Or, indeed, mine.
None of it helped at that moment. It had got me through the punishment but it couldn’t dull the pain. Blood still trickled down my sides, wetting the sheets, and my jeans were soaked with it, but I hadn’t been capable of taking the damn things off. I’d only barely been capable of crawling to my own bed and hauling myself onto it. Silently I wept the tears I couldn’t weep in the hall. Silently I reminded myself that nothing they could do to me could compare with the pain I’d brought on my own heart.
But it didn’t help. Not this instant. Because oh, gods, it hurt. A tiny whimper of agony choked in my throat, but I still couldn’t sob or scream, because they still might hear in the unnaturally quiet dun.
Branndair lay against the bed, his tongue occasionally licking my fingers and my raw left wrist. They’d locked him up, of course, in this room, and there were deep gouges in the door and the floorboards where Branndair had tried to get to me. I wouldn’t fix them, I decided savagely. They’d remind me.
Branndair stayed close now but he knew not to touch me – he’d felt my terror that he might – and I hated them most of all for that. But even the light fleeting glance of his wolf-mind was comforting, because I had never felt so alone in my life. If it wasn’t for Branndair, my heart might have broken.
He sat up and snarled, and I gazed in a stupor at the door. I didn’t have a thing left. If it was anyone come to gloat, let them try. Branndair must be hungry by now. I let myself smile a little. Gods, even that hurt.
Then Branndair was on his feet, hackles high, teeth bared. The door opened hesitantly, but he made no move to attack. Reaching out with my exhausted mind, I saw who it was.
‘Branndair,’ I murmured. ‘No.’
He lay down, sulking, as they came in. They shouldn’t be here; but I couldn’t bear to send them away. I made another aborted attempt at that smile.
‘Hey, Finn. Jed.’
My voice seemed croakier than it should have been. Ignoring Branndair’s warning rumble, Finn reached out a hand to my face, clenching it at the last moment. After a little hesitation, she bit her lip and touched my hair.
‘Yeah, that’s okay,’ I mumbled. ‘That bit of me doesn’t hurt.’
Her face was wet with tears, I realised with an odd surge of affection. And Jed didn’t look much happier, funnily enough. Finn held a bottle to my lips and I felt water against my burning throat.
‘Thanks,’ I said, wishing she’d give me more.
‘They’re bastards,’ said Jed, wiping his nose with his sleeve. ‘Bastards.’
‘I hate them,’ added Finn quietly.
‘Thanks for that. I love you both.’ I laughed very quietly, wincing at the pain that surged through my back and threatened to make me vomit or faint again. ‘But please don’t. They had to.’
‘They’re all walking round like zombies, if it helps.’ Finn’s eyes were brilliant with rage. ‘Half of them in tears, the hypocrites. Sionnach too.’
‘Oh, Finn.’ I was too tired to argue. ‘This or kill me.’
‘They pretend it’s for Conal,’ she said softly. ‘Liars.’
She stroked my hair and I closed my eyes briefly. There was a point when I thought I’d felt Conal with me, down there in the hall: the touch of his mind, his fathomless pity and grief. I’d thought I could feel Conal’s touch, Conal’s hand against my face. I’d thought I heard him whisper, telling me stay on your feet little brother, stay quiet, it’ll be over soon; but hey, that was pain and humiliation for you. Made you hallucinate. I certainly couldn’t feel him now.
Jed ducked back out through the door and returned with a bowl of faintly steaming water and a pile of white cloths. This time Branndair did growl.
‘Branndair,’ I growled back, and he lay down again, teeth still bared.
‘Grian gave us these. He wanted to come himself but Jed and I wouldn’t let him.’
‘Good.’ My lips twitched. ‘Good for you. Listen. I can’t face a healer at all, but the one you mustn’t let near me is Eili. All right?’
Jed frowned. ‘She wouldn’t try, would she?’
‘You’d be amazed. I’ll explain. Later.’ I made a pathetic shot at a laugh.
‘Can you bear it?’ Finn nipped her lip hard. ‘I think I have to clean it. Even though...’
‘Even though.’ My voice shook, and I was pissed off at myself. ‘Yeah, there’ll be muck. Won’t do me any good. Go ahead.’
