Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels)

by Gillian Philip

  The horror in his face, and then the rictus grin. ‘It’s a game, Rory! Ha!’

  Carefully Rory studied my eyes, each in turn, visibly enjoying my reaction. ‘He moved me out of his room after that. Only misjudged it by a couple of years. I’d been watching for so long, since I began to have a memory. And let me tell you, Finn: I never mistook it for a game.’

  He laughed out loud. And then his rage was gone. Just like that, with nothing to replace it. He was empty of everything, and I knew it, because our link was still there, tenuous and fraying. I snapped it.

  ‘You listen to me, Rory. Of course he kept it from you,’ I hissed. ‘Don’t hold it against him. Not this, and not what he did when you were a baby. Please, and I don’t care if I’m begging. If he lost you it would kill him.’

  ‘Gods’ sake, I don’t hold it against him. He won’t lose me because, inconvenient as it is, I love him.’ Rory raked his fingers across his scalp. ‘But you think I can live up to those holes in his back? You think I can pay for Conal with my freedom? I’ll go mad. I can’t be a symbol any more. I can’t be the Bloodstone, Finn. I’m too damn tired.’

  He staggered up straight and lunged at me. Expecting violence, I flinched, but when he fell against me his head slammed into my chest. Reflexively I held him, shocked, wondering what became of a toddler who watched his father tortured. My gorge rose, realising the echo of pain I’d felt last night was a shadow of what Eili had inflicted when her grief was fresh and young, and her victim unhardened. I sat against the wall and Rory slid down with me.

  ‘I don’t want a bloody sword. I don’t want to fight him because he thinks it’ll make me feel better, and I don’t want to learn how to slice my own father’s head off. I’m Sithe and this isn’t how its meant to be.’

  I shuddered. ‘It’s not about taking lives. It’s about keeping your own.’

  ‘Comes to the same thing. I wonder what my mum would have thought? I wish I remembered her. I wish I remembered Conal.’

  ‘I wish you did too,’ I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. ‘Conal adored you. You were crazy about him.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have let Eili hurt my father. I wish he hadn’t died. I wish nobody had.’ He shook his head at the hopelessness of wishes. ‘What’s wrong with us?’

  ‘It’s no better on the other side, honestly. It isn’t. People die, Laochan. Trouble is, you wish you hadn’t found out about Eili.’

  ‘It’s changed everyth…’ He went still in my arms. ‘Did you just find my name?’

  ‘What?’ I pulled my arm away, panic rising. ‘Did I? No, I don’t have the right, Rory.’

  ‘It isn’t a question of the right.’ He stared at me.

  ‘Look. Ignore it. I don’t even know what happened.’ I scrambled to my feet. ‘It’ll be okay, Rory. I’ll protect your father somehow. I don’t know how. He won’t let me hurt her.’

  Rory laughed scornfully. ‘As if.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t say it. He already told me she’d slice me like a ham.’

  ‘She would, too. She’s amazing with a sword.’ There was reluctant hero-worship in his voice.

  Indignant, I folded my arms. ‘So will I be, too. One of these days.’

  ‘About Dad.’ He hesitated and picked at a cobweb on the wall. ‘I’m glad it’s you.’

  I gave him a stupid stunned smile, not unlike the one I’d given his father when he kissed me. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Um, Finn. Don’t for Christ’s sake tell my father I’m such a bleeding-heart pacifist.’

  ‘Um, Rory. I have a feeling he knows.’

  ‘Gods.’ He put his face in his hands, then sat back, blowing out a sigh. ‘And another thing. I’m not going to be this nice to you when there’s witnesses.’

  ‘Okay. I won’t take it personally. I was fourteen once myself, you know.’

  ‘So was my father, believe it or not,’ said Rory. ‘Though he may be lying. He was probably born forty.’

  ‘On the contrary.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘He’s never stopped being twelve.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Seth. He was propped against the door frame, silhouetted against the white sunlight of the courtyard, and neither of us could make out the expression on his face.

  ‘You’d better have only just got there,’ said Rory.

  ‘Of course. I’m a lot of things but not an eavesdropper.’ He came inside and winked at me, then looked at his son. His eyes widened in surprise. ‘You have your name.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Rory gave him a slow grin.

  I bit hard on my thumb. ‘It isn’t. Not really.’

