Chapter 25
Halverton stepped away. The captain released Cormac’s arm, and he crumpled forward, clutching it to his chest. Around the edge of the courtyard, the soldiers moved. Amongst them she spotted Lugh and Kian as they stepped forward to grab Cormac by the arms and drag him to his feet.
For an instant, Lugh’s eyes met hers. There was pity in his look, but it was gone as quickly as it came. He turned away, hauling Cormac with him.
Aoife’s body turned heavy, her limbs unresponsive. Her heart pounded in her throat. What have I done?
Halverton turned to her, his anger changing into possessiveness. “You see now,” he said. “You are mine.”
Her chest felt tight. She couldn’t draw a full breath. When he reached to touch her face, she flinched before she could stop herself. His eyes darkened.
She forced her lungs to expand to suck in a breath. “There’s no one but you.” The words shuddered out of her on an exhale. Would he believe them?
His expression eased.
She wanted to yell, to rage at him. How could there be someone else when you’ve trapped me here? Instead she smiled, her cheeks fighting her the whole time.
“Good,” he said at last and turned away from her. She let the smile fall.
Servants scattered as they entered, pretending to be busy. Halverton didn’t notice them, but Aoife did.
Clara stood by the doorway, eyes downcast.
Alton watched her. His face was the perfect servant’s mask, but there was something different about him all the same.
Halverton’s hand closed gently around her elbow, guiding her down the corridor as if nothing at all had happened in the courtyard.
They passed through the servants’ door, down more corridors until he stopped in front of the sitting room. He opened the door for her, his touch light and possessive at the small of her back.
“A moment interrupted,” he murmured.
Aoife stepped inside. The room was smaller than before, airless. Her book lay open on her chair. Halverton retrieved it, his fingers brushing the page.
“An excellent choice,” he said, pleased. “Continue.”
He placed it in her hands with a fondness that made her stomach clench.
Then he crossed to the sideboard, uncorked a bottle of wine, and poured himself a generous glass. The splash of liquid hitting crystal was too loud in the quiet. He selected a leather-bound volume from the shelf without even looking at the title and settled into the opposite chair.
As if they were simply two people enjoying an afternoon’s peace.
Aoife sat. The book trembled slightly in her grip.
She forced her hands still and tried to read, tried to let her eyes track the lines, but the words slid apart like water.
Every time she blinked, the same image played out behind her eyelids: Cormac’s arm twisted behind his back, his face contorted in pain.
She pressed her nails into her palm, anchoring herself, willing her expression to remain smooth.
Halverton turned a page with a soft rustle.
Aoife stared at the same sentence until it blurred.
She would never reach Cormac from this chair.
When Halverton finally rose, sighing softly, marking his page, kissing her forehead in a gesture that made her flinch inside, she waited only until his footsteps vanished down the hall. She snapped her book shut, stood, and dashed to the servants’ door at a dead run.
She ran down the back stairs in search of Clara, finding her in the boot room with Alton.
“Do you know where the cells are?” Aoife asked.
Clara and Alton exchanged a look. Clara hesitated, then nodded.
Aoife pressed, “Can you help me reach them?”
Clara shook her head. “Not if you mean to break him out. It’s too dangerous. Cormac seems like a good man, but we’d all be punished, and he’d hang if we were caught.”
“I only want to talk to him.”
Alton studied her for a long moment, then sighed. “All right. I know who’s on watch tonight, both Morran. They’ll let you through, but that’s all we can do.”
Relief flooded her so quickly that she swayed. “Thank you,” she whispered. She meant it more than either of them could know.
But gratitude did nothing to ease the long evening that followed.
Throughout dinner, she could barely swallow. Halverton spoke of estate matters, of troop rotations, of a new shipment from the capital. She nodded when he expected it, performed the part he had given her, and tasted none of the food. Every tick of the clock tightened the band around her ribs.
Afterwards, in her room, she paced.
To the window.
To the hearth.
To the door.
Again and again.
Clara’s words echoed: Cormac seems like a good man, but we’d all be punished.