It stung like nothing had ever stung me before: like a byke of angry wasps loose on my back, even after Jed found my hip flask and emptied the whisky carefully down my throat, but I managed not to scream. I just buried my face in the pillow, ripping the linen with my fingernails, wanting to die, while Finn peeled off the blood-crusted jeans. At least then Jed could get at my belt, and slide it between my teeth.
Finn cried the whole time, but silently, trying not to get salt tears on my flayed flesh. She was so businesslike, so brisk, and underneath it all was a terrifying cold anger.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled.
‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare apologise again.’
‘I mean for this. You shouldn’t see. You’re angry.’
‘If it’s all right for them to do it, it’s all right for me to see it.’
Fine. I had no energy left. Everything I had was fighting pain. ~ You’re too young, was all I managed.
I thought she’d throw a temper. Instead she was silent for a long time.
She touched the very top of my shoulder, somewhere there wasn’t an open wound. Her touch was very gentle; so light it could have been the touch of her mind, and suddenly she seemed far less certain.
~ Not forever, was all she said.
‘You okay?’ Finn chewed her lip.
‘I’m okay, Finn.’ At least I was no longer afraid to move or breathe. I stood watching Rory play on the rug with the wolves. Liath was crouched in front of Branndair, playfully nibbling his throat fur, no longer the alpha wolf. ‘I need to go down to my clann now.’
She flushed with anger. ‘No, you don’t. Not if you don’t want to. They can wait.’
‘She’s told them so,’ said Jed. ‘And she’s just slapped Grian.’
‘Dorsal, you did what?’ I did my damnedest not to laugh, and nearly succeeded.
‘He’s got nail marks on his cheeks, wait’ll you see. She’s drawn blood. And when he told her you were lucky not to be dead, she told him he was bloody lucky you weren’t.’
Oh gods, I mustn’t go on finding this funny. It had to stop. ‘Finn, you’re not helping. What did I tell you, you disobedient—’
‘Bag of wolfmeat?’ Her cold smile flashed. ‘I will never obey you on this. You’ve got your traditions; well, so have I. Civilised ones. If I live to be a thousand years old, I won’t forgive them.’
In the awkward silence, Jed coughed. ‘There’s good news,’ he told me brightly. ‘A lot of the women are feeling awful sorry for you.’
I grinned wickedly, but Finn’s face darkened. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘It kind of is. Anyway, Finn. I couldn’t stay in exile, I’d have died of misery. It was this or kill me. They’re my clann and I love them.’
‘Well, I don’t, and you can’t make me.’
‘I thought your grandmother had this conversation with you. Stay human, don’t hate. They had to do it. Eili demanded it, and I deserved it.’
‘You did not deserve it. Conal would have killed them.’
‘She told them that, too,’ added Jed, wiggling his eyebrows.
‘Wow. Did she really?’ I wished I could have seen their faces.
Well. I’d be seeing them soon enough. I took a breath, then crouched down and lifted Rory, gritting my teeth. He was such a fragile wee thing still. It didn’t hurt too much.
‘You worried?’ Finn asked me softly. ‘About going down to those pious bastards?’
What worried me most was Finn, so willing to hate on my behalf, but I decided to keep my mouth shut for now. ‘Worried? N
ah. Terrified.’ I smiled at her. ‘Let’s go.’
The silence that fell in the great hall was nearly as oppressive as the silence that met me when I rode back into the dun. Not one of the self-righteous tossers seemed to be breathing.
I watched their eyes, every one of them, Branndair snarling softly at my heels. There was an arrogant swagger in my step, in case I needed to walk through scorn and derision, but I could make out nothing but respect; and in that instant it was worth it. I wanted to howl with relief. In only one face was the hatred undying.
Eili sat watching me through narrowed lids, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Beside her Sionnach got to his feet, his eyes on me, his fingers splayed on the table.
‘Murlainn,’ he said.
I nodded to him. Eili remained in her seat, but around the hall the rest were all getting to their feet, clumsily, as if their tardiness embarrassed them.
‘Seth.’
‘Murlainn.’
‘Captain.’
Finn opened her mouth at me, mock-awestruck ~ Get you.
~ Finny, give it a rest. I’m dying of embarrassment here.