  ‘Yes it is.’ Seth took Rory’s head in his hand and kissed the top of it. ‘Laochan.’

  ‘I’m really sorry. It just came out.’ I shut my eyes tight and chewed my knuckle.

  ‘Well, that’s what happens.’ Seth touched my face and brushed my eyes open. ‘For gods’ sake. I like it.’ He put an arm around Rory’s shoulders. ‘Have you forgiven us, then? Let’s go find Jed.’

  I watched them go, and after five minutes I heard their horses riding out. I knew Jed and Iolaire were outside the dun, and it was up to Seth to decide if it was safe to take Rory out on his own. At least they were out of the way now. A tremor went down my spine. Confrontations with Rory were one thing, but for my next trick...

  Outside the armoury the sun was almost too warm. Hannah was preoccupied for now, cantering the chestnut round the arena in a figure of eight. I turned my face to the intense blue sky and cast around with my mind. Eili wasn’t hiding, and I headed for her rooms.

  At the top of the stone stairs, turning into the corridor, I almost collided with Sionnach.

  ‘Finn,’ he said, and his scarred face lit with a smile. ‘What’s up?’

  Slickly I raised a block in my mind, and the smile left his face. ‘I want to see Eili.’

  ‘Eili?’ He frowned. ‘Finn, listen to me. Please don’t fight my sister. Please.’

  ‘I don’t want to fight. I want to talk to her, Sionnach. Just talk.’ I took a breath. ‘Alone.’

  He gripped my wrist. ‘Finn, I like you. And if she harms you Seth will double my scars, if he doesn’t kill me.’

  ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. He won’t do either, even if she does, which she won’t.’ I glowered at his hand, and he let me go with a sigh.

  ‘I’m glad you and Seth are together,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah?’ I looked at him uncertainly.

  ‘Oh, yeah. He’s been lovesick for years. ’ Sionnach rolled his eyes fondly. ‘After that last time he went over to see you? He looked like someone had hit him with a brick.’

  ‘He… really? Did he?’ I tried to remember what had been different. For him, anyway. Nothing had been different for me. God, the man took forever to take a hint.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t know what he felt.’ Sionnach shrugged. ‘He certainly didn’t. Just those of us who had to thole his moods.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ I felt stunned. ‘No, I didn’t know. You wouldn’t, from the way…’

  ‘The way he goes on. Quite. Eili hoped you wouldn’t love him back. Anything to hurt him,’ said Sionnach unhappily. ‘But you do love him back, and I’m glad, even if that’s disloyal.’

  I kicked at a loose floorboard. ‘Sionnach, you wouldn’t know disloyalty if it came up and hit you with a stick. I don’t know how you manage it, really I don’t. You give new meaning to the word conflicted.’

  He picked at traces of wood glue on his thumb. ‘I’m glad you didn’t waste time. He needs you. It’s right you’re together.’

  ‘Not what your sister thinks,’ I said dryly.

  ‘My sister is very unhappy. You know this, Finn.’

  ‘Seth’s not over the moon about her.’ I bit my lip. ‘Sionnach. Do you hate him too?’

  He tilted his head to rest it against the bare stone wall, and shut his eyes. ‘Seth is my friend and my Captain. I would follow him to the end of the world and die for him there, and he knows it. I love him as I loved his brother.’
When he opened his eyes there was torment in them. ‘But damn him for what he did. Conal might have died anyway, we all know that. Very likely he would. Kate was too clever for us. But if Eili hadn’t had to make an end of him, she might have endured it and stayed the same. It was Seth’s work she did.’

  ‘It was her choice,’ I said dully. ‘Seth would have done it if she’d let him.’

  ‘Yes.’ Pushing himself away from the wall Sionnach grabbed my head and shook it gently. His eyes were raw with unshed tears. ‘But if he hadn’t betrayed us all, there’d have been no question of Eili doing his job. It’s between them,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’ve tried, but there’s nothing more I can say to her. I once had to choose between her and Conal, and I will never make that kind of choice again. No-one will ever make me, do you understand? Not my sister and not Seth and not you either. I will not intercede any more, Finn.’

  ‘That is choosing her, Sionnach.’

  ‘Well.’ He dropped his hand and walked past me, but glanced back. ‘I’m conflicted.’

  His footfalls faded down the stone stairs. I stood for a moment, my stomach churning, then took a breath and called Eili. The reply in my mind was immediate, glad and challenging. The heavy oak door swung open, and Eili made a sweeping gesture of invitation.

