And Keegan cast his eyes to the sky. “And this is what the gods give me to work with. Pick up the sword. I trust you remember which end is which.”

“You stick them with the pointy end.”

He actually smiled. “I read that story. Arya was but a child and learned fast and well. You’re a woman grown. Come now, stick me with the pointy end.”

She tried. He blocked without moving his body an inch, and she felt the sting in her belly as he stabbed her.

“Try again.”

This time the sting in her shoulder told her she’d have lost an arm.

“Balance your weight,” Morena called out from her perch on the paddock fence.

Keegan’s duster hung over the rail beside her.

“Quiet, you.” He pointed the sword at Morena, then turned back to Breen. “Again.”

“Feck it all, Keegan, she’s just beginning. Ease up a bit.”

“Just beginning and dead twice over. Again.”

So it went. Mortal wound after mortal wound until her whole body felt the stings.

“Bloody bully! Put your shoulder into it, Breen. Block the bastard.”

She tried. Sweat dripped into her eyes, ran down her aching back, but she tried. She managed to block a blow that might have decapitated her, felt the slap of blade to blade scream up her arm.

“I need to—”

“Block!” He snarled it at her. “If you can do nothing else, block.”

But her sword slid weakly down his, and he killed her again.

Standing hard against her, not winded in the least while her breath whistled, he gripped her wrist.

“Hold the damn sword, you’ve muscle enough. And use your feet, for fuck’s sake, and your head before you lose it. I mean to kill you, that’s all you need to know. I want your death.” He slapped her sword with his, again and again. “Fight to take mine.”

He drove her back, back until she had to use both hands to hold the sword. “Strike out!”

She swung, and his block had the sword spinning out of her sweaty hands. Her legs wobbled, and he finished her off with a shove.

“You’re not training but badgering and bullying.” Incensed, Morena stomped over to retrieve Breen’s sword. “It’s no fair fight, and you know it.”

He rounded on Morena so they stood—both armed and toe to toe. And both spewing temper.

“There’s no fair fight in battle, and you know it. Do you want her alive or dead? For dead she’ll be if this is the best she has. For she’s useless with a sword and nearly as bad with her fists.”

He wrenched the sword from Morena, tossed it down beside Breen. “Pick it up, get on your feet, and try again.”

“I’m not useless.”

“Prove it then, if you’ve the belly for it. Take up the sword. Fight, or die.”

She hurt, everywhere, but that was nothing compared to the rage that flooded into her.

She was not useless.

“Die then,” he said, and strode toward her, sword poised for the killing blow.

She threw her hand out, threw the rage with it. And the rage had heat, a burning that seared through her, boiled out of her.

It shot him into the air and back a solid ten feet before he struck the paddock fence, snapping wood as the force sent him tumbling through.

For a moment, Morena froze, eyes wide. “Stop. Stop now, Breen,” she said before she raced to Keegan.

He sat up, waved her off. And looked over at Breen with a kind of dark satisfaction. “Well then, somebody’s waking up at last.”

Breen pressed her shaking hand to the ground. It vibrated still inside her, that shocking spurt of power.

“I didn’t mean . . .”

“You should.” Keegan got to his feet. “You should mean whatever it takes to send the enemy down rather than yourself.”

“Your nose is bleeding.”

Carelessly he swiped a hand under it. “As it has before, will again. Pick up the sword, get up.”

“She’s shaken yet, Keegan. Gods, so am I. Let her be.”

“It’s still in her. I can see it.” Crouching by Breen, he gripped her chin. “Just as you feel it. You’ll use it. We’ll work to focus it, to channel it, to control it, so it comes and goes at your will.”

His eyes—so intense—glowed into Breen’s. And in them she saw pleasure and approval.

“This is what you wanted,” she realized.

“Aye, it’s what’s needed. Morena, go hold Harken off, as he’s racing out of the stables as if they were on fire. And have him do the same with Aisling and Mahon. Tell them all we’re fine here.

“On your feet.” He gripped Breen’s arm, pulled her up. “As now true training begins.”

Appalled, at him, herself, at everything, she tried to shake him off. “You did that on purpose, goaded me, slapped at me.”

“And it took far too long for results. You’re a slow burn, Breen Siobhan, but you’ve hellfire when it finally lights. Now we’ll use it.”

