36 TELL ME
AILSA TORE INTO the bread and cheese, hunger clawing so hard she barely tasted it.
Seated at a rickety table inside the windowless alcove, she was only half-aware of Kayla watching her.
Underneath the hunger, she felt sick.
Darach. The look in his eyes. It wouldn’t leave her.
Kayla. They were together again, yet not in the way she’d hoped. And she had questions for the woman who’d raised her.
But first, she had to fill her aching belly. She wolfed the last of her meal down fast before reaching for her cup of ale and draining it in a few gulps.
She could eat that all again.
Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she lifted her gaze to Kayla.
A knot formed beneath her breastbone. Aye, the person she loved most in the world had been hiding things. She was sure of it now.
Kayla was only halfway through her meal. Wordlessly, she tore off a hunk of bread and picked up a piece of cheese—they’d been given no eating knives with their meals—and handed it over.
Ailsa shook her head. “I can’t take your food.”
“Aye, you can.”
Reluctantly, Ailsa’s fingers closed around the bread and cheese. She hesitated just a moment before devouring it in a few bites.
She thought of Darach once more, alone in a festering pit.
Had they thrown him something to eat too, or would they let him starve? Her meal churned uneasily, and she closed her eyes. Would his brother torture him, execute him, or just leave him to die?
She had to get out of this alcove.
She had to save him … before it was too late.
“Ailsa?”
She opened her eyes to find Kayla watching her. “You should have stayed in Braewall. I really wish you had.”
Ailsa scowled. “Not this again.”
“You’re now a weapon Niall can use against me,” Kayla countered, her tone hardening. “If they’d hauled me here alone, I could have resisted them. Refused even if they tortured me. But I can’t allow him to use you.”
Heat kindled in Ailsa’s chest. “Just let him try.”
Kayla muttered an oath. “I have no idea what’s come over you these days … but I don’t like it.”
The warmth in Ailsa’s chest started to burn. “I thought you might be able to tell me … you’ve been keeping secrets, after all.”
Kayla frowned. “I’m not in the mood for riddles, Ailsa.”
“Neither am I … so I’ll say it plain. You’ve always known something’s wrong with me, haven’t you?”
Her mentor lifted her cup to her lips, yet Ailsa caught the slight tremble in her hand.
She wanted Ailsa to let this go, but she couldn’t. Instead, she leaned forward, ensnaring Kayla’s gaze with hers. “I’m a bavaan, aren’t I?”
Kayla coughed on her ale, setting the cup down too hard. “What? No!”
Ailsa’s pulse started to drum against her breastbone. “Don’t lie to me.”
Their gazes locked.
The moment drew out before her mentor’s shoulders sagged. “Why are you asking this?”
“Just tell me the Gods-damned truth!” Ailsa’s voice echoed through the dimly lit alcove, reverberating against damp stone and the iron door that barred them inside.
The alcoves they’d passed here on the second floor of the gallery overlooking the hall all had curtained entrances, except for this one.
King Niall had prepared a special cell for his druid tattooist.
Kayla drew back, taken aback by her venom. “Aye,” she whispered. “I knew.”
Breathing hard, Ailsa stared down at her hands splayed on the tabletop before her. The light of the cresset burning on the wall flickered upon her nails. Her pulse trembled. She needed to file them down, yet their captors had taken her bag.
She glanced up then, to find Kayla also studying her hands. A deep groove now furrowed her brow. “I feared it might come to this one day,” she said, her voice now strained. “I just hoped it wouldn’t.” Her gaze searched Ailsa’s face. “Ever since Harvest Fire, you’ve been … different.”
Ailsa swallowed. “That night sparked something in me … a rage. But since I began this journey, there have been other changes too. I’ve discovered that I enjoy killing … and that I hunger for blood.”
The words were bald. Ugly. Aisla let them lie.
Kayla’s hazel eyes drew wide, and she breathed a curse.
“Yesterday eve … before we tried to rescue you … we came upon a shieling with a group of dead hunters inside,” Ailsa went on, dogged now.
“It looked as if bavaan had torn their throats open … and drained their blood.” She paused, her fingernails digging into wood.
“I had to face it then … I’m one of them, aren’t I? ”
A nerve jumped under Kayla’s eye. She’d always been so strong, so sure of herself. Until now. “No,” she said huskily. “You’re not a bavaan … not entirely.”
Ailsa’s fingernails dug deeper into the rough wood. “Don’t—”
“Where are your cloven hooves or icy breath? Why is it that you can eat food and drink ale like the rest of us?”
Ailsa stilled. She hadn’t considered that.
A pause followed before Kayla exhaled sharply. “The truth is … that both baavan and Marav blood flow through your veins.”