  ‘Do my brother a favour,’ smiled Eili as she closed the door. ‘Don’t waste his time asking him to betray me.’

  ‘No-one’s asking such a thing,’ I said. ‘But you know that.’

  Opera music was playing, the aria making my heart ache though I didn’t understand the words. Eili watched me closely. ‘Listen, Finn. Do you know what he’s saying? He dies in despair.’ She closed her eyes. ‘When he’s never loved life so much.’

  I was riveted horribly for a moment. Shaking myself, I turned to the beechwood desk. Without even turning them, I knew what was in those photograph frames.

  The air in here felt so oppressive it was malign, but the window was open and the corners of Eili’s papers lifted in a feeble breeze. They were anchored to the desk by a black broken sword hilt, a few jutting shards of blunt steel all that was left of its blade. There had once been silver inlay but it was tarnished to the colour of the rest of the hilt. As I touched it with my fingertips, a sensation shivered up my arm. I frowned. There was a stone archway to the left; beyond it I could see one corner of Eili’s bed, the linen white and smooth, the corner folded with military precision. There was something else folded on it. I walked to the archway and stared.

  It lay flat, the sleeves crossed immaculately, but it hadn’t been laundered in more than a decade. Once the shirt had been slate blue, but it was faded to light denim and discoloured by black ancient stains that covered more than half of it. Even from the doorway I could smell him on it, a faint sad presence. I knew what the clinging weight of the air was: it was grief, heavy and pervasive and throttling. Something hot stung the corner of my eye.

  ~ Eili, I said, but not aloud.

  ‘Oh, you’ll get a taste of it.’ Eili was so close I could feel her breath on my neck. ‘Seth will die long before you do. Even if he survives me. Even if he survives the war, and Laszlo, and Kate, he’ll die, and if you don’t die with him you’ll have centuries without him. And I put you on warning, Finn.’ She dropped her voice to a light whisper. ‘I don’t intend him to survive me.’

  I spun to face her. ‘Oh, leave him alone, Eili. Conal was his brother. He made a mistake but he loved him. When did you last pay so dearly for one mistake?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when,’ hissed Eili. ‘The day I trusted Murlainn with the life of my lover. The day I had to cut Cù Chaorach’s throat to release him. That day.’

  ‘You haven’t released him,’ I said.

  Eili ignored that. ‘Do you think I feel it any less now?’

  ‘Of course you don’t feel it less,’ I snapped. ‘You’re hanging onto your pain with your fingernails, just so you can kill Seth with it. What would Conal say?’

  Eili bared white teeth. ‘You never liked me, did you, Finn? Not from the day we met.’

  ‘I grew out of that. What’s your excuse?’

  ‘I don’t need one. I haven’t cared for anyone but Sionnach since the day I left Conal’s corpse on Brokentor. You’re nothing to me, Finn. I only grudge you happiness because yours is all bound up in Murlainn’s.’ Eili spat on the floor. ‘And his death is the deal I made with myself the day I healed him. I’ll keep Seth to it. Unless he can kill me first.’

  ‘He’ll never do that and you know it.’

  ‘More fool him. In the meantime he owes it to his brother to suffer.’

  The aria was programmed on repeat. And repeat. The first sad bars swelled again. I couldn’t take my eyes off Eili. I’d never looked at madness before and there was something hypnotic about it.

  ‘Seth doesn’t owe Conal a thing. Neither do you or I. We couldn’t, even if we wanted to. There’s nothing we can give him. He’s dead.’

  Eili’s eyes blazed like ice. ‘I can give him the life of the man who killed him.’

  I shoved my hands into my hair and hauled it behind my ears. ‘Even if he wanted it – which he can’t because he’s dead – it’s Jed who’s hunting down his killer, and God knows what it’s doing to him. Seth didn’t kill Conal, Laszlo did.’ I stared into Eili’s glittering eyes. ‘There’s only one thing you can give Conal. His freedom.’

  Eili’s smile died, the bones of her face set hard.

  ‘I know you won’t, but I’ll ask you anyway.’ I swallowed. ‘Let him go.’

  ‘Don’t beg twice in your life. This time I can’t give you what you want. I don’t have him here.’ Eili’s teeth clenched hard. ‘As you are so keen to remind me, he is dead.’

