
“Emmeline’s waiting. She looks just like I remembered.”
Brandt swallowed hard. “They couldn’t marry because they were both fully bound winikin, but they were lovers when their duties permitted. She died in the massacre.” And now Woody was seeing her.
Brandt didn’t know whether that was real or a trick of the mind. But as he watched Wood’s face soften, his breath slow, he hoped to hell it was real.
The winikin’s lips moved. Brandt leaned in to get closer. “What?”
“Two years and one day from now, when it’s all over, I want you and Patience to work on making the boys a little brother. Woodrow’s a good name. It should stay in the bloodline.”
“Yeah.” Brandt’s throat closed on the word. “You’re right. It should.”
He straightened away. Even before he saw Wood’s eyes go glazed, he knew his winikin was gone.
He knew it from the laxity of the winikin’s hand in his, from the sudden hollow emptiness in his soul .
. . and from the burn on his calf, which said that the Akbal glyph was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
But even as the Akbal magic faded, another spun up to take its place. A big fucking something that stirred atavistic horror deep inside him, even through the numbing grief.