The Unforgiven

by A. Katie Rose

  Enya stirred, and took a deep breath as though calming her shattered nerves. Turning, she smiled, and reached up a trembling hand to the knot on my brow. Tenderly, tears leaking from her lovely eyes, she brushed my hair aside and cupped my cheek. “Forgive me, Flynn,” she said, her tone low and so soft I strained to hear her words.

  “Forgive you?” I asked, my voice sounding harsh and chill in the wake of her dulcimer angel’s voice. “For what?”

  She ducked her face, hiding behind a veil of her hair. I leaned toward, over her, in order to hear her at all. “I failed to protect you, my son, my Flynn,” she murmured. “A mother must protect her children and I’ve failed. I am so sorry. So very, very sorry.”

  A sob escaped the curtain and I straightened. Icy rage tingled down my nerve endings. I gripped the hilt of my sword, hard, to prevent a string of vile curses from spewing from my mouth. Not for what Finian the Fair did to me. That was unjust and cruel in itself. But ‘twas as nothing as compared to the suffering he brought his timid and loving wife, the mother of his children. I’ll kill him, I thought, not for the first, second or even the third time. I will kill him, for what he’s doing to her.

  I choked back my rage. I swallowed it down like bad medicine and forced calm into my voice and manner. Acting like the mad dog everyone thought I was would upset and frighten her, and witnessing her cringe from me might well break my heart. I delved my hand through the blonde rain of her hair and touched her warm neck. “Mother,” I said, my voice hoarse. I coughed and tried again. “Mother. Look at me.”

  Enya obeyed, tears spilling from those blue-blue depths. Her lips trembled as she tried hard to smile, as she dipped her damp cheek to brush against my hand. I never could bear to see her cry. Bending, I touched my brow against hers, looking deep into those blessed eyes she gave me. “It’s all good, my lady,” I whispered. “I love you.”

  Her fingers gripped mine in a fierce hold. “Oh, Flynn,” she cried, swiping tears from her cheeks with her free hand. Her skin reddened slightly from weeping, yet I never found her more beautiful. “That’s why I came. I had to find you. I couldn’t protect you before. I must. I must. Your fa –”

  She choked off, turning her face away once more. “Finian – he’s sworn to kill you.”

  I failed to moderate my tone this time. “I know. He’s tried.”

  She swung back to me, clinging with desperate panic. “He’s threatened to kill Fainche, also. He’ll kill me, too, but I don’t care as long as you both survive.”

  “He told me. If I don’t bring Iyumi to him, he’ll kill both of you. And Sofia.”

  “He sees you as a threat,” my mother cried, gripping my arms, her nails digging deep. “He knows you’re stronger than he is. I’ve tried so hard – so hard, to convince him you offer him only obeisance and obedience, you’re a good son, after all. But he rants about you. Raves, like a lunatic! I’m not strong like you, Flynn. I’m –”

  Ever so gently, I swiped her hair from her brow. “Hush, Mother.”

  “It’s his mistress,” Enya wailed, turning her face away, as though shamed. “She whispers in his ear, tells him things. He listens to her – he’s unfaithful, but I love him so!”

  I forgot the little boy as my mother wept in my arms. I smoothed her hair over her shoulders, murmuring nonsense words that always comforted the bereaved, time out of mind. Her tears dampened my shirt and I counted backward from one hundred to cool my rage. That bastard. I cared little for how he thought about me. That he dared spurn the love this delicate flower, this loving and sweet woman who adored the villain who sired her children. He dared to threatened her – her! The one who loved me beyond all reason, all ken, all life.

  “Flynn,” she said, drawing away from me, swiping once more at her wet cheeks, brushing her hair back. I reached for her hand, but she stepped out of my personal airspace, retreating, and rejecting my comfort as though painfully embarrassed. “It’s good, really. I’m all right.”

  She took the boy’s hand, bravely smiling through her damp eyes. Dragging in a deep, cleansing breath, she tipped her chin sideways, her smile begging my indulgence. Asking my royal pardon as though she were but a serf and I a king. “You’ve acknowledged your gift. At last, at long last, praise the gods.”

