Free Once Every Never by Lesley Livingston

hand.
    “Aye.” Llassar nodded, one corner of his wide mouth quirking up beneath the red tangle of his beard. “There is.”
    Connal’s eyes snapped up. “Blood magic?”
    Clare looked at the red dot on her fingertip and shivered. Blood?
    Llassar nodded, but his expression was troubled. “The queen would have it so. She worries about the girl. She wanted a strong talisman for her. For my part, I do not wish for her to need such protection. But she has a point—Andrasta’s path is not an easy one to tread.”
    “No, Llassar, it isn’t. But it is a good one.” Clare heard uncertainty in his voice. But then he smiled and handed back the brooch. “Your skills as both a master smith and a master Druid are beyond compare.”
    He’s a Druid? Clare thought. What’s a Druid? Wait. Al said something about mystical visions and Druids … Clare had always thought of Druids as sorcerers or ancient holy men. Wizards. Okay—who was she kidding—she’d never thought of Druids in her life before. She had no concept of them beyond a vague, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings sort of mental picture. Or maybe Merlin. Old dudes with beards and pointy hats. Llassar the smith wasn’t that old, but he certainly had the beard happening. She couldn’t see hats of any description anywhere, though.
    From under the shadows of his heavy brow, Llassar’s eyes gleamed. “Well, from one Druid to another, let me tell you this: I heard Andrasta’s voice in the fire, Connal.”
    Wait. What? The young hot guy is a wizard, too? Clare drastically reconsidered her stereotype.
    Connal’s dark eyes glinted in the light of the forge. “She spoke to you?”
    “And more. Just now I felt a presence … guiding me …” Clare felt herself blushing, thoroughly embarrassed that Llassar should think so. She really hoped she hadn’t pissed off some kind of higher power with her goddess impersonation. “Just trying to help,” she whispered.
    Connal’s head snapped up.
    Clare held her breath as he turned his head slightly, his eyes narrowing as his gaze swung in her direction.
    No way , Clare thought, panicked. Dude—you couldn’t hear me when I was yelling like a maniac on the riverbank!
    He drew his sword so quickly that Clare jumped, jamming her shoulder painfully up against a wooden shelf holding hammers of assorted sizes. Llassar’s eyes went wide at the sight of the rattling tools. Clare stiffened in alarm as Connal moved cautiously around from the other side of the workbench, sword held at the ready, firelight gleaming on the blade.
    The warrior moved like a panther, mesmerizing and deadly. He was barely six feet away now and Clare had nowhere else to go. Connal’s eyes scanned what to him was empty space as if trying to peer through heavy fog.
    Another step.
    Behind him, the big Druid smith had gone uncannily still, watching Connal as he swept the air in front of him with his blade. Clare tried desperately to reach inside of herself for that tingling, sparking sensation that told her she was on her way back to her own world. Nothing. She didn’t even know what it was , exactly, that caused her to shift back and forth, but she knew now with a sinking feeling that it wasn’t anything she had control over. She’d been so stupid to try this again. What had she been thinking? She was cornered and about to have her invisible self run through by a very visible sword.
    This has got to be a nightmare , she thought wildly. But she knew it wasn’t. As Connal took another step forward she closed her eyes tightly and wondered what that cold iron blade would feel like when it sliced into her.
    Then she heard a great, flapping, shrieking commotion. Clare’s eyes flew open as an enormous, screeching raven suddenly burst through the leather curtain covering the window and beat its wings against the hot, thick air of the hut. Llassar and Connal dove for cover as the creature skreeled in fury and swooped in tight circles above their heads, firelight