19. A Promise Between the Living and Dead
A Promise Between the Living and Dead
I wake to a world that feels distant and hazy, as if I’m surfacing from a dream I can’t quite grasp.
The room is dim, unfamiliar in a way that unsettles me.
A dull ache lingers throughout my body, but it’s nothing compared to the gnawing emptiness in my stomach.
Hunger claws at me, fierce and insistent, and the pressing urge to use the chamber pot forces me to move.
My limbs feel as though they’re weighed down with stones, sluggish and reluctant to obey, but the pull of hunger still outweighs my fatigue.
It’s only as I shift I realise something odd—my back, the source of so much pain before, feels…
fi ne. No burning, no sharp stabs of agony.
Just a faint stiffness, as if the injury had never been as dire as I remembered.
Confusion thickens in my mind like fog. Had I imagined it? The memories of the past few days blur at the edges, dulled by pain draughts and fevered exhaustion, but I know I didn’t imagine that. Right?
With hesitant fingers, I pull my arm from the sleeve of the humorously large linen shirt draped over me. My breath stutters as I reach back, heart hammering. My fingers find smooth skin. No open wounds. Only the faint ridges of scars remain. The sharp, searing pain that had consumed me?
Gone.
The rustle of blankets behind me startles me, pulling me from my thoughts. Finn stirs, his head snapping up from where he’s slouched beside the bed. The sight of him immediately eases some of the unease coiling in my chest.
If I had the mind to notice him before, I might have scrambled for some shred of modesty. Right now, however, my dignity is a distant concern, buried beneath the weight of exhaustion and the lingering fog of pain. There are greater burdens pressing down on me.
His eyes, wide with alarm, meet mine, and he bolts upright, his face drawn tight with panic.
“Triona?” His voice is rough from sleep. “Ye’re awake.”
The words are a statement, seeped in relief, like a prayer fulfilled. He eyes me as if he’s confirming the validity of my existence. “Do you… how do you feel?”
I blink at him, still shaking off the grogginess. “Hungry,” I rasp, the dryness in my throat making my voice sound rough. I shift slightly, testing my body, and the absence of the sharp, searing pain in my back hits me like a shock once again.
“And… I don’t hurt.”
Finn steps around the tiny bed, his massive form filling the space. “How d’ye mean?” His tone carries something subtle—a suggestion that he’s not as oblivious as he’d like me to think. But fine, I’ll humour him.
“I don’t hurt.” My hand instinctively reaches behind me, brushing over the places where I’d felt the wounds the most. I can feel the faint ridges of scars beneath my fingertips, but no pain—nothing even close. “They’re gone,” I say, my words trembling with disbelief .
Finn keeps his eyes locked on mine as he steps closer, his movements measured.
“I dinnae ken how else to explain it, except to say the scars remain, but the injury itself…” He exhales sharply, his throat bobbing as he swallows.
“Triona, when I found you after—” He stops, jaw tightening, as if the memory alone is too much.
“It was bad. Worse than bad. You should’ve been bedbound for weeks—maybe longer—before you could even think about moving without pain. But now…”
“Months?” I whisper, trying to wrap my mind around what he’s saying. I can see the truth of it in his expression—the way he’s looking at me, as if I’m a riddle with no solution.
“Aye,” he murmurs. “It’s as if time sped up. As if ye’ve been recoverin’ faster than… faster than is possible for anyone.”
He hesitates, his gaze flickering downward before returning to my face.
“The necklace,” he says, his voice quieter now.
“The one I gave you.” His fingers twitch, as if he almost wants to reach for it, but stops himself.
“Ellen said there was something about it. Something meant to heal.” He exhales, shaking his head slightly.
“I didnae think much of it at first, but after seein’ the impossible with my own eyes…
” His voice trails off, the unspoken thought hanging between us.
I glance down, my fingers brushing against the cool metal resting against my collarbone. My mind reels, struggling to grasp what he’s suggesting—what any of this means.
Finn exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “We’re all tryin’ to make sense of it, Triona. Everything—this, you, the world itself—none of it feels…” His voice falters. His gaze turns searching, almost haunted. “Things are changin’. Faster than any of us can understand.”
This explanation should be a relief. It should make me feel stronger, grateful even. But a cold unease creeps into my chest. My hands go still, my gaze shifting away as my shoulders slump beneath the weight of it all.