“I don’t want . . .” Not true, she realized as he simply stood, the iron grip on her arm, and waited. However terrifying, she did want whatever had exploded in her, out of her. Because it had been glorious, too.

“I didn’t do it on purpose. I didn’t control it, and I could’ve done worse than a nosebleed.”

“All true enough, and so I’ll help you. I’ll help you,” he repeated, and for the first time his words didn’t bite or sting. “I’ve some in me, as I’m of the Wise, but I’ve no god’s blood, so you’ve more. Your father had the same, and when my own died, he took up my training, and he stood for me as a father would.”

Pausing, he looked around, the fields, the paddocks, the house of sturdy stone. “This farm is yours by birthright.”

“No. I’d never—”

He flicked her a baleful glance. “I didn’t say, and wouldn’t, you’ll have it back again. Eian gave it to my family because he knew we would tend it as he would, and so we have. But what I do with you, I do for him. I do for Talamh. I do for the light.

“Will you do less? Will you be less?”

“I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know what I’ll be. But it won’t be less. I’m never going back to less.”

“Then pick up your sword. The day’s wasting.”

She picked up the sword. “Don’t piss me off like that again.”

He only grinned. “I’ve defenses of my own. I haven’t given you a taste yet.”

He gave her a few, and though she didn’t like the flavor, she learned, at least a little. When an enemy had the power to spin the wind, you spin with it, use the momentum to gather speed, and strike back. When you fall down, get the hell up before you’re impaled.

She didn’t have to like the lessons to learn them.

“I have to stop. I have to go. It’s nearly dusk.”

“Battles don’t stop when the sun sleeps.”

Did he never get tired? she wondered.

“I need to go back through. I don’t want to walk nearly a mile through the woods in the dark.”

“Pixies will light your way if you ask, but you have the means for it yourself.”

“I didn’t think to stash a flashlight on the other side.” Which wasn’t a bad idea. “And I’m not stumbling through the woods with a candle or lantern.”

“Bring your light.”

“What light?”

The sharp slide of his sword into its sheath sounded of impatience. “Give me your hand.”

“Why?”

“Ah, women.” He grabbed it, turned it palm up. “You know how to bring fire.”

“Yes, but—”

“Fire’s not only flame, and even that can be cold as well as hot—as you will. Fire is light. As you can bring the fire, you can bring the light. Draw it up. The roots are in you; draw, from the roots, the light, cool and bright. Draw it up, see it, a sphere, a ball, a globe, in the palm of your hand.”

There was amber in his eyes, she realized. Like light. Flecks of light in the sea of green.

“I’ve never—”

“Focus on the light, within, without. See it, feel it, know it. Cool in your hand, white, pure, a globe formed from your light, by your will.”

It flickered. She nearly lost her focus in surprised joy, but his fingers tightened on her wrist.

“Hold it, strengthen it. Bring it.”

And she did. She held a ball of white light in her hand with his wrapped on her wrist. She looked up at him, the light shining in her hand, in her heart, in her eyes.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Enough to light your way.”

He released her wrist, stepped back. “Your focus is slow and apt to fracture. You’ll be working on that. Come back tomorrow.”

He took her sword, swept his duster off the rail, then started toward the house.

“Thank you.”

Turning, he just stared at her a moment, a man with a sword at his side, another in his hand with the quieting sunlight washed over him.

“You’re welcome then.”

She called her dog, wound her way toward the gate while she admired the light in her hand.

Morena caught up with her. “I was going to light you home, as it grows darker in the woods as dusk comes.”

“Exactly. Look what I did!”

“Very pretty. I’ll have a walk with you, else Harken will pull me into the evening milking.”

“Walk to the cottage and have a glass of wine with me to celebrate my surviving another day.”

“I’ll take the wine, and happily. But you did more than survive this day.”

“Scared the crap out of myself.”

Bollocks bounded up the steps and through the tree ahead of them. In the woods on the other side, the light glowed.

“And me as well. You looked so fierce and furious, and the crack of power set my ears ringing. Jaysus, he flew, didn’t he?” Laughing, Morena tossed her hand, scattered pretty sparks of light. “A bird in a gale, he was. I love him like a brother, and for a moment I feared for him. But since he got no more than his nose bloodied, I’ll say he well deserved the flight.”