She told herself she only needed ten minutes with him. Five. A moment.
To see that he was alive.
To say that she was sorry.
To breathe the same air before…
But she couldn’t allow herself that thought. Even thinking it seemed like tempting fate.
He would survive. He had to. She’d weighed taking her chances with the lash. The odds weren’t insurmountable.
But they weren’t good, her mind insisted on reminding her.
The house quieted by slow degrees, footsteps fading, doors shutting, the occasional murmur of soldiers on patrol. Midnight crept closer.
At last, a soft knock came at her door.
Clara.
Aoife snatched her cloak, and they slipped into the servant’s corridors, the lamps burning low and the air cool against her skin. They moved through passageways Aoife had never seen, avoiding the creak of certain boards Clara knew by heart.
Outside, the garden was silvered with moonlight. The house loomed above them, its windows shuttered, its shadows deep. Clara led her around the back, then down a narrow cut in the earth that Aoife would have walked past a hundred times without noticing.
Steps descended into darkness. At the bottom stood a heavy wooden door banded with iron.
Clara knocked in a deliberate, measured rhythm.
A bolt slid back. The door opened.
Torchlight spilled over them, and Aoife stepped inside to find two soldiers waiting.
Her heart jolted when she recognised Wiren inside the threshold, lamplight catching on the braiding at his shoulder. His expression didn’t change when he saw her; his stillness made her chest tighten.
Wiren hadn’t stepped between her and the rifle-butt in the market square, not the way Lugh had, but he hadn’t joined in either. He had only watched, jaw clenched, eyes tracking every blow.
A man suspended between two worlds.
Inis Morra born but moulded into an Eldrossi soldier.
Alton trusted him; she would have to do the same.
He inclined his head towards her, barely a nod.
“Miss Aoife,” he said. “You’d better come through before the wrong eyes see you.”
Behind him, a soldier stepped forward, ready to stop her.
Wiren raised a hand. “Easy,” he said. “She’s only here to talk.”
“How can you be sure she won’t try to bust him out?” The man’s Eldrossi accent was almost perfect, but there was still a Morran lilt to several of the words.
Wiren gave a dry laugh. “You think she could smuggle him past us? Let her be.”
The other soldier relented, and Wiren waved her through.
Aoife descended the stone steps into the darkness. Her candlelight quivered across damp walls slick with moss. The air was heavy with rot and mould. Iron-barred doors lined the passage, their hinges furred with rust. Water dripped steadily, unseen. The stench of sweat and decay clung to everything.
She passed each door, shining the light through the barred openings until she found him. Only one cell was occupied. Cormac sat on a straw mat, cradling his left arm. A single slit of a window let in air. Dust motes swirled in the candlelight. Rats skittered along the edges, bold in the silence.
Cormac was on his feet as soon as he saw her, his right hand gripping the bars. “Aoife,” he breathed. “What are you doing here? It’s too dangerous.” She almost smiled at the sound of her name, the way he said it, half-scolding, half-relieved.
“I had to see you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Cormac shook his head, the movement sharp. “Aoife,” he cut her off. “I found something.” His voice was low but urgent. “Remember when you told me he wasn’t meeting his quotas? I couldn’t make sense of it. It didn’t match the shipments from the county.”
“Does this matter?” She asked, glancing toward the stairs, her heart hammering.
“Of course it does,” he said, fierce but not unkind.
They had fought like this a hundred times: her wanting to help him, him focusing on anyone and everyone else, but usually the circumstances weren’t so dire.
“I followed a cart to the docks. They loaded most of it onto a ship, but the rest was taken to a warehouse. It’s packed, Aoife. Overflowing with food.”
“Curse the crows, Cormac.” She gripped the cold iron bars between them. “I don’t want to hear about that now.”
“This might be my only chance to tell you.”
“You’re not dying tomorrow,” she said, her tone hard enough to sound like belief.
He gave a faint, pitying smile and wrapped his hand around hers. Her arms trembled at the touch.