I struggle to hold on to his words, to piece them together into something that makes sense. But another pain surges forward—one sharper, deeper, more unbearable than any wound I’ve suffered.
My parents.
For a moment, silence stretches between us.
I stare at the far wall, my thoughts tangled in something I can’t quite name.
Finally, I exhale. “It’s strange, isn’t it?
” My voice is soft, but there’s no mistaking the anguish beneath it.
“My body heals faster than I can make sense of, yet the things that matter most—the things inside me—feel as if they’ll never heal. ”
Finn’s brows pull together, concern etched across his face. He doesn’t speak. He just waits.
Because he knows.
Because he understands.
I swallow, my chest tightening, and then—“Finn,” I whisper, hesitant, fragile. “I remember that day. The day you found me in the woods.”
He nods slowly, his expression unreadable. “Aye, the first day I met you...”
I pause as a tiny weight presses against my chest. “It’s unthinkable that I ever forgot,” I murmur, my gaze drifting. “But the memories started coming back—first in dreams, and then, during my talk with Colina, the truth hit me. The horrible truth of it.”
My throat tightens. The truth sticks, but I force it out. “Finn… Colina hurt me that day. She’s the reason I was in the woods. The reason you had to come find me.”
His face darkens, tension rippling through his body. “What?”
I exhale shakily. “I followed her into the woods. I thought—” My voice cracks, but I push through, even as my hands tremble. “I thought she wanted to play. But she didn’t. She was leading me away, Finn. She was going to leave me there.”
The admission sours on my tongue, bitter and raw, and my breath stutters beneath its weight. “And if you hadn’t found me…” My voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “I might have never come back.”
Finn’s jaw clenches, his hands curling into fists. “I’m sure someone would have—”
“No, Finn.” I cut him off, my voice firm despite the tears brimming in my eyes. “You saved me then, just as you saved me the other day.”
The first tear slips free, trailing down my cheek, and then another. I don’t wipe them away. I let them fall, let the grief and gratitude settle between us. Let Finn see the depth of what he’s done for me—what he’s always done for me.
He swallows hard, looking as if he wants to say something, but nothing comes. Instead, he just nods, his expression raw, his eyes dark with something unreadable.
“Finn, what I said the other day—”
“Don’t,” he interrupts quickly, shaking his head. “You dinnae have to—”
“No!” I shout, cutting him off just as fast. My breath is ragged, my chest rising and falling too quickly.
I force myself to even out, to steady my voice.
“Finn, you deserve an apology.” My voice softens, but the conviction remains.
“I didn’t mean a word of what I said to you.
Not a single word. I owe you my life, twice over.
And what I said… it wasn’t fair. It was selfish. ”
My hands tighten at my sides, my heart pounding. “I was lashing out. I was trying to protect myself from something I didn’t even understand. Some idiotic form of self-preservation. But I see the light of it now. And I’m sorry, Finn. I’m so sorry.”
I take a breath, the next words tumbling out in a rush before I can lose my nerve. “And Marcus… I never really wanted him. Not before I left for Edinburgh. Not when he showed up again after I came home. Not even the night of my party. It would never be him.”
His lips part as if to argue, but I don’t let him.
Instead, I push aside every morsel of hesitation, the heat of embarrassment flickering in the back of my mind.
It’s nothing compared to the need to reach him.
To feel something solid, something real.
My dignity can wait—this moment cannot. Before he can react, I wrap my arms around his neck, holding on tightly.
For a heartbeat, he doesn’t move—just stands there, as if frozen by the weight of my touch.
Then, slowly, he exhales, the breath shuddering from his chest. His arms come around me—not just to hold me, but to keep me.
The warmth of him cascades through me, steady and unyielding, mooring me in a way I hadn’t known I needed.
As if he alone can still the chaos that trembles beneath my skin, in a way I never knew I craved.
His voice is quiet when he speaks, but there’s no mistaking the weight of it, the promise woven into every syllable.
“You should know, there was never a world where I wouldnae have found you, Triona.”
He presses his cheek to my hair, his breath warm, his heartbeat strong against mine.
“And there’ll never be a world where I couldnae.”
Something inside me stirs, something I can’t name, can’t face—not now. But I feel it, thrumming beneath my skin, winding around my heart like an unseen thread, pulling taut in a way I never noticed before.