Compelled, I feel for the scars Lonnrach left on me. But when I trace my fingertips down my wrist, I find only smooth, unmarked skin. A blank slate. My scars are like Aithinne’s now: down in the darkest parts of me, hidden from view. Some scars go more than skin deep.
I’ll never forget being that helpless.
My gaze takes in the other beds, the fifteen other people there. Kiaran’s discarded victims. I have to swallow back the bile in my throat.
Are you still you?
I don’t know.
I flinch, unable to look at them anymore. “What are you doing in here?” I ask Catherine, my voice low. As if those people could hear me. As if they weren’t so far gone they were beyond caring. “You should be asleep.”
Catherine wrings out the cloth and presses it to the woman’s forehead. “I don’t sleep much anymore. Not since the pixie kingdom was destroyed.”
I put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Catherine has been my best friend since we were children; we grew up together. While Lonnrach kept me prisoner, she took care of the surviving humans. She’s stronger than I had ever given her credit for.
She smiles at me gently, but I don’t smile back.
I think about everything she’s been through. She watched as the fae slaughtered people she loved. Then she tried to create a home in the pixie kingdom, until the fae came and destroyed that, too.
My fault. The guilt I experienced when Derrick first said my name comes rushing back. The same overwhelming sense of responsibility for every damn thing that’s happened. As if it were a physical weight pressing down on my shoulders and growing heavier with each passing moment.
“Stop it,” Catherine snaps, as if she reads my mind. “Stop blaming yourself. You think I don’t see it? You look at me like I’m a burden. Like we all are.”
“You’re not a burden,” I say. “Not ever.” You’re stronger than I am.
Catherine pulls away from me. “I don’t believe you. You’ve managed to convince yourself that every terrible thing is your fault. And it’s absolute bollocks.”
She always manages to see right through me. Even when I hid being a Falconer from her, she still knew something was wrong. “Bad habit,” I murmur.
“The worst,” she agrees.
My laugh is low, forced. “You know those stories where the lone hero saves the world?” I ask. “Do you ever notice that they don’t talk about what happens if the hero fails?”
Catherine looks impatient. “That’s where it began, wasn’t it? Thinking it was your duty to protect us all.” She shakes her head. “We’re not your responsibility, Aileana. This world isn’t your burden. It belongs to all of us.” She gestures to the beds in the room. “Even them.”
All I can do is stare at Catherine, watching how she dips the cloth in the water and presses it to the woman’s face again. “Is this you doing your part?” I ask.
Catherine looks startled by the question. “I suppose. I come here every morning and spend some time with each of them. I don’t know their names, but I talk with them as if I did.”
I study the woman on the bed. Bloody hell, she’s so far gone, I could probably cut her with a blade and she wouldn’t even react.
“Why?” I can’t help how harsh I sound when I add, “It’s not as if any of them can tell you’re there.” The woman is dead. Kiaran found a way to kill humans without stopping their hearts.
If you were alive, you’d wish you had killed me.
Stop it, I tell myself. Stop thinking about it.
Catherine doesn’t seem offended. If anything, she just looks sad. “These people didn’t choose this,” she says. “Isn’t that what separates us from them? They treat us like we’re cattle. Like we’re expendable.” She holds the woman’s hand in a gentle grip. “If it were me, I’d want someone to treat me with dignity before I died. I’d want someone to believe I mattered.”
I wish I were more like Catherine. Even now, after everything she’s gone through, she’s still kind. She still cares. She didn’t lose those she loved and turn to vengeance.
Her strength isn’t physical. She wouldn’t go onto the battlefield for a slaughter. She’d go to aid the wounded, the vulnerable. It takes a rare, exceptional sort of bravery to lose everything and still give so much of yourself. That’s the kind of courage most people lose in a war.
I did.
I sit on the edge of another bed across the aisle, occupied by a young man about my age. His smile is peaceful. His eyes are tearing up, as if caught in an emotional memory.
I wonder if, deep down, he knows I’m here. I wonder if he wishes someone still cared.
Hitching a breath, I lean down and grasp a cloth, dip it into the bowl of water, and raise my eyes to meet Catherine’s. “Tell me what to do,” I whisper.
I don’t remember how to care for anyone.
Catherine comes over and sits down next to me. “You don’t have to do anything,” she tells me. “Just being here is enough.”
An hour later, Aithinne bursts into the cottage. The humans must sense her there—her power, or perhaps the light of her skin shining like a beacon in the darkness. They start writhing, unsettled. It’s the first time I’ve seen any sort of lucidity in their gaze, any awareness at all.
The woman in the bed next to me gasps low in her throat at the sight of Aithinne. “Beautiful,” she murmurs. Her hands reach for Aithinne, fingers grasping.
Aithinne ignores their cries. “Come with me,” she tells me urgently. “I have news about the Book.”
CHAPTER 12
I FOLLOW AITHINNE out of the cottage, matching her pace as she strides through the forest in the direction of the camp.
“Quickly,” Aithinne says. She crosses a clearing in a half-run. “Derrick went back to weave another cloaking ward on those soldiers you killed, and they were gone.”
The way she says it fills me with dread. “I take it that means Kiaran found them.”
“He’ll think I’ve declared war. If he hasn’t sent his soldiers already, he will now.” She shakes her head. “We need to prepare.”
“Can’t you just refuse to fight?” She’s walking so fast that I have to jog to keep up.
“No,” Aithinne says simply. “Kadamach isn’t going to give me a choice. If I don’t kill the soldiers, they’ll slaughter my subjects. There are a few camps scattered across my territory that have wards against opening portals. I won’t be able to get to them in time.”
We reach the edge of the camp and head for the line of cottages. “How long do we have?”
“A few hours at most,” she says. “Hopefully enough time to send you through a portal to see Kadamach.” She shoots me a glance. “Do whatever you can to get through to him. Use threats if you have to.”
What if I can’t get through to him at all? What if that dream was just wishful thinking?
I don’t tell Aithinne my doubts. Instead I try to be nonchalant. “Threats? Too easy. If he doesn’t listen, I’ll challenge him to a duel and beat him a few times with a blunt instrument. He likes that sort of thing.” In fact, I seem to recall it being Kiaran’s idea of flirting.
Aithinne grins. “One day I pray I’ll meet a woman who engages me in combat as a way to say, I love you. Be still my heart.”