“Maybe not. But you and I both know many men don’t survive twenty lashes.” He swallowed. “Not for long, anyway.” And not when they’re already half starved. Neither said it, but they both knew it was true.
“Stop it. You’re not dying.”
“Please,” he said, voice breaking. “I have to tell you this.” The way his voice caught on the words cut through her.
He was still trying to help, even now. “I overheard the soldiers at the dock talking. Didn’t catch all of it, but Halverton isn’t just exporting grain.
He’s hoarding it. Selling it abroad at inflated prices. ”
“By the Shee, will you stop,” she snapped. “This is all my fault. I should’ve taken the lashes. Then none of this would’ve happened.”
He flinched at that, and the sight undid her, not the bruise already darkening his cheek, but the way he couldn’t bear her self-blame.
“It’s not your fault,” he said quickly. “It’s his.”
Her throat tightened. “You were right,” she said. “Men like him don’t change. I should’ve listened. Halverton hasn’t softened. He’s a monster. There’s not an ounce of goodness in him.”
“Maybe we can make it all worthwhile. The empire won’t like that he’s profiteering.”
“They’ll send another lord,” Aoife said bitterly, thinking of Lords Montbrass and Severcombe. “And based on the ones I’ve met, he’ll be the same. Maybe worse.” Lord Oswin would be an improvement, but she doubted he, or anyone with his ideals, would receive such a posting.
“Listen,” she went on, “tomorrow, as soon as the door opens, you take on your Athraith form and you run.”
“Aoife,” he said sadly.
“I know, they’ll see you, but you have to go into hiding either way.”
“Aoife.”
“I’ll send word to your parents. I know it’ll mean they have to leave their lives behind too, but I know they’d do it for you in a heartbeat.”
“Aoife.”
“Stop. I know you’re about to tell me why my plan doesn’t work, and I don’t want to hear it.” She almost wanted to put her hands over her ears.
“I can’t run. Not in Athraith form.” He glanced at his shoulder and the pieces fell into place in her head.
“I thought it was better? You said you heal faster than humans?”
“We do, but not that fast. It’s healed well enough to use as an arm. Not so great as a leg.”
“That’s why you were caught.” She was angry now, not just at Halverton and the injustice, but at Cormac too. “What were you thinking?”
“I couldn’t sit around and do nothing.”
“We weren’t doing nothing. We had a plan. We were getting food out. And now that’s over.”
Cormac shook his head, slow and weary. “Aoife… you can’t stop because of me.”
“It can’t happen again,” Aoife whispered. “It’s too dangerous.”
“You have to hear me.” His hand tightened around hers. “Even if I’m gone, you have to keep trying. The village, the county, won’t survive the winter without you. Halverton’s bleeding them dry, and the empire doesn’t care.”
Her breath caught. “You’re not going to die.”
He gave a small, sad smile, accepting her denial because it was kinder than the truth. “If I live, we’ll find another way. But if I don’t… promise me you won’t let it end with me.”
“No,” she said fiercely. “No. You’re going to be fine. You’ll see. You’ll—”
A low, keening wail drifted through the stone, thin and mournful. Aoife’s blood ran cold.
“They’re wailing for someone else,” Cormac said, but his voice shook, and they both knew he didn’t believe it.
“Please,” she whispered, “don’t let it be you the banshee’s crying for.”
Aoife’s hands shook.
“I can’t—I can’t watch you die tomorrow.”
Cormac’s breath shuddered. “Aoife—”
“I have to go,” she said, stepping back.
She let his hand slip from hers.
“Aoife, don’t let him win! Aoife!”
Her footsteps echoed up the tunnel, steady at first, though her throat burned and her vision blurred. Behind her, she could still hear him calling her name.
When she reached the passage above, the tears she’d been holding back slipped down her cheek.
She brushed them away and kept walking, calm and upright, until the air shifted and the stairs gave way to open night.
Only then did she run. She ran from the cells, from her name, from the wailing that followed her, rising and falling like the wind through stone.
She told herself Halverton was right, that it was only the wind, but her chest ached with the fear that it wasn’t.