Ailsa’s breathing seized.
The two women stared at each other. Meanwhile, the muffled sounds of voices and the thud of booted feet beyond their alcove intruded. They both ignored all of it.
Eventually, Kayla spoke. “Twenty-two years ago, I left the Isle of Arryn in disgrace,” she began, her voice low yet steady. “I’d been caught in the furs with one of my tutors … and was thrown out of the order for it … just a moon before I was due to travel to Duncrag, to serve the High-King.”
She paused there, her features tightening, as if the incident still brought back bitter memories.
“I left the isle but couldn’t bring myself to return to my kin in Baldeen … to see their disappointed faces or to weather their questions. So, I decided to travel to Braewall, where no one knew me, and set myself up as a tattooist there. I was one of the best on Arryn.”
There was no brag in these words, just quiet self-assurance. Indeed, Kayla was a woman who knew her own worth.
“One night, on my way to Braewall, in the woods near Ordsheen, I was sitting by the fire when a figure cloaked in green approached me from the shadows.” Kayla paused then, her fingers gripping the edge of the table.
“A woman stepped out of the dark. Hair black as pitch. Mouth red as blood. She moved toward me, and as she did, I glimpsed cloven hooves beneath the hem of her robes. Panicked, I drew both my dagger and protection charm … hoping to ward her off with iron … but she halted. And when she did, I saw that she carried a swaddled bairn in her arms.” Kayla’s throat worked. “You.”
Ailsa simply stared. The world seemed to tilt beneath her.
“She called herself Isleen,” Kayla plowed on.
“She’d seduced a druid … a powerful enforcer.
” She paused then, letting her words settle.
“They lay together in the moonlight … and as he spilled inside her, she tore his throat open and killed him.” Kayla halted then, her face suddenly seeming older and wearier than her forty-five winters.
“Imagine her surprise, when her womb quickened.”
Ailsa remained silent. It was hard to take this in. How could this be the truth?
However, it was too awful to be anything else.
“She laid you down on the ground between us and bid me to take you … she said that her home was too dangerous for a mortal child.” Kayla paused then. “I refused, yet she simply left you there and melted back into the shadows.”
The truth hung there, naked and raw, between them.
“You didn’t take me by choice?” Ailsa said, finally finding her voice. The numbness was sloughing away now, and an ache started to pulse in her chest.
Kayla’s eyes glittered once more. “No … but Isleen knew that I wouldn’t leave a tiny bairn to be taken by wild animals.
I’m willful and selfish … but not a heartless bitch.
At dawn, when I went on my way, I took you with me.
” Her lips curved then. “You were so quiet … so good. You hardly cried, all the way south. Along the way, I bought a goat in milk so I could feed you properly. And by the time I reached the gates of Braewall, I’d fallen in love. ”
“With the goat?”
Kayla snorted despite herself, and the tension between them eased just a little. “No. With you.”
Their gazes fused then.
“I should have told you, I know,” Kayla admitted, her voice catching.
“I kept you too close over the years, telling myself I was protecting you … telling myself you couldn’t handle the truth.
It’s partly why I was reluctant to let you use earth magic …
I was worried that it might react badly to the bavaan part of you.
” She broke off. “But look at you now. When I left Braewall, you were a quiet lass who deferred to me even though you hated it … yet you’ve crossed mountains and faced warriors to find me …
somewhere along the way, you became your own woman. ”
Ailsa reached up and rubbed her aching breastbone with her knuckles. “No … I’ve turned into a monster.”
Kayla leaned forward, her hands grasping Ailsa’s. “Monsters are made, not born.”
“And my mother?”
“Even she has some goodness in her, Ailsa. She let you live, didn’t she? She gave you to me to protect you.” She broke off then. “Remember that you’re Marav too … and that part of you is just as strong.”
Ailsa’s breathing grew shallow.
Kayla sounded so certain of these things, yet she wasn’t.
“I might be a half-blood … but I’m a risk to others,” she said finally.
“For most of the journey north, I fought the urge to slash my nails across Darach’s throat and drink from him.
” She didn’t add that she’d had the same urge when they’d lain together; there were some things she’d keep to herself. “And you’ve seen me fight. I’m savage.”
Kayla’s grip on her hands tightened.
Her expression grew fierce then, with that strength Ailsa loved so much about her.
The woman had a warrior’s heart. “I have seen you fight, Ailsa … and you are a wild thing … but you didn’t kill anyone who didn’t have it coming.
” She squeezed her hands then. “Aye, you go for the throat, but that’s good. ”
Ailsa swallowed hard. “Good?”
“Aye.” Kayla’s gaze never wavered. “We won’t get out of this fort without spilling some blood.”