17. The Road of Silent Footfalls #2
Finn cups my face. “Triona, I need to look at yer wounds. We have more laudanum for pain,” he says, gesturing to Bran. “It won’t taste good going down, but it’ll help you sleep and ye’ll heal better if ye’re not movin’.”
“Stop!” I shout.
“Finn,” I say, panic rising. “Please. Tell me. You’re scaring me.” I stare into his golden-brown eyes long enough to see an unbearable pain in their depths.
Bran hands Finn a cup with liquid in it. “Drink this, and we’ll tell you,” he says with a finality unusual for Bran.
I do as I’m asked.
“They protected us, Triona.” Casey’s voice cracks when he speaks after I’ve consumed every drop of the foul liquid. “They protected ye . Da—he fought to keep us safe. Ma... she—” His voice breaks completely, and he closes his eyes, as if the memory alone is too much to bear. “They didnae make it.”
Through my still clouded memory, I attempt to process what they’re saying .
The realisation of what he’s suggesting drops like a stone into a deep, dark well.
I stare at Casey, his eyes misty, at Callan who’s body is tense, and then at Finn and Bran, who both avoid my gaze as though my eyes might burn them.
The silence presses against me, thick and suffocating, and my mind struggles to pull the pieces together.
“No,” I murmur, my voice raw, barely more than a breath. “That’s not—” The words crumble as my throat tightens, and I shake my head, vision blurring with tears.
“You’re lying.” The denial scrapes against my ribs, desperate, trembling. “They can’t be gone. They can’t.”
“They saved us, Triona,” Finn says softly, his brogue roughened by emotion.
My chest tightens painfully, as if the very act of breathing might break me.
“No,” I whisper again, my voice trembling.
“No, no, no.” My head shakes violently. A sob wrenches free from my throat, raw and ugly.
I try to push them all away, to sit up, to do something—anything—but my body refuses to obey.
Nothing compares to this storm raging inside me.
Casey takes me into his chest as gently as he can manage.
“Let me go!” I cry, though my arms cling to him in desperation. “This can’t be real. Casey, it can’t—”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice thick with grief. “I’m so sorry, Triona.”
The memories resurface, disjointed and painful.
My father’s tears, a rare and shattering sight, falling onto my cheeks.
My mother’s hands trembling as they cup mine, her voice steady despite the quiver in her breath.
The sound of shuffling feet, of hurried whispers and suppressed sobs.
The clatter of horses’ hooves fading into the distance.
It’s all too much. Too much to hold, too much to bear. My chest is near bursting, my sobs wracking through me until I feel as if I might splinter into pieces.
I cling to Casey as though he’s the only thing tethering me to the earth, and he holds me like I’m something precious, something fragile that might shatter if he lets go.
His tears drip steadily, soaking into my hair, and the quiet sound of his grief reverberates in his chest. I clutch at him, desperate for his strength, his presence, his reassurance that some part of this world—of my world—remains intact.
My breaths come slower, weaker, as if the effort to stay awake is more than I can bear. The laudanum’s grip pulls at me, its weight like a tide dragging me under. My eyelids grow heavy, my body slackens, but I fight it for just a little longer .
“Ma used to hum to us,” I say, my words thick and clumsy. “When we were sick... do you remember Casey?”
His body tenses, and I feel the hitch in his breath against me. For a moment, I think he won’t answer, that the memories will be too much.
“Aye, I’d never forget. Not ever.” His voice comes low and raw. The way he says it—soft but weighted—means much more than the words being said.
Then he starts.
The sound is shaky at first, but it steadies as he continues. It’s a tune I remember from countless nights when fever or nightmares kept us awake—the melody of a mother’s love, now carried by the brother holding me together.
As the sharp edges of pain fade, so do I, the darkness taking me gently this time.
All that remains is the thrum of Casey’s heartbeat beneath my cheek, and the sound of sweet, familiar humming—leading me where I hope the pain can’t follow.
Finn
While Triona is in a deep slumber, I kneel beside her, carefully pulling back the fabric dressings covering her wounds. I’m prepared to change them, prepared for the pain I might find beneath, but the sight before me stills my hands mid-motion.
The wound is healing—far too quickly, impossibly so—and for a moment, all I can do is stare, disbelief rooting me to the spot.
“Callan,” I call out, my voice low, but urgent. “Ye need to see this.”
He strides over, his scowl deepening as he takes in the sight. He crouches beside me, his sharp gaze assessing her back .
The gashes, raw and angry just hours ago, are now pink, shrunken, and scabbed, as if days—no, a week—has passed since the injury. The physical truth is undeniable and jarring.
“How is this possible?”
“I dinnae ken,” I mutter, brow furrowed. My fingers hover over the wounds, careful not to touch. “This... this shouldna be happenin’. Not like this.”
“Da warned us,” he says, his tone clipped. “Said we’d encounter things movin’ forward that might make little sense—things like the body healin’ quicker than humanly possible.”
“That, and that the answers to what’s ahead lie in the mind of someone we’re meant to meet in Portugal.” He meets my eyes, and I can see the scepticism in their depths.
“Which begs the question. What’s waitin’ in Portugal, Finn?”
I stiffen, his implication stirring something akin to fury. “Why d’ye think I know?” I ask.
His expression hardens. “‘Cause ye’ve just come back from there,” he says, his voice growing cold. “So ye must ken something ye’re not tellin’ me.”
The words hit like a slap, and I recoil, his doubt carving deeper than I care to admit. My voice lowers, tight with frustration. “Have I ever lied to you, Cal?”
His refusal to answer unsettles me. Frustration laced with something darker rises, pushing me to reveal just enough of the truth I’ve been burying for years. The truth about why I never wrote, why I let my poison stay locked away, kept from spilling onto pages I could never send back to them.
“The past three years were far worse than any torment my bastard of a father ever put me through,” I say, my voice quiet, but steeped in emotion sharp enough to cut stone.
“Some places Bran and I were in—there were no allies there, Callan. No kindness. No mercy. Every hardship found me, and not one spared me. So dinnae suggest I’d keep things from you now, when we need to be aligned, now more than ever.
I’d never ask of you what was asked of me. ”
My voice cracks slightly, but I push through, my gaze steady, even as the weight of my memories threatens to pull me under. “If I knew what was waitin’, I’d bloody tell you, you stubborn arse of a man.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just watches me, as if he’s still deciding whether to believe me or break something.
His scowl is carved from stone, but it softens—barely.
No apology comes. Of course not. He’s Callan.
And apologies don’t come easy to men who’ve spent their lives building walls out of pride and pain.
Instead, he shifts his attention back to Triona, but the tension between us still pulses like a wound left open.
“We need to keep movin’,” Callan mutters, voice rough. “Because whatever’s drawn to this ”—his gaze lingers on Triona’s unnaturally healed skin—“it might not be far behind. And it won’t come gently.”