A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 19

B riar woke to a missed call and text message from Rowan.

Just checking in. How are you feeling?

His heart tripped and sank. Rowan used to sign his texts with three kisses.

He almost flopped back into bed to weep, but he needed to eat so he could take his potion. Vatii, perched on the headboard, took her head out from under her wing and followed him into the kitchen. He heated another container of Christmas dinner. While the microwave hummed, he looked at the enchanted ribbon from Linden on his desk lamp; it still shone with the runes keeping Gretchen at bay. Briar wasn’t ready to reconcile with her, but calling Niamh couldn’t wait any longer. He needed to know what was going on in Coill Darragh in regard to his curse, Gretchen’s death, the forest’s involvement, and Rowan’s peculiar connection to it.

There was something else he wanted to ask Niamh, too.

The microwave dinged. He retrieved his leftovers and tucked in. Even reheated, the smell pulled him through a tide of memory. Jostled between Rowan and little Ciara at a table sagging under the weight of its feast. Looks exchanged across the room like love notes passed in secret. Little more than a day since then, but it felt like an age. The moment in the hospital had carved a gulf between then and now.

He texted Rowan back a quick, Feeling better today. Thank you for the food, it’s helped like magic.

Sending it without the xxx on the end felt like a lie of omission.

Pushing aside his empty container, he filled a bowl with water and took it to the kitchen table. Then he fetched the packet he’d stowed in his tithe belt, the pollen inside like fine grains of sand.

This tiny portion cost him everything he’d earned knitting custom mittens for an entire family.

The ghost orchid pollen caused hardly a ripple as he poured it in. As before, the water turned metallic blue, and he hovered over it, picturing Niamh. Her dark clothes and graying hair. The sharp scrape of a knife sharpened on a whetstone and potpourri smell of her aura.

The water rippled, Niamh’s face resolving within, wavering so badly that her features warped.

“Is—Briar I see?”

“Niamh! I have to ask you something—”

Her response came through garbled. Anxiously, Briar wondered if the apothecary had underestimated the amount of pollen needed for the spell. He called Niamh’s name while the bowl vibrated on the table, then it stopped, the surface turning placid as a lake. Niamh’s hand retracted as the grains of pollen tumbled from her fingers into the scrying bowl on her side. Briar’s vision narrowed. The chair he sat in seemed to tip forward and dump him into the bowl, his flat falling away, replaced instead by the rough-hewn furniture and esoteric incense of Niamh’s shop in Wishbrooke. Her familiar—a leathery black bat—hung from the curtain rail and twitched its ears. Briar couldn’t be there physically, but the more powerful tithe had strengthened the connection to such effect that he might as well have been.

“That’s better,” Niamh said. She shuffled a pack of weathered tarot cards with split corners. “Had a feeling I’d be hearing from you. You showed up in my dream, bawling about only having a few months to live.”

Briar said, “It’s true.”

“You were also a lizard in the dream.”

“Well, not that part,” Briar said, annoyed.

Rearranging her skirts, Niamh sat across from him. “Let’s do a reading for you. That should sort it out. It will cost your silence again, but that’s old hat by now.”

“I don’t have time for—I need to ask you about what happened in Coill Darragh ten years ago. With éibhear, and Gretchen, and the invaders, whoever they were, and—”

“Ah sure, nasty business. But you already know as much as I do about it, I can tell you that.”

Briar’s hopes floundered. “You must know more. What the invaders came for, what happened to Gretchen.”

“All that’s for you to find out. Shuffle the cards.”

“But you’re a seer!” His skull felt like it could crack. “You’re meant to see things, know things. You told me I’d find success here, and now I’ve got a few months to live.”

“I see you’re still sharp as a tack with some things and thick as a plank with others. The Sight doesn’t make me omniscient. It doesn’t work like that. Now, shuffle.”

“But—”

“Shuffle!”

She pushed the deck toward him. Frustration caught in Briar’s throat like a snared thread. He’d been so certain Niamh would know more than he’d managed to ascertain so far. All that effort to contact her, and all she’d give him was a tarot reading and some flaky nonsense about how The Sight Doesn’t Work Like That.

He took the deck and found he could feel the cards’ worn backs. He shuffled, uncertain if the act was a figment of his imagination or magic, but he could feel the toll of silence wending around his throat. Niamh took the deck from him, licked a finger to peel the first from the top, and laid it out, then another. She assembled a spread, two cards atop each other, and two columns of three beneath.

She flipped the first, bowing its surface so it snapped flat.

The Ten of Swords. It depicted a man lying prone with ten swords stuck through his back like the world’s saddest pin cushion.

“That’s you,” said Niamh.

“Great.”

“Things appear bleak. You’re pinned under the weight of your ambitions and the relentless passage of time. There’s also a sense of betrayal.”

Briar folded his arms across his chest. Yes. He felt betrayed. He was meant to have years .

“Knowledge and truth are the only means by which you might free yourself from despair,” Niamh said.

“Which is why I’m here —”

She hushed him and flipped the next card. The Lovers. Briar cringed.

