Chapter 16 Shame
LARA WALKED THROUGH the woods. Weaving in and out of the trees, she was alone, barefoot, and wearing nothing but a thin linen tunic that brushed her ankles as she moved. Cold air kissed her naked arms, causing goosebumps to rise, and she quickened her step.
She wasn’t sure where she was going, and yet urgency beat in her breast.
The ground was damp underfoot, wet leaves sticking to her feet. Rustling in the undergrowth warned her that others were watching, but strangely, she wasn’t afraid.
Lights flickered in the distance, and her breathing caught.
Corpse candles.
Lara hurried on. She didn’t fear them now. These flickering flames were her allies.
The lights led her deep into the woods, darting out of reach every time she neared them. And when she finally caught them up, the corpse candles hovered in a ring around a large dark tree.
The ancient yew stood like a sentinel in the heart of the misted wood, its massive trunk twisted and gnarled.
The bark was a patchwork of deep russet and silver-grey, peeling away in long strips.
Its base spread wide, buttressed roots disappearing into the soft loam where fungi grew in ghostly pale clusters.
Above, the canopy formed a living vault. And upon one of the ancient limbs, Lara spied the shapes of perching birds.
Crows, large and black with glossy feathers and sharp eyes.
Seven of them—all watching her.
She froze, her pulse now thudding in her ears. And as the moments slid by, the smell of burning caught the back of her throat.
Smoke, drifting like mist through the air, started to curl around the heavy trunk. Crackling split the deep silence of the woodland. Flames erupted then, devouring the yew tree. The crows started to shriek, and she stumbled back, shielding her face.
Lara’s eyes snapped open.
Breathing hard, her heart pounding, she stared up at the night sky.
Patches of drifting clouds and a waxing moon.
Swathes of twinkling stars. She wasn’t in a woodland.
She was on a hillside, lying beside a smoldering fire pit.
The outlines of her companions, Shee and Marav alike, surrounded her.
Gentle snores rumbled through the air. The Gaulas’s cruel chatter was muffled now, as a male voice, soft and sure, carried through the night.
Vyr was taking his turn.
Lara sat up, clutching her thick fur-lined cloak about her.
Not that dream again.
Over the years, it was always the same one. Others blessed with seer abilities received visions that varied. But with her, it was always the same.
Seven crows in a Gods-damned yew tree.
Someone near to me guards a dangerous secret.
She dragged a hand down her face. Shit. Shit. Shit. More betrayal. Just what she needed.
Her dream years earlier had warned of Bree’s treachery, and then a year before, of Alar’s. Both those individuals were with her now, yet she didn’t doubt Bree these days.
Alar had double-crossed her once. He’d do so again without hesitation.
Teeth clenched, she rolled to her feet. Her gaze then searched those slumbering by the fireside. As always, the Shee and the Marav slept apart from each other on opposite sides. Mor slept at the heart of the group, surrounded by her bodyguards.
Alar wasn’t sleeping near the Shee though.
Lara’s gaze skirted her side of the fire.
He wasn’t there either.
Duana and Eithne were curled up together like kittens, while Roth slept next to them; a protective gesture that was endearing. Stepping carefully around where Cailean and Bree slept, wrapped together in the chief-enforcer’s cloak, Lara slipped away from the fire.
“Alar.”
A woman’s voice made Alar turn swiftly, his hand rising instinctively for one of his daggers.
However, it stilled when his gaze settled upon a small figure wrapped in a jade-green fur-lined cloak.
“Lara,” he murmured, dropping his hand. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
In truth, he was surprised to see her. Ever since their ‘conversation’ back in that pinewood, which had ended with her knife at his throat, she’d barely spoken to him.
But here she was.
One look at her, and he could see she was exhausted. Her heart-shaped face was pale and strained, her eyes hollowed. She’d lost weight over the past year, and despite her iron will, there was a fragility about her that hadn’t been there earlier.
His chest tightened.
He was the reason, the cause of her suffering.
He frowned. “Something wrong?”
She lifted her chin, her green eyes narrowing. “I had that dream again” —her voice was sharp with accusation— “the one about the seven crows in a yew tree.”
Alar went still. He knew where this was going. Meanwhile, Vyr’s haunting song rose and fell, muffling the cry of The Gaulas. Mor’s cousin was holding vigil on the western edge of their small camp, while Alar took his turn at watch on the eastern perimeter. “You think I’m keeping secrets again?”
“Aye … you lied to me once, twice should be even easier.”
Alar’s heart kicked. She was wrong there.
“I never lied, Lara,” he said after a pause.
Like her, he spoke quietly. They were far enough from the fire pit not to be overheard, and Vyr’s singing and the whispering wind masked their voices.
Nonetheless, this wasn’t an argument either of them wanted overheard.
“I just didn’t tell you what I was planning. There’s a difference.”
“Treachery is treachery.” She moved toward him then, halting when they stood around a yard apart. “What are you hiding from me this time?”