  I shut my eyes, feeling him beyond all doubt, there locked in the massive grief, and I felt the terrible sadness snaking into my heart in a black tide. Shoving past Eili I made for the exit, forcing myself not to run, and when I flung open the door I breathed clean air as if it was the first oxygen I’d tasted since entering Eili’s mausoleum.

  ‘One more thing, Finn.’ Eili’s voice stopped me in my tracks. ‘I’ll tell you this much. After you’ve had Seth, after you’ve had this kind of love, you’ll never find anyone who matters as much. Never, not in all your unbearably long life. And I want you to know that.’

  RORY

  The tide was far out, leaving a vast plain of pleated sand patched with shallow lakes of silver. There were fishers’ boats dragged up beside the flat rocks at the end of the bay, and the pungent tang of smouldering oak drifted from barrels. We’d traded good gutting knives for a sizeable quantity of smoked herring and sea trout, delivery promised within two days, but the barter hadn’t exactly been urgent at this time of year. My father had wanted the excuse to talk to the fishers, that was all.

  Seth always insisted that the noncommittal wavering of some of the communities beyond the dun lands didn’t bother him, but I knew otherwise. The longer Kate’s reach grew, the less secure he felt. He thought she was up to something. He thought her strategy had taken a subtle but crucial turning. He’d dearly have liked to know where it led.

  He said he was sorry, but there were times he had to parade me.

  ‘You’re the Bloodstone. Bad luck, sunshine.’

  ‘You’ve spent my life telling me that’s all bollocks.’

  He gave a shrug. ‘I’ve spent your life telling you it doesn’t matter what I think. They have to believe you exist and that you matter. If they don’t see me flaunting you, they’ll think I’m on the run, or that I’m scared, or that I’ve already lost you. Sorry,’ he muttered again.

  I knew it was what he hated most of all. ‘It’s okay,’ I told him with a rueful grin. ‘Flaunt away.’

  His mind brushed mine affectionately, as if he’d tousled my hair with an invisible hand. ‘You’re all that stops half of them actively fighting me. They’ll sit on that fence till their fat arses fall in half.’

  I laughed. The moments when we were in tun
e with one another grew rarer by the day, and I treasured them. Which never stopped me falling violently out with him at a later time.

  And sometimes sooner than I expected. ‘Nuall MacInnes at Dunster wants to broker talks,’ I ventured.

  ‘Nuall MacInnes can kiss my rear end.’

  ‘Would it kill you to try a little diplomacy?’

  ‘Probably,’ he snapped. ‘And you and all.’

  ‘Only I’ve been reading about the Clann Ranald siege and–’

  ‘Why in the name of the gods did I give you an education if you’re only going to pick the bits you like? How do you think any diplomat fares without a snarling army at his back? That’s what saved Sorcha NicRanald, not getting pissed in her great hall with three enemy captains.’

  ‘Fine,’ I growled. ‘Fine. But if you’re so worried about the full-mortals, why are you spending every ounce of clann blood fighting Sithe?’

  He uttered a curse he’d slapped me for before now. ‘One chapter of your Sun Tzu and one page of Clausewitz. Off by heart, and I’ll want you to recite by the end of the week. Jesus and all the saints.’ And he gave the roan a kick that made it snap its jaws in anger, and rode ahead.

  ‘Ah, cheer up, Rory.’ Iolaire nudged his horse to my side. ‘Your father’s theology’s as confused as he is.’

  ‘Confused?’ I growled. ‘He’s too damn sure of himself.’

  ‘You think?’ Iolaire raised an eyebrow at me, and I shrugged and changed the subject.

  ‘I’m worried about Jed,’ I said in a low voice.

  ‘Aren’t we all.’ Iolaire sighed.

  ‘He’s obsessed.’

  ~ Driven, came my father’s instant correction.

  My heart contracted with anger. Sometimes I understood my brother’s revulsion for silent communication. ~ I wasn’t talking to you.

  Ahead, his back still turned to me, Seth shrugged. He must have been slightly ashamed, though, because he let Jed ride up beside him and said, ‘You shouldn’t hunt alone any more.’

  ‘What brought that on?’ Jed laughed.

  ‘You know fine. She’s up to something. The situation’s changed and I don’t know how.’ Pointedly he added, ‘It’s not as if you catch much.’