“You’ve come to a crossroads,” Niamh said. “A choice is before you. It comes down to more than love, but life, too. Of embarking on a journey or remaining home. Who you choose to take with you will shape your fate.”

She turned over the two cards below. On the left, the Six of Pentacles depicted a man distributing coins to people on bended knee. On the right, the Knight of Cups serenely offered a bountiful, golden chalice.

“Hm,” said Niamh. “The Six of Pentacles tells us an influential figure with wealth and power will present you with extravagant gifts, while the Knight of Cups offers humbler comforts and emotional fulfillment.”

Briar thought those sounded a bit on the nose.

“The cards beneath will reveal what each can give you, and what it will cost.”

She flipped the two cards beneath the Six of Pentacles first, revealing Temperance and the Three of Swords. On the first, an angel stood with one foot in a stream, balancing water between two cups. On the second, a heart was stabbed through with three blades.

Niamh scowled, eyebrow raised. “In undertaking a journey with this influential figure, you’ll find balance and healing. Great wrongs will be brought to rights, harmony restored to you and those close to you. A river of health and fortitude will flow through you, reinvigorating you after this painful journey. However… it will cost you in love. It will break your heart.”

Briar nearly screamed. “So I’ll have harmony and health, but I’ll be heartbroken about it?”

“No need to take that tone. The other cards might be more illuminating.” She flipped the last two underneath the Knight of Cups. Briar’s heart leapt into his throat. The first was the Two of Cups, the second was—

“Death,” said Niamh.

“But that just means change, doesn’t it?” He’d paid some attention to Niamh’s teachings.

“No,” she murmured. “In this case, I believe it means what it says on the tin.”

The weight of Briar’s curse felt leaden and physical. “And not in the ‘we all die eventually,’ long-term, tricky word-play sense?”

“No… I’m afraid it will come much sooner than that.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it or anything.”

“You came for answers. Here they are.” She tapped the Two of Cups. “With your humble man, you will find a heart that can hold yours. A soul divinely paired to your own. True—”

“Don’t say it.”

“True love.”

Briar’s gaze stuck to the card beneath, where a skeletal rider on a pale horse grinned back at him. “But I’ll die.”

Niamh spread her hands above the cards, the many faces of which stared dispassionately at Briar. “Yes,” she said. “You’ll die.”

It hurt. It confirmed every instinct that had told Briar to keep away from Rowan, but still it hurt. He bit back the vinegary sting, the lump of things he couldn’t say lodged in his throat. “So I can choose to live or love. Not both.”

Niamh considered Briar across the table. She’d never been the nurturing sort. Cudgel blunt and sensitive as an iron maiden. He didn’t expect to see the sympathy brimming in her eyes. “I’d say it’s a sight more complicated, but yes. These are your choices.”

Her face began to blur. Mortified, Briar swiped at his eyes, thinking he’d let himself cry. He hadn’t, though. The SoothSight spell wore thin.

“It’s time you went and met that destiny of yours, Briar,” Niamh said, her voice distant yet sonorous. “I’m sure as anything I’ll be seeing you soon.”

Then the real world grabbed Briar by the scruff and pulled. Niamh’s desk melted away. He heard the caw of birds as he slammed back in his chair. It rocked hard enough he nearly tipped over. Vatii, the source of all the screeching, regarded him with beady concern.

“You started shaking something awful,” she said.

He felt awful. While scrying, his symptoms had been distant. Now they swarmed in. Holding his head, he went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard reserved for all his potions, unstopping one and draining it. Connor had said to take them whenever his symptoms worsened, but the current dosage should have been enough. He’d taken one that morning—

He looked out the window, the sun blearily high in the sky.

“You were gone a long time,” Vatii said. “I was afraid to call you back.

It must have been important. What did Niamh tell you?”

The impotence of his answer drained him. “Nothing good.”

Vatii commiserated over the cryptic content of Niamh’s reading. It hadn’t illuminated anything about the mysteries of Coill Darragh, but at least it put one theory to bed. The man from her initial vision had to be Linden. Rowan, according to Niamh, would only bring a swift death.

Briar didn’t want to think too long or hard about his love life, so he returned to the trusted method he’d always employed when he didn’t know what to do with himself: his vision board.

Reviewing the goals he’d listed upon arriving in Coill Darragh had a sobering effect. He’d accomplished most. He’d brewed Diarmuid his potion, made amends with Maebh, knitted a scarf for Rowan. He’d created a number of garments and sold them. Even, he liked to think, made many clients happy. He recalled the woman he’d knitted mittens for holding the small ones for her children. “The kids’ll outgrow them in no time, but maybe they can give them to their kids.” It touched him to think he could make something that became a family heirloom.

Now, as he pulled out a purple card to write his goals on, the first thing that came to mind was, Don’t die.

Composing himself, he came up with something to redirect his focus.

1. Create a collection that leaves my mark on the world. 2. Uncover the secrets in Coill Darragh. 3. Free Gretchen. 4. Find a cure for my curse and free Rowan from his.

He pinned it between sketches of tailored jackets and trailing gowns, teacup dresses and pantsuits. Ideas Linden had overhauled, but Briar liked his own versions enough to keep them. For later, he told himself.

