"So I could see," Lyall responded. "But don't worry, I wouldn't leave you in the water."
Brianna punched him lightly on the arm. "You'd better not," she warned.
Lyall just laughed and put his arms around her waist and kissed her.
She lay on top of him and could feel the immediate response in his body when she kissed him back. And the response in her own, a tingling between her legs and a slight twinge. So it had hurt. Just a little though, not enough to stop her doing it again.
Lyall however, must have seen something in her face, for he said, "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Brianna replied, lest he think the minor irritation enough reason to stop.
Lyall still hesitated, so she bent her head to his and kissed him. He groaned softly against her lips, and his hand slid down, sliding between her legs. Brianna gasped at the feelings his gentle fingers evoked, then jumped as they grazed a more tender spot.
Lyall pulled back and frowned. "It did hurt, didn't it?"
"Only a little," Brianna admitted, "but I didn't notice until after. It's not that bad, you don't have to stop."
Lyall stared at her for a moment, then to Brianna's chagrin, he laughed. "Anna, you sweet darling. We don't have to stop. You forget that you're with a mage. I can heal you!"
Then Brianna did feel stupid. "Oh," she said in a small voice. Then she laughed too. "That is probably a good idea."
Lyall rolled her gently over so that she was lying beside him and slid his fingers between her legs again. This time she recognised the tingle of magic, a little like the day he had changed her face, back in the city. It was silly feeling strange about it , since she was here on this island full of mages and had, indeed, been trying to do magic herself. But she did nonetheless.
So to distract herself, she asked, "So how does using magic to heal, work? What can you heal?"
Lyall considered that for a moment, and Brianna tried to ignore the fact that his fingers seemed to have finished their magic and were exploring again, sending delicious shivers through her body. "Magic can heal pretty much anything, if the mage is powerful enough. There are rumours that even death can be healed, though no confirmed reports."
The idea was unbelievable. And Brianna would have liked to give it more thought. Later. Some time when Lyall's finger wasn't making slow circles between her legs. She was about to surrender the idea, when something occurred to her. "But what about your mother? Can't she be healed?"
Lyall's hand stopped its movement, and she almost wished she had kept the question to herself. He frowned. "There is one limit to magical healing. It can heal anything except damage that has been done by magic," he said, his voice tight.
Brianna was tempted to leave it. Obviously the topic was painful for him, and she really had no business pressing the question. But the idea that someone had done that to his mother left her feeling like she should know. "Why would someone do that?" she asked quietly.
"Jealousy," Lyall said shortly. Then he sighed. "It's a long story and it happened when I was just a baby. My father, well, he'd been involved with someone before my mother. A very powerful mage. Everyone thought they would marry, but at the last minute, he pulled out. He saw something in her, a darkness, and despite her power and what it meant for him, he couldn't live with her. She disappeared, and he met and married my mother, and I was born. Then one day out of the blue, she reappeared..." he trailed off, and Brianna didn't need to know the details.
"What happened to her?" she asked quietly. "The other mage, I mean?"
Lyall shrugged. "She was arrested and thrown in the dungeon. Powerful as she was, enough mages working together could overcome her. As far as I know, she's still there. We don't talk about it."
Brianna could see why. She shivered, despite the heat of the sun. Somehow, the mood of the afternoon had been spoiled, and even Lyall's nakedness didn't inspire her to passion.
Lyall seemed similarly put off, because he said after a pause, "I'm hungry, do you want to have something to eat?" And Brianna was more than happy to go along with his change of subject.
Trolls poured over the ridge. Brianna could hear the guttural cries, could see the sun glinting off their swords. She screamed a warning to the warriors waiting in the pass. They had no idea what was coming.
But they didn't hear her. Just sat there, one sharpening his sword, yawning and the other cleaning under his fingernails with a knife.
They recovered quickly and fought valiantly, but they never stood a chance, the numbers were too great, greater than any Brianna had seen before. The warriors were overcome in minutes. Brianna could only hope that the runner, an eleven year old boy who had jumped on his horse and fled at the first sign of the trolls, had time to warn the village.
She had never seen an attack this big. So many trolls. How could the village ever hope to repel this force?
Rapidly, she moved through the air, her stomach turning until she was over Eryvale. Warriors fought, wives fought, even older children picked up swords as their elders fell.
Slowly, pushing the villagers back, the trolls advanced on the graveyard.
Why? What did they want there? Why were they ignoring the houses, the inn, the tavern, the areas they usually raided, in favour of an area that held nothing of value?
They pushed on relentlessly and new bodies joined the already dead, sprawled over gravestones, their blood staining the grass. A troll swung his club at the crypt in the middle of the graveyard, a monument centuries old with ornate twin statues at the door.
The marble shattered and he stepped inside. There was no one left to protest his entrance, and Brianna's angry scream didn't even register.
A moment later, he strode back out, something in his hand. He hoisted it triumphantly in the air with a cry of victory that sent shivers down Brianna's spine. The trolls around him lifted their weapons and joined him in his cry.
Then they headed back to the pass, attacking anyone between them and the ridge.
Brianna's heart was in her mouth as her mother stepped into their path, yelling a war cry. She watched in horror as a troll swung his sword at her mother's head. She screamed, the silent sound echoing around inside her head. She couldn't look.
Nor could she turn away as her mother's body slumped in the dirt. Mianna screamed and raced forwards, throwing herself to her knees in front of the troll, clutching at her mother's body.
"Get up!" Brianna screamed. "You have to get out of there." Mianna had never excelled at sword fighting, though she had the same training as Brianna. She didn't stand a chance against a troll.
The troll smirked. He didn't even bother to rush. He lifted his sword and uttered one guttural word.
Before he could bring it down on Mianna, her twin sister picked up their mother's sword, and with a battle cry Brianna would have be proud of, she swung it up and buried it deep into the trolls throat.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he still looked surprised as his huge body tumbled backwards. Blood dripped off the sword still in Mianna's hands, and her sister's eyes held murder. She screamed loudly and ran towards the next troll.
She killed two more as they retreated over the ridge, then slumped in a heap, exhausted. Terion caught her. She looked up at the sky, grief streaking her face. "Brianna, come home."
"Mia," the cry left Brianna's mouth, and she sat bolt upright in the narrow bed on Lyall's yacht.
"Brianna?" Lyall's voice was sleepy.
How did she get here? Was any of what she had just seen real? Shudders wracked her body, and tears ran down her face.
Lyall sat up, his face was concerned and laid a hand on her arm. "Are you all right?"
"I..." Brianna shook her head. "I had a bad dream. I think." Surely it was just a dream? Another shudder shook her.
"That must have been some dream. You shouted very loudly. Who's Mia?"
The memory of Mia's voice, asking her to come home, tore at her heart. Brianna threw back the covers. "I have to go home."
"Sure," Lyall said readily, though his face still registered confusion. "I'll pull up anchor, and we'll head back to the palace."
"No, not the palace, my village. Something happened. They're all dead." The memory of the sheer number of bodies haunted her. Panic and guilt swirled through her. She should have been there. She could have protected Mia, maybe saved her mother's life.
"But it was just a dream, Brianna," Lyall said softly. "Wasn't it?"
"I... I don't know." It had seemed so real. Was it? Or had it just been a dream? There was only one way to find out. "I have to go home and see."
The lines on Lyall's forehead deepened. He stared at her for a moment, then he nodded once. "I'll come with you. If everything is as bad as you fear, then I can help. And if it isn't, well, I'd love the chance to meet your family."