Chapter 29 #2
The smoke had settled, drifting low across the courtyard, curling in thin grey ribbons like breath on a frosty morning. It blurred the edges of everything, softening the outlines of what lay beyond.
Her chest tightened at the thought of what was hiding beneath the smoke, her breath catching as she searched the haze, dread coiling tighter with every second.
For a moment, it was almost peaceful.
A groan of pain broke the stillness. Soon a cacophony of pain and fear, of soothing voices and panicked voices, all mingled together.
Beside her, Clíona was still whispering Alton’s name, over and over, a prayer without end.
Aoife pressed her back to the marble again, gathering what little strength she had left, and released Clíona.
With trembling hands, she pushed herself up.
Clíona struggled up next to her, looking at the last place she had seen Alton.
Bodies lay scattered across the ground.
Mostly soldiers, the captain among them, the braiding at his shoulders red with blood.
Two villagers she could identify.
Her gaze caught on the first.
Tomás O’Healy.
He lay on his side, one arm bent beneath him at an awkward angle. Aoife saw him as he had been last summer, when life had been simpler, leaning in her father’s doorway, grinning as he presented a trout in exchange for a handful of hooks.
She dragged her eyes away.
Morgane lay further away, her dark hair fanned across the stones. Her voice, light and easy, always drifted over the river as she washed clothes, as though singing were as natural as breathing. Or it used to.
Clíona let out a happy gasp and rushed away from her. Aoife could only assume she’d found Alton; she couldn’t take her eyes off the bodies.
Aoife pressed a hand to her mouth.
She had thought, truly believed, that she could find a way through this without bloodshed.
If she had said the right words. If she had played the game well enough. There might have been a way to end it cleanly.
There was a red patch of blood on Morgane’s shirt. It would take her hours to wash it out. If she left it too long, the stain would set.
The thought came clear and absurd.
Aoife couldn’t seem to let it go.
She forced herself to look away and found herself looking into the open eyes of a dead soldier.
She should have killed Halverton.
Aoife flinched from her own thought. Now it was there she found herself unable to shake it.
She had never allowed herself to think of that. Had never considered it as an option. Killing belonged to other people. To soldiers. To men like Halverton.
Not to her.
But if she had…
If she had taken a knife at dinner and stabbed him in the throat, added a few leaves of hemlock to his soup, a few drops of arsenic to his wine. When she thought of it now, the possibilities seemed endless.
If she had ended it herself, before it came to this…
They would all be standing if she’d been more cold-hearted, if she’d been more like him.
Her stomach turned.
She hadn’t wanted any of this.
But the dead lay at her feet all the same.
A hand landed gently on her shoulder.
She turned and collapsed against her father; the strength going out of her all at once. He wrapped his arms around her as if she were a child again, holding her steady.
“It’s not fair,” she said, her voice breaking. “Why should Halverton live when they’re dead?”
“You did everything you could,” he said softly. “It’s not your fault it ended this way.”
She nodded against him, but the words slid past her without taking hold.
She lifted her head and looked again.
At Tomás.
At Morgane.
At the soldiers, some no older than boys, their faces pale beneath the soot and blood.
They hadn’t chosen this either.
They had been sent.
Told where to stand. Who to fight. Who to kill.
Aoife’s chest tightened.
No one here had chosen this.
Even so, they were the ones who paid for it.
A groan cut through the silence behind her. She turned. Cormac’s parents were there, kneeling over him. His father supported his shoulders while Riona cleaned the blood from his back, her hands steady and sure. Clíona and Alton stood to one side, hands clasped together.
Aoife dropped to her knees beside them. “Clíona, fetch the bandages, herbs, whatever we have left,” she said.
Clíona nodded and ran, taking several of the other maids with her.
Aoife reached for a cloth. Small fingers tugged at her sleeve. Eoin stood beside her, pale and wide-eyed. She checked him over quickly.
“I’m not hurt,” he told her.
Aoife breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted the dagger, still clean, tucked into his belt.
“Other people need help too,” he whispered.
Riona looked up. “Go,” she said softly. “It’s not the first lashing I’ve treated.”
Aoife hesitated, unwilling to leave him. There was a knowing in Riona’s eyes. An old, quiet authority. “Go,” she repeated.
Aoife rose and moved through the courtyard. The next stretch blurred into a haze of blood and poultices, linen torn into strips, whispered prayers to the Shee, and trembling hands. Time lost its shape. The cries grew softer as exhaustion took hold.
The next few days would decide who survived.
When she finally returned, Cormac lay on his stomach, head turned to the side, eyes closed. Riona was working methodically, spreading a pale paste over the torn flesh of his back and covering it with linen. Aoife knelt beside her and helped tie the last bandage in place.
“I’m sorry we didn’t help more,” Riona murmured, low enough that no one else could hear.
“You did help,” Aoife said. “More than you realise.”
Steafan was nearby, finishing a rough stretcher from saplings and canvas.
Aoife brushed a hand across Cormac’s hair. “I wish he could stay here,” she said. “So I could watch over him.”
Riona gave a small smile. “He’ll mend better among his own.”
Cormac stirred, a faint groan escaping him. Riona handed Aoife a small twist of willow bark.