  “My –”

  I cut off as I realized what she meant. My magic. My gift.

  She nodded, her face lighting with fierce joy. “Yes, my son. Your powers. The magic I myself gave you. Through our shared blood, you are powerful and unconquerable. A true king indeed.”

  I jerked away, hissing, sucking air through my teeth. I never gave thought to where my power, my gift, came from. All along, I suspected I was unique, alone, a black sheep amid the flocks of white. Finian and his people certainly treated me as such. Now I discovered this – gift – travelled across lines of blood. From parent to offspring. I descended from a long line of magicians. If magic was evil, then by the gods of old, so was I.

  I turned from her to better contemplate my heritage, my eyes staring sightless into the dark. I was born with it. Magic was in my blood. Not from Finian, by all the gods, but from Enya – my mother. Power had to come from somewhere, I suddenly realized. Power. Blood. Enya.

  Like a knife from the dark, I remembered.

  I didn’t want to get spanked. I wasn’t supposed to be there. Hiding in the curtains of my mother’s solar, I tried not to breathe and give myself away as I watched, horrified. Enya’s tiny serving maid, I couldn’t recall her name. Yet, I clearly remembered her petrified expression, and her huge eyes rounded with fear. My mother’s afternoon tea splashed across the pristine carpet. She had stumbled. An accident.

  I remembered her screams of pain as a wide leather strap swung time and again across her buttocks and shoulders. My mother watched with calm detachment from her seat by the window, her sewing in her lap as still as the expression on her face. The maid, unable to move a muscle save those on her face, couldn’t escape the grip that held her. Only she and my mother were the room’s occupants. Nothing held the girl fast. No one held the strap’s end.

  “Please, Flynn,” Enya begged, seizing my arm.

  I blinked, drawn out of the memory and brought into the present as though someone dashed a bucket of water over my head.

  “I’m not as strong as you. It took all I had within me, all my powers, to find you and bring you here, to this place.”

  “Why, Mother?” I asked, suspicion grasping its stone-cold fingers around my heart. “Why did you come?”

  “To bring you this child.”

  Surprise into silence, I glanced down at the small boy, still sucking his thumb, his left hand dwarfed in my mother’s pale grip. The diamonds on her wrist and fingers winked under the light of the half-moon. Oddly, the wolf howled again, sounding as though it sat at the base of the hill. A shiver crawled up my spine and took up icy residence at the back of my skull.

  “Don’t you see? Flynn, don’t you understand?”

  Enya’s eagerness, her wild hope, her frantic desperation caught at my heart. “No, Mother,” I admitted, my eyes on the boy gazing trustfully up at me. “I don’t.”

  Unfortunately, I feared I did.

  “You can have great power, son,” she said, smiling widely, her hair a tangled mess that draped her from head to hips. Her teeth gleamed under the moonlight, her lips smears of red. Blue eyes appeared dark garnet, as though a fox stood in the henhouse with its feathered meal in its jaws and caught by the light of the farmer’s torch. For an instant, a fraction of a thought, I loathed her. I hated her damp hand on my sleeve, her clinging body smothering me, her vile voice. I lifted my hand to slap her away –

  Flynn.

  My conscience called to me, its voice loud, strident and unforgettable. This is your mother, for gods’ sake. She’s here to help you, you flaming idiot. Grow up, will you?

  Shame swamped me. I raised my hand, but my fingers caressed her damp cheek. This wonderful, helpless creature gave birth to me amid blood a
nd agony. And I’d repay her sacrifice with hatred and violence? Should I ever lift my hand against her in hatred, may the gods strike me dead.

  “You must save Fainche,” Enya said, through her tears. “My own life isn’t important, but she, and you, are. I can give you the power you need to defeat him, my son. And defeat him you must, if you are to save your sister, your wife. Will you trust me?”

  My agreement came swiftly, too swiftly. “Of course I will, Mother.”

  “This child is the key.”

  For the first time, she glanced down at him. Her fingers brushed through his dark curls, her face filled with love and light. Suspicion tried to rear its ugly face again, but I kicked it in the groin and it subsided. My mother was – is – as innocent as this boy. She thought only of me, her son, a spoiled wretch ungrateful of her sacrifice. The unnamed lad lifted his chin toward her, before ducking his face, shyly, into the folds of her skirts.