There might not be a later.

A knock interrupted his brooding. Vatii, who’d been helpfully picking up Linden’s sketches from the desk and chucking them on the floor, flew to the window.

“It’s Rowan,” she said.

A blend of relief and trepidation came over him. Rowan, dressed in a winter coat and—still, even after everything—the scarf Briar made him, smiled with equal relief when Briar opened the door. Since the trip to hospital, they hadn’t seen one another. Briar wondered if he’d wrecked everything they had, if the leftover food had been a bit of charity due to his worsening health.

“Briar. I came to check in, see if you’re all right.” He looked nervous. “How are you?”

“Bit better. Thank you for the leftovers. They really helped.”

Rowan held up another plastic bag. “I brought more. Well, not Christmas dinner.”

In the wash of winter air coming in, Briar shivered. Rowan kicked snow off his boots and shuffled inside. He set the bag on the counter next to the till.

“Thank you,” Briar said again. “I haven’t been able to cook. You don’t have to do this, though. Especially not after I, well—”

“Ah, Briar.” Rowan held up a hand to hush him. “We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

The hook in Briar’s heart twisted. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Good. You look good. I mean—I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I am.”

“Good. And taking it easy, like?”

“Yep. Getting loads of beauty rest.”

“Good.” He’d said “good” a lot and seemed to know it. He frowned. The anxious fidgeting that had marked his discomfort in éibhear’s office returned. “I’ve something to show you.” From his pocket, he pulled something spherical, along with something smaller that glinted gold. Perhaps a coin, as he quickly put it back in his pocket. He held the first item in his open palm. It looked like a soap bubble made of semitransparent obsidian. Inside, violet-and-ruby smoke undulated in a storm. Briar took an involuntary step back from it. It had an insidious aura—polluted like rusty water from a groaning tap. He hadn’t noticed at first because Rowan’s aura dominated.

“What is it?” Rowan asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s disgusting. Where did you get it?”

“Mam had a key for the drawer in Da’s office. This was inside. Drawer was marked with runes. Look.”

He showed Briar a photo on his phone of the inside of the drawer. A chain of black runes bisected the bottom and sides—rune wards. Not as powerful as the wards protecting Coill Darragh, but they would protect the thing in the drawer. Or contain it.

Briar said, “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think that thing is evil, and we shouldn’t be touching it.”

Rowan’s brows rose. He looked at the sphere in his open palm like it might sting. “What should we do with it?”

Suppressing a gag, Briar took a fabric scrap from the counter to wrap it in. “Let’s set up the same containment in one of my drawers. I want to know what it is, and why your dad had it.”

Briar led the way upstairs. He’d forgotten, until seeing his larger bed and Rowan’s ever-rising eyebrows, that the flat looked much different from before. He set the cloth-bound sphere on the desk and emptied a drawer of its contents.

“Linden’s been helping me while I’ve been ill,” he said by way of explanation about the bed.

“I see,” said Rowan.

“You sound surprised. You don’t like him?”

“He’s very… posh,” Rowan said neutrally.

Briar studied him. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A selfish part of him hoped for jealousy to mark that his feelings were reciprocated even if circumstances prevented him from acting upon them. Instead, Rowan looked conflicted and confused. He shoved his hands in his pockets and resumed fidgeting.

Vatii flapped over to greet Rowan, walking along his shoulder to sidle up to his beard, the traitor.

Briar set to work replicating the runes from éibhear’s drawer. He worked by lamplight, with Rowan’s phone on the desk showing the photo for reference. The silence was filled only with the scratch of charcoal on wood.

Rowan’s phone buzzed. A quick notification slid a text from Sorcha across the screen.

Have you told him yet???

Briar’s heart knocked hard against his sternum. He returned to the drawer and pretended he hadn’t seen it, but the words stuck in his head. Did she mean the magic sphere? It wasn’t the first idea that sprang to mind. The first idea made him heavy with hope and hurt both. He wished he could lock up his feelings with the same ease he would this magic bauble.

“Finished.”

He put the sphere in the drawer and touched the pads of his fingers to the rune chain. Unthinking, he cast the spell, taking tithes from the natural wood of the drawer. He had not considered that, in his state, it would drain him too much. A wave of dizziness turned the room to runny watercolors, and he swayed.

Rowan caught him. He’d moved quickly, Vatii exploding off his shoulder, and Briar found himself cradled in strong arms that carried him to the bed.

“I’m fine.”

“Briar.”

“It’s nothing, really! I just forgot, spells can be tiring.”

Brow creased, Rowan looked over at the drawer. “Then you should rest.”

Briar didn’t argue. He lay down and watched Rowan close the drawer with the sphere inside, then put the food he’d brought in the fridge. He paused, hovering halfway between Briar and the door, uncertain how best to say goodbye. It occurred to Briar that Rowan struggled to express himself with words. Where before he could kiss Briar, now he didn’t know what to do.

Briar tried to help, his bed already making his eyelids leaden. “Will you come by again tomorrow?”

Rowan’s shoulders sagged. “I will, yeah.”