Every clann member but one was on their feet as I reached the top table, and Grian and his advisers backed off. I didn’t look at the archway beyond the table: couldn’t bear to, didn’t have to. I went straight to the central chair, the one with a scabbard and sword belt laid across its arms like a barrier.
I set Rory down on the table, tweaked his nose, then laid the scabbard and belt on the table beside him. I only had to snap my fingers to make Finn and Jed drop obediently into the places to my right and left.
I made myself not grin. I could only hope that attitude was going to last.
Lifting Rory again, I sat down casually in the forbidden chair, Rory curled in my lap. The exhalation of breath from hundreds of lungs went around the hall like a single sigh.
I looked up at them all. My clann.
‘Tomorrow night,’ I said. ‘The wake for Cù Chaorach and Torc. You’ve left it long enough.’
I rested my left ankle on my right thigh, and bounced Rory on my lap, smiling into his eyes. I hadn’t leaned right against the chair back, but I’m fairly sure nobody noticed but him.
‘The captains will come to my rooms at noon for their orders.’ I studied the ranks of stunned faces, and widened my eyes, shrugging. ‘That’s all.’
‘Murlainn.’ The whispered word echoed eerily around the hall.
The clann began to talk again, uncertainly, as muted as they had been on that night I hated to remember. I got a justifiably wicked pleasure from seeing that, once again, more than a few were in tears. Branndair lay at my feet, his hungry yellow eyes on the clann.
One by one they stood up and came to me, clasped my hand and pressed it to their foreheads. All of them, one by one, returned quiet to their seats. Not for a single one did I put Rory down: not even for Grian, not even for Orach. When I’d counted them all – all but one, that is – I got to my feet, handed Rory to Jed, and slung an arm round him and Finn.
‘You,’ I murmured, ‘have given me back my clann and my dun and my life. Now let’s get out of here. And oh, gods, do I need a drink.’
EPILOGUE
Finn
‘Finn,’ said Sionnach. Leaning on the stone archway, he gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘Your mother is here.’
‘Okay.’ I hugged my knees and stared out beyond the parapet. ‘Thanks, Sionnach.’
Jed and I sat close together on the broad battlement of the dun, backs against the low wall, staring out to sea across the early spring machair with its smattering of wild flowers. Sionnach’s footsteps faded down the steps, back towards the courtyard. Hooves clattered on stone and were muffled by grass as a patrol rode out. A horse whinnied in the stables, a hammer rang on metal; there was laughter, and the start of a quarrel. The yells from an anarchic twenty-a-side football match were drowned by the closer racket of four off-duty guards playing Jenga. Behind it all was the lazy growl of wind turbines, the blade shadows sweeping hypnotically across the battlement.
The only silence in the place was the one between us. Jed looked sideways at me, chewing his knuckle. ‘Kind of ironic, this, isn’t it? You going. Me staying. I’m really sorry.’
‘That’s okay.’ Though it wasn’t.
Music burbled quietly out of the courtyard amplifiers: nobody had bothered to change it since last night’s full-moon party. I wanted to be back there, before the dawn I’d been dreading, curled sleepily against Jed with his arm around me. Watching Orach drag Seth up for a dance; trying not to read Eili’s lethal gaze as Seth’s face registered a kind of happiness. Trying not to fall asleep in Jed’s arms, an awful premonition twisting my heart. I hadn’t wanted the sky to pale: I didn’t want to wake and find the night gone. I wanted to stay more than I’d wanted anything in my life.
Jed picked awkwardly at a nail. ‘They honestly think Rory’s their great hope. Seth says it’s superstitious shite, but Rory will have a good life here. Much better than over there.’
‘I know. It’s fine.’ I stared across the machair. ‘You’ll have a good life too.’
He said quietly: ‘It’s the only place I’ve ever existed.’
A familiar gurgling giggle drifted up from the courtyard, so we both peered over our shoulders. The Jenga game had been brought to a halt but nobody seemed to mind. Rory was settled happily between the four guards, two men and two women, who lay on their stomachs helping him build and destroy a Jenga-brick tower.
Jed chewed his knuckle. ‘I’m not staying just so Rory can be some sodding figurehead. He’s too little to get lumbered with that. But...’
