“I’ve spent enough time dreaming.” I shifted a loose lock of Mother’s golden and gray hair behind her smooth round ear. “I want to stay here and know that I’m finally truly awake.”
In the last embers of firelight in the hearth, I could just make out Mother smiling, her head against the pillows stacked in a pile to support her back. “The past year. It all seems a dream to me.”
You don’t know the half of it.
Mother tapped the back of my hand with her free palm. “I wish you would tell me what’s bothering you.”
I did my best to smile and pulled my hand away so I could remove the rose from my hair. The petals crumbled nearly as soon as my fingers touched them. “I can’t explain, not tonight. You’re still weak, and it’s been a long, long day.”
“I’m feeling much better. Almost like I was never ill, just sleeping, and now I’m still getting used to the waking world.” She stretched her arms above her head. Her face glowed in the dying firelight, and I knew she wasn’t lying. “Do you know who healed me?”
I didn’t dare to guess, not aloud.
Mother clasped her hands together over her lap. “It was your man. The lord.”
I shook my head. “He’s not my man.”
Mother smiled. “So I hear. But he was unmasked. And quite handsome, I might say. Although rather strangely pale.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. “Not as pale as his servants.”
His “servants.” The shades of all of his former lives. I shuddered to think just how many there were and how many years he had spent alone in his castle, only the shadows of his past selves to keep him company. I was surprised he wasn’t driven completely mad. Or maybe he had been.
“No,” Mother laughed, but then she bit her lip and looked pensive for a moment. “Noll, when I awoke, I found the lord sitting where you are now, his hands held over my head.”
My instincts had been right; Ailill had finished healing my mother, even after all I’d done to him.
“There was a strange violet light shining everywhere. And then it was gone. I wasn’t sure if I was still dreaming, so I tried to touch his arm, but he pulled away. I said, ‘You’re our lord, aren’t you? You’re Noll’s man.’”
I leaned closer to my mother to hear his answer.
“But all he said was, ‘Rest now. You’re healed—I’ve given you all I had to heal you—but you still need rest.’”
I’ve given you all I had. His healing power was gone. He’d waited centuries for freedom, and his first act was to give up the last of his power. For me?
My mother continued. “I called after him as he headed for the door, two of those servants of his waiting to attend him. ‘Wait! Let me thank you!’”
Don’t go! Don’t …
“The servants and the lord stopped suddenly, but he wouldn’t face me. ‘No thanks are necessary,’ he said. ‘But I do have one request.’”
The lord’s words thundered through my mother’s mouth, his distaste as clear as if he were next to me: “‘Leave me be,’ he said. ‘Instruct all the village to leave me be. Send no women, send no men. My servants will come to the village for what is needed.’”
Stay away. The little boy trembling in the garden, a black shawl around his head. The veil, the veil … always the veil between us.
Mother shrugged. “And then he was gone. Gideon told me he and his servants jumped into the black carriage that brought them here and were gone into the woods before he could even ask how he had healed me.”
I’d listened to Mother’s story without comment, mashing my tongue into my teeth when I heard of the lord’s break from me. Those final words were meant for me, I was certain. He said to stay away so I would leave him be. I’d have to. It was the least I could do, after what I put him through.
Mother wrung her hands in her lap. “What happened between you two?”
“I … ” I fumbled with the decaying rose petals in my hands. “I don’t even know where to start.” Or if I could ever explain all that happened.
“Well,” said Mother, as she grabbed my hand in hers again. The petals fell to the ground, disappearing into the darkness at my feet. “May the first goddess watch over you and give you courage. You can tell me when you’re ready.”
I did my best to smile. “All right.” I didn’t think that day would ever come. Not if I had to rely on “the first goddess” to give me anything.
My eyes were just beginning to close when a pounding echoed across the house from the door, and I nearly fell out of my chair in fright. I jumped, my feet planted on the ground, my hands reaching desperately to pull it open. Who could it be at this time of night?
“Noll?” I heard Mother say. Father, Elfriede, Jurij, and Arrow stirred as the noise grew louder and louder, but I paid them all no mind. The door swung open, my hand clutching the handle, although I couldn’t remember opening it so wide.