Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
Logan dozed by his brother’s bedside. He had followed Adeline’s strict instructions to keep air flowing into any room where there was a feverish patient, but the low light of the candles and the comforting heat of the fireplace made it a struggle to keep his eyes open. Nor had he slept well last night, his fatigue cumulative, just as Adeline had said it was.
He might have fallen asleep right there and then, had a sharp knock at the door not jolted him out of his exhaustion.
“Logan?” His mother’s face appeared, followed by her body and, a moment later, Moira. “Is that me boy?”
Logan’s mouth stretched into a yawn. “Both of ‘em, aye.”
“Well, I kenned that ye were here, but I dinnae believe it when Theo said ye’d brought him back.” His mother hurried to Oliver’s bedside, perching right up on the bed to get closer to him. She clasped his hand in hers, pressing her other palm to his brow. “He doesnae feel too warm.”
Logan nodded. “Because Adeline wasnae lyin’ about bein’ a healer in her world.” He swept a hand across Oliver’s sleeping figure. “She’s been singlehandedly undoin’ curses since yesterday. I figured she’d have told ye everythin’ already.”
His mother was not listening, her attention fixed on Oliver. “It’s yer maither, Oliver. Can ye hear me? Oliver?”
“Adeline said he’s goin’ to need as much rest as possible, so I wouldnae try to wake him if I were ye. I wouldnae get too close either,” Logan half-warned. “She hasnae decided if the curse is in the air or the water, and if it’s in the air, it can make ye sick, too.”
Sophie frowned. “But we’re miles away from the eastern villages. There’s nothin’ in the air here.”
“She says it travels with the sick,” Logan replied. “She described it in a different way, but I cannae remember the words she used. That was the gist of it, though. The curse clings to the sick, and goes where they go.”
His mother pulled a face. “Well, if she can heal my wee lad, she can heal me if I get sick, too.”
“I suppose we can end our wager on who is the favorite bairn, eh?” Moira said drily, pulling up a chair beside Logan. “I’ll be honest, I had me coin on meself, but that was when Ollie was on the mainland—out of sight and all that.”
Logan snorted. “I could’ve told ye to save yer coin. It has always been Oliver.”
“Are ye two deliberately bein’ unkind, or did ye forget that I’m sittin’ right here and can hear every word ye’re mutterin’?” Sophie said curtly, flashing them a wounded look. “I have never had favorites among ye. I love ye all the same, but what ye all choose to ignore is that Oliver dinnae have the same beginnin’ in life that the two of ye had.”
Moira leaned forward. “What do ye mean?”
As the youngest of the three, Moira had not been there for the grim days following Oliver’s birth. Logan had only been seven, but he could remember it keenly, now that he thought about it.
“He was sickly from birth,” Sophie replied, stroking her younger son’s hand gently. “Nay one thought he would live. Yer faither wanted me to leave him out on the rocks in the cold until he perished. Didnae like the notion that he had a weak son. Didnae like other people thinkin’ he was weak for havin’ a weak son. Of course, I wouldnae do it. I think it was the only time I fought back against yer faither.
“One night, I awoke to feed yer brother, but he wasnae there in the cradle, where I’d been watchin’ over him day and night since I brought him into this world,” she went on, her voice catching. “I ran screamin’ through the keep. Nay one would tell me where he was, and yer faither had sailed off earlier that evenin’ with his men, though I kenned he was responsible. He might nae have taken me boy, but he ordered someone to.”
Logan frowned, ancient memories coming back to him at a slow pace. Things he had not remembered for a long, long time.
“I told ye where he was,” he whispered. “I’d seen one of me faither’s men snatch him and take him out to the rocks.”