  “His mother is dead,” Enya murmured, her voice hollow. “She died of an agonizing disease. One that he inherited, unfortunately.”

  I glanced down at what appeared to me to be a ridiculously healthy and strapping two-year old boy. “What disease?”

  Enya turned her face away, as though the information distressed her. “It has no name,” she whispered. “There is no cure. She died, screaming in agony. Within the month, this child will die the same way. In horrible anguish and pain, his skin boiling from his bones, he’ll suffer an unspeakable, torturous death.”

  Horrified, I drew away from the kid, half-hoping this disease wasn’t contagious. “So why is he here?”

  “He’ll die anyway.”

  Enya’s eager voice, half-whispered, drifted to my ears. Her face turned away from me in shame. I stared at the back of her blonde head, willing her to look at me. She refused that request and left me gaping foolishly at her wealth of hair.

  “Yet?”

  “The gods require a sacrifice.”

  Cold ice filled my veins. I stared down at this boy, this child of sheer innocence and trust. Sacrifice him? To save myself? Are you effing kidding me?

  “You must do it, Flynn.” She sobbed into her hands, her hair spilling about her. Her shoulders shook with intense grief. “He’s going to die. Unless you do this, his death will be in vain. Your hand, your knife, will be of mercy. You’ll do him kindness, not evil. Save him from that, and the gods will grant you the power to halt your father’s evil.”

  “Mother –”

  She cannoned into me, sobbing, helpless. Her arms tight around my waist, she wept into my shirt. Helpless, scared, I held her close. This is wrong, I thought. It’s wrong, it’s so bloody wrong –

  “It is wrong, Flynn,” my mother cried, her shoulders under my hands heaving. “But don’t you see? It must be done. His death will spare him unbelievable suffering and grant you sublime power. You must do this. If you want to protect your sister, and Sofia. To protect me.”

  Fainche. Small, twelve years old and ignorant of the world and its evil. She’d known only kindness and grace until Finian forced her to watch my humiliation and punishment. Did she truly understand what she’d witnessed? Of course not. She’d stare evil in the face and laugh, thinking it a joke. I never, ever, want her to see true evil, in any form.

  “I’ll do it,” I muttered. “Whatever it takes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Am I?

  Enya lifted her hand, frail hope lightening her delicate features. “If only I were stronger, I’d take this burden from you, my precious son. But I cannot, for I am weak where you are strong.”

  Don’t do this.

  “I must.”

  My heart beat in thick, heavy strokes. “What must I do?”

  “Place him on the altar.”

  As the little boy gazed at me, absolute trust in his eyes, I lifted him. He weighed no more than a pack, and his small hands crept about my neck. I ignored the small warmth they brought and avoided his dark eyes. “Lie down, little one,” I murmured, laying him on his back. “Time for sleep.”

  The altar stone, despite the warmth of the night, oozed cold: bitter, chilling cold. I almost lifted him away from that icy lock, but Fainche’s smiling face intervened. You must do this, my son, my mother’s voice whispered, within my head. Keeping Fainche’s face in front of my eyes, I smoothed the curls from the boy’s brow and tried to smile down at him. “Go to sleep, little one.”

  Though my voice tried for lightness, I knew it failed. Such was his trust, however, for his eyes slid shut. I caressed him for a long moment, listening to the small, still voice in my heart. This is wrong, this is evil, don’t do it, don’t you dare do it –

  “I have to, or they’ll all die.”

  “What is his name?”

  “His name?”

  I shut my eyes to still the angry, defensive bark. “Yes, Mother. What is his name?”

  “Finias, I believe.”

  “Finias,” I whispered. “Dear one, sleep now. Angels open their arms for you. Go to them, and peace be with you.”

  The blazing fire at my back failed to warm me. The innocence in front of my face failed to bring me to mercy. Only the fear of what Finian would do to Fainche, to Enya, to Sofia, lifted my hand for the knife. Power. I needed power if I was to defeat him and save them. That’s all that mattered. Their lives against this little, unnamed boy who’d die anyway, in agonizing pain? The choice should be easy.

