48. Study of Moralities #2
“I called you naive,” he admitted. “On Davyn’s boat when we were on the way to Lyria’s door.
I overheard you discussing death with Wren, and I thought you were a fool.
To say that death was an unsavory solution, I thought that made you weak.
I wanted Ferrin dead more than anything.
And I’m sorry. I’m glad he’s dead, but—”
He broke off as his voice hitched, and my view of Orla sitting in my twin bed swam. Ciarán’s view—or rather, his memory—took its place.
Red blood spilled over ice, and Ferrin broke in my four limbs of claw and shadow. He screamed up at me, still alive and full of vinegar and wrath, but I knew what would happen next. I shook myself away from Ciarán’s thoughts before I could watch the memory play out.
“Ciarán,” Orla sighed.
“I did not enjoy killing him,” he whispered. “He died just how I’d promised. Slowly. Painfully. And he needed to die, but you’re right. It is not a good thing when death is the only solution, and it is not an honor to be the one to deal it.”
Orla sat perfectly still on the bed but for the single tear that traced the curve of her cheek. After several long moments, she held a hand out to him.
He took it in his, staring at it incredulously, as if unsure what to do with it.
“I shouldn’t have used your rotsbane as a weapon against Ferrin,” she murmured. “Ciarán, I’m so sorry.”
A small sob escaped her lips, and she winced in pain and withdrew her hand to brace her ribs with her arms.
“Orla, let me heal you,” I begged.
She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head, still grimacing through the pain.
“Why not? Look at you!”
“She’s punishing herself,” Ciarán said quietly.
“That’s stupid, she didn’t do anything wrong!”
But when I looked at Orla, tears that had nothing to do with the pain in her broken bones spilled down her cheeks and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
“Orla—” I started, but then stopped when Ciarán shifted forward.
He placed an arm over Orla in a careful embrace.
“Why did you throw yourself over the edge too, Orla?” he whispered. “You could’ve just pushed him, but you pulled Ferrin down with you. You didn’t have to fall with him.”
Orla shook her head, trying to regain her composure. Her cheeks reflected the orange of Ciarán’s gaze as he waited patiently.
“You already said it,” she rasped.
To punish herself.
I didn’t realize there was anything left of me that could break, but it did then.
“Orla?” I gasped. “You didn’t.”
“How could I live, Wren, knowing I’d killed my uncle? How could I deserve to live after killing family?”
I trembled with grief for Orla and with anger at Ferrin. He did not deserve to have such a wonderfully perfect niece who would rather throw herself to a rotsbane than live with the fact she’d hurt someone she loved.
Because she had loved Ferrin all the way to the end. He had been so underserving, but that wasn’t how Orla worked. To Orla, love was to be freely given to everyone, regardless of who they were or what they’d done.
“I’m sorry I used you,” she said to Ciarán. “If I knew you were still in there, inside the rotsbane, I never would’ve done that to you. And I’m sorry for ever thinking you brutal and unkind. Ferrin had to die. Sometimes bad people must. It took me too long to understand that.”
“If bad people must die,” Ciarán said, “then them leaving us no other choice but to kill them is just another one of their cruelties. But you, Orla, you are not cruel, and you are not naive. When I was—you know—I begged Wren to kill me. Begged her. If she were more like me, she would have. But she didn’t, because she’s more like you.
Instead of killing me, she turned all of magick inside-out, and now I’m here.
So please, let her heal you. You show everyone else so much love and mercy. Spare a little for yourself.”
Orla’s shoulders shook, but she nodded through her tears. I stepped forward, joining Ciarán on my knees next to the bed and took Orla’s hand in mine.
When Orla’s bones had mended and Iseult had returned to the room, I stepped back into the hall with Ciarán. He hadn’t spoken in six days, and all that talking at once seemed to have exhausted him. He swayed on his feet, but I grabbed his wrists to steady him.
“Thank you,” he said, “for not listening to me.”
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist. “When was the last time you slept?”
“The night before last,” he admitted. “It comes back when I sleep. It’s a just a bad dream but—”
He cut off.
I didn’t have to ask what came back. I’d heard him begging me to aim for the rotsbane’s mouth as he talked in his sleep just two nights ago.
“Come on.” I pulled him towards the living room. “Sleep. I’ll keep the nightmares away.”
Mom and Fana had retreated downstairs, and I tucked Ciarán under the quilts on the couch. Jonquil joined, curling against him. I wrapped my consciousness around his, remembering how he’d sung in my head as I’d slept on Davyn’s boat.
I did my best. I didn’t have the same voice as him, even in my head, and I was sure I was saying the strange words wrong, no matter how many times I’d heard him sing them.
Even so, he fell asleep, and I watched over him, the perfect guard, until the sun started to brighten the sky in the living room window.
My head bobbed towards the couch cushion where I sat on the floor as I finally started to drift off, but tiny feet thundering up the stairs jolted me awake.
Fana burst into the kitchen, out of breath and her cheeks dark with flush.
“They’re here,” she said. “Darragh’s Watch is at the Rift. They’re home.”