“Aye,” Sophie confirmed. “And ye came with me to take him back. Ye showed me the way, though I was wailin’ and weepin’ like a banshee. When we got to the spot, Oliver wasnae alone. There was a woman sittin’ with him, holdin’ him to her, usin’ her shawl to keep him warm. A woman that the islanders called a witch, though that came later. She was just a midwife, in truth. A clever woman, sweet and kind, who’d heard me son cryin’ and had come to investigate. She saved his life, but I couldnae save hers.”
Logan’s heart began to beat strangely, a chill prickling down the back of his neck. “Faither had her tried as a witch. Accused her of kidnappin’ Oliver in the night, to make a blood sacrifice. All to conceal what he had done.”
“But he never let Oliver forget that he wasnae wanted,” Sophie said, her voice tight with pain. “Never let him forget that he was ‘weak,’ though he’s never been weak. He has always been a warrior, fightin’ for his life. If he wasnae, he wouldnae have cried that night, drawin’ that poor woman to him.”
Logan rubbed the back of his neck to try and warm the chill that bristled there. As he stared at his brother, remembering that stormy walk across the treacherous rocks to reach him, dragging their mother by the hand, though he was just seven years old, Adeline’s words came back to haunt him.
He’s probably got a major inferiority… uh… obsession…. Oliver is just… the brother. He likely realized he’d get a lot more attention if he acted out and has been doing it ever since.
“She was right,” Logan muttered to himself, seeing his brother in a new light.
To their father, Logan had been the favorite. He was the heir, he was the one who grew up strong and agile, excelling in all the training he was put through. He was the one their father was proud of, in his own twisted, cruel way. He was the one their father had boasted to about his piracy, likely hoping that Logan would follow in his wicked footsteps.
And, all the while, Oliver had just been the spare. A spare that their father had schemed to have killed by exposure on the rocks. Logan could not quite recall, but he was fairly sure that their father had even told Oliver that, after one too many jars of liquor.
“I had nay notion of that,” Moira said quietly.
Sophie sniffed, wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve. “Aye, well, maybe ye’ll think twice before ye start bein’ unkind again. I ken he’s nae the most… well-behaved lad, but it’s nae all his fault. He sees anger as affection. His faither taught him that.”
“That’s what Adeline said.”
Logan felt a little unsteady, despite being in a chair. How had Adeline known that? Was that something they learned in the future—a medicine of the mind and the character, as well as the body?
Moira groaned. “Where is Adeline? I have been desperate to see her, but I think she’s still wary of me after the whole dagger incident. Can ye believe she thought I was goin’ to kill her? I wouldnae harm a hair on her head.” She grimaced. “Och, those purple locks. I wish she could’ve kept them.”
Logan squinted at his sister. “What do ye mean, where is she? She went up to teach Maither some stretches for her back.”
“Nay, she dinnae,” Moira retorted. “I think I would ken if I’d seen her. I havenae seen her since before ye left yesterday.”
Sophie gasped. “Ye daenae think she… Nay, she wouldnae have gone without sayin’ farewell, would she?” Her eyes widened, the color draining from her face. “She really dinnae come up to see me, Logan. What if… the thing that brought her here took her back without her say-so?”
Logan’s head began to spin, his heart lurching in his throat.
We could write that list later if you want?
He heard her voice in his mind, saw the sadness on her face when he had told her it would not be necessary. Had she been trying to hang onto a reason to stay, and he had not given it? His stomach dropped, recalling how coldly he had walked away from her.
“I need to search the keep,” he said thickly, lumbering to his feet. “I willnae believe she’s gone until I cannae find her anywhere.”
Moira jumped up. “I’ll come with ye. I’ll search high and low.” Her breath hitched, her hand flying to her mouth. “If she’s gone without sayin’ farewell, I’ll never forgive meself for playin’ with that dagger!”
“I daenae think it was the dagger,” Logan replied, marching toward the door.
“I’ll follow ye!” Sophie called. “Daenae forget to check the dungeons, the old store rooms, the stables, the old barracks, the…”
Logan did not hear the rest, blood whooshing in his ears as he broke into a run.