  It wasn’t.

  My mother placed the knife in my hand.

  “His throat first,” she whispered. “Then his heart.”

  I shut my eyes. I turned my face away.

  I slashed.

  Warm blood flowed over my hands as the body beneath me on the cold, hard stone thrashed, fighting for breath, fighting for life. My left hand pressed against his chest, I opened my eyes in slight shock. Finias struggled as though through willpower alone he might close the gaping wound in his neck. His hands tried to cover his throat, fight against the pain, the terror. His dark eyes met mine, panicked –

  “Now his heart.”

  Without thought, I drove the blade deep into his breastbone, splitting it apart with a sharp twist. As purple blood, heart’s blood, streamed over my hands, I cut his still beating, living heart from his chest. Dropping the bloody knife to the ground with a steely clang, I held it within my hands. It throbbed and beat still, hot blood oozing from my fists as the child on the hard, cold slab diminished, fell in upon itself as his spirit fled into the night. The wolf howled, its song lonely, alone, stricken with grief.

  “Lay it on the fire.”

  Before its life followed on the heels of its master, I tossed the living heart upon the red-orange flames. It exploded into shards of light and sparks, smoke billowing and rising high into the night. The cloud obscured the stars and the bright moon, its bitterness drawing tears into my eyes.

  Another howl rose, a deep note of grief and inarticulate longing. Not the wolf, this time. This cry brought the moon to tears and forced mountains to bow low. The earth herself trembled with the horror of what I’d just done. I heard this not with my ears, but with my heart. I knew then, instantly, the gods themselves wept at my sin.

  My soul closed over the evil I’d just done, like a salve over an open wound. Healing never came. Never would come again. There was no atonement for me now. For a sharp instant, piercing regret swamped me, filled my heart with such an agony I feared it might burst. I wished fervently it would.

  What have you done, you fool?

  I don’t know where the words came from, but they rose inside my head like an unwelcome ghost.

  “What I had to do.”

  No earthly power is worth your own soul.

  “If it keeps my mother and sister safe –”

  But who will save them from you?

  “Open your mind, my son,” my mother whispered, her breath on my neck. “Receive your gift.”

  In ignoring the voices, I obeyed hers.

  My bloody hands wide, p
alms up, I shut my eyes. I opened my mind, my body, my soul to whatever, whomever, might invade. I lifted my arms to the night, lifting them to the moon and the stars. “Come to me,” I called, silent. “Grant me your power. I offer you this life. In blood and sacrifice, on your holy altar, I gave it. I am yours, now and forever.”

  Instantly, like a thunderbolt, power struck me. Flames erupted all around my body, yet I remained cold, as icy as the bitter winter wind. My blood boiled, raw, filled with fire and ice, rushed though me, chilled my soul. My eyes, blinded, saw visions or war, of peace, of great evil and greater sacrifice. Fathers offered their lives for their children, soldiers died for their king. Women lay raped and dead under reviling enemies, as their children rose under great oppression and avenged them. Peace treaties written as their signers plotted war. Great wolves howled under the moonlit stars as men fought one another for small gains. Red blood fed the orchards, the fields, the rivers. Men died as they always died, consumed in hate and evil and took everything with them to the grave. Ravens quarreled over their corpses as they stank unto the heavens.

  I fell to my knees.

  I wept as heat coursed through me. My blood burned, boiled, consumed what good might be left within me. My vision of Fainche withered and died under the onslaught. My tears evaporated the instant they hit my cheeks until I wept no longer.

  I am changed, I thought. I am a thing of evil. I sacrificed an innocent. I shall never again find solace in life, or in death. No sunlight shall warm me, nor any darkness shield me. Under the brightest noon my shadow will not fall. Never will I find peace – neither in life nor in death.

  Enya sidled close, her hands reaching for me. I flinched from her, the corpse of the boy dwindling on the stone table behind her. His small form shrank into that of a small husk, a fraction of what he’d been in life. His blood stained the dark stone. “What have you done?”

  “Only what I must. What you must.”