‘But Seth doesn’t care that he’s the Bloodstone, does he?’
‘Nah. Couldn’t care less. He’s just besotted.’ Jed gave me a twisted grin. ‘Bit late in the day, but I couldn’t separate them now, could I? Seth came barging into my room at four o’clock this morning.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Panicking his hungover head off ’cause Rory had a tummy bug.’
‘Aw, Jed. He isn’t used to it, pure Sithe don’t get bugs. Cut him some slack.’
‘Aye. He needs it.’ We started to laugh, till our eyes met.
Jed looked away sharply, out towards the grey sea. ‘You’d better go and see your mother.’
‘Don’t get into any scraps, right?’ I cleared my throat. ‘And don’t cut yourself. And don’t ride water horses. And don’t let Seth boss you around, ’kay?’
‘Look who’s talking.’ He managed to smile. ‘Want me to come? Moral support?’
I shook my head as I got to my feet. This was one I’d have to face on my own.
At the foot of the stone steps someone barred my way, and as I looked into Eili’s cool eyes, my heart sank. I knew the woman was going out on a reconnaissance patrol and wouldn’t be back for three days. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to see her again.
‘So, Finn. You’re going with your mother?’ Eili was almost smiling. ‘I know you’re angry, but weren’t you going to say goodbye?’
‘Eili,’ I said. ‘Conal didn’t want you to do what you did to Seth.’
Eili did not look away, but she didn’t lose her temper either. ‘Conal lives in my heart,’ she said, ‘but he doesn’t have to live in my skin. Seth is my Captain: I have to protect his life, and I have to rely on him to protect mine. I had to do it, Finn, and Seth understands that, even if you don’t.’ She paused. ‘You watched. You disobeyed him, I saw you. I hoped you’d scream or weep, shame him, but you didn’t. Well, good for you. But you shouldn’t have watched at all if you couldn’t take it.’
‘It’s because of what you did that he’s making me go back.’ Resentment choked me.
‘No, it’s because of how you reacted to it. Anyway, there’s your mother to think of.’ Eili set her jaw. ‘Con... al would agree with him. Conal would want you to go with Stella.’
I could hear how much it hurt to say his name, and my heart stopped thudding so angrily against my ribcage. She cou
ld have insisted on Seth’s execution, after all, but she hadn’t.
‘Eili? Is it over, with Seth? Will you leave it at that?’
‘I don’t know. I wanted him to die, Finn, and I still wish he had.’ Eili looked at me for a long silent moment. ‘I don’t know. But I’ll try.’
I nodded unhappily. ‘Bye, then.’
‘Finn,’ Eili called after me. ‘There’s something else Conal would want.’ As I turned, she smiled. ‘He’d want you to come back.’
‘Yeah.’ I smiled too, properly. ‘I will.’
Upstairs, outside Seth’s rooms, I hesitated, aching with nerves. I could hear raised voices even through the solid oak door: Seth and my mother, at each other’s throats again, only it didn’t make me so happy as it once did.
Stella’s voice was harsh. ‘How typical of you, Seth, to make me come to you.’
‘Nobody made you come here.’ He was angry too, but his voice was low. ‘It’s your own stupid oath you’ve broken, Reultan.’
‘Don’t call me by that name. Not ever.’
I’d lost my taste for eavesdropping. As I shoved open the door, they both fell guiltily silent.
Stella recovered first. ‘Finn,’ she said, a funny catch in her voice. ‘Finn.’ She wrapped her arms round me ferociously.
I was briefly shocked rigid; then I hugged her back, burying my face in her shoulder so that neither she nor Seth would see I was crying. Seth kept awkwardly quiet, taking a new and intense interest in the stone walls. As Stella let me go and cleared her throat, recovering her composure and her ice, I felt the hesitant glance of a mind against mine, wilder and more wolfish than Conal’s but suddenly just as protective. I knew what Seth was telling me.
~ Steel yourself, Dorsal. ’Cos your mother is.
‘Finn, you’re coming back with me tonight.’ Stella tried to smile. ‘I’ve only left it this long because of Conal. I’m sorry.’
‘Stella, be careful for her,’ said Seth. He whetted his sword as Stella looked on with distaste. ‘Finn’s a talented girl.’
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