The rage glinting in her eyes made a warning ripple through him. Torches burned brightly around them. All Lara had to do was summon those dancing flames, and she could incinerate him. He should tread carefully, and yet when it came to Lara, he was foolishly reckless.
“Nothing. I came alone … without my wulvers. Without allies. There’s no trick. No plan.”
Her lips pursed. “I don’t believe you.”
Alar raked a hand through his hair, even as something twisted under his breastbone. “Asking you to trust me is too much,” he said roughly. “I know that. I burned that bridge behind me. But I need you to believe me. The person hiding a dangerous secret from you isn’t me this time.”
She folded her arms across her chest, a nerve flickering in her cheek.
“I swear … upon my mother’s memory … that I’m not plotting against you.”
Her lip curled. “You’d even drag your mother into this?”
Heat flared in his gut. Enough. “My mother’s memory is precious to me,” he growled. “If I make an oath in her name, I mean it.”
She snorted.
“I mean it,” he replied, his voice lowering once more. “Because I killed her.”
Lara jolted as if he’d just slapped her.
His pulse quickened. This wasn’t a story he wanted to tell.
To do so would slice him open. It would reveal the core of who he was, and what had driven him all these years.
His hunger for justice. His restlessness.
The uneasiness that gave him no peace. The fact that wherever he went and whatever he did, nothing truly satisfied him. All of it was down to this.
Lara remained silent. She was waiting for him to explain himself.
He hesitated. They’d all taken a battering from The Gaulas today, him included. They had a temporary reprieve at present, and it made him want to shore up his defenses, not spill his guts. But he had to.
“When I was around ten, I started following my mother when she left our cottage,” he began, each word halting.
“She’d become distant … secretive … and took to disappearing at odd times.
I tracked her to a glade deep in the woods, a sheltered spot surrounded by dark-green sycamores.
I then watched as she circled the clearing, whispering charms and prayers.
She even sprinkled rose petals. She called his name as she walked …
where are you, Wynn Sablebane … come to me, Wynn.
My brave Shee warrior. My love … but he never appeared.
” His throat grew tight then. “Finally, she sank to her knees and began to weep.”
Lara’s brow furrowed.
“He abandoned her, but she still pined for him.” He looked away then, unable to hold her eye now.
“I was angry. Jealous. My mother wept over a Shee … a lover who’d used her and then abandoned her …
while she only gave half of herself to me.
In the evenings, she’d stare into the flames of our cookfire, barely listening as I prattled on.
She was still sweet, still tucked me up in the furs each night, kissed me on the brow, and told me she loved me.
” His gut clenched. “But it wasn’t enough.
I wanted all her love and affection. I didn’t want to share. ”
He halted then, sucking in a deep breath. “So, I came up with a plan. I thought that if she stopped going to that clearing, she’d forget about him … that she’d focus on me again.”
Lara made a sound in the back of her throat, and he met her eye once more.
“A group of lads from the village liked to go hunting for frogs in a nearby burn. Sometimes, when they allowed it, I joined them. One day, I told them that my mother often went to the glade where she’d once met my father …
a Shee, obviously … hoping to see him again.
” He halted then, his throat aching now.
“I knew they’d tell their parents. My plan was that they’d shame her into letting go of my father’s memory.
It didn’t work out that way.” His pulse started to thunder in his ears.
“Instead, a group of women—the mothers of the lads I’d told—followed her into the woods two days later …
and when she reached the clearing, they stoned her to death. ”
He stopped talking then.
Bile stung the back of his throat. Ashes. That had been even harder than he’d thought.
Lara still didn’t speak. He didn’t blame her.
“So, there you have it,” he said finally, aware that cold sweat now trickled down his back. “I betrayed the person I loved most. And nothing has ever mattered so much since.”
Lara swallowed, her lips parting as if she might answer. However, he spoke first. “There are few things I hold sacred in this world, Lara. But my mother’s memory is one of them.” His gaze ensnared hers then. “So, heed me when I swear by it.”
Silence swelled behind them as Vyr’s voice rose and fell.
Eventually, Lara cleared her throat. “All right … so if you’re telling the truth, someone else is hiding something from me.”
He moved closer to her, even as his pulse still raced. After cutting himself open like that, he wanted to reach for her, to find comfort in her embrace. But since she’d likely whip out her dagger and stab him if he touched her, he restrained himself. “This dream … where does it take place?”
She swallowed. “In the middle of dark woods. I’m walking through it … and there’s an ancient yew tree with seven crows perched upon its branches. There’s—” She halted then, her eyes snapping wide.
He stiffened. “What?”
She breathed a curse. “This dream was different from the others. I can’t believe I forgot that.”
“How?”
“The tree caught fire.”
Alar frowned. “The prophecy isn’t the same then.”
“It isn’t?”
He shook his head. “I suggest you have a word with Ruari tomorrow. Fire cleanses and transforms … but it also destroys. This time, your dream is sending you a different warning.”