Chapter 29 #3
Aoife sank down to lie on the flagstones beside him, exhaustion making her limbs heavy. As she touched his cheek with the back of her hand, his eyes fluttered open.
“Here,” she said, holding out the bark. “For the pain.”
His skin was hot to the touch.
He took the willow bark, chewing slowly, his gaze still dazed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“… didn … win.” The words were too quiet for Aoife to hear clearly.
She shuffled closer, brushing sweat-drenched hair from his forehead. “What did you say?”
“You… didn’t…” he stopped to take a few steadying breaths, every word costing him, “let… him… win.”
For a moment she couldn’t speak, her throat tight, her chest aching with all the things she couldn’t say. She managed a small, unsteady smile. “That’s enough talking for now,” she murmured. “Save your strength.”
He tried to smile in return, his eyes already sliding shut.
Aoife took his hand, lacing her fingers through his, listening to the slow rasp of his breathing.
“Did I ever tell you why I was dancing barefoot at the harvest festival?” she asked softly.
“Bríd stole my shoes. She’d outgrown hers, and Mam told her she’d have to keep wearing them; she couldn’t have my hand-me-downs until I outgrew them.
She took them the night before the dance and added a few tiny stitches at the toes.
When I tried them on that morning, they were so tight I told her she could keep them.
I didn’t find out for weeks what she’d done. ”
Her voice wavered, almost breaking into a laugh. “There was no chance of buying new shoes in time for the festival. I decided I’d watch, but they played my favourite tune, and I couldn’t not dance.”
His lips twitched, the faintest ghost of a grin.
She hummed low and quiet; a tune she’d known so long she didn’t remember learning it. It was a song her mother used to sing while she worked. She could almost hear her voice now, soft and sure above the chopping of herbs.
The melody settled in the still air.
Aoife kept humming until the last note. Cormac’s fingers went slack in her hand. “Rest now,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his as his breathing steadied, the tension easing from his brow.
Riona’s expression softened as she watched them.
They stayed like that while the others finished the stretcher, Aoife listening to the faint hiss of wind through the trees, the last cries of the wounded and Cormac’s unsteady breathing.
When the stretcher was ready, Norin, Kian, and the gardener lifted him carefully. Aoife walked beside them, her eyes fixed on the rise and fall of his chest. She counted each one as if in doing so she could keep him breathing.
As they approached the edge of the estate, Lord Halverton’s voice carried across the field, furious and unhinged. He was raging at the boundary, calling orders no one obeyed, demanding the staff and soldiers return, swearing vengeance.
Her father stopped beyond the gates and turned around to face Halverton. “Go back to your house. There’s no one here left to fear you.” Halverton lunged as if to strike him but stumbled, unable to cross the boundary. Laughter rippled through the onlookers. He turned on his heel and walked away.
Aoife halted inside the gate. Riona turned to her, a small, knowing smile on her lips. “You must be looking forward to going home,” she said.
Aoife’s heart sank. “Didn’t Cormac tell you about the oath?”
“He did,” Riona said with a smile. She said nothing more, only turned to follow her husband and son down the road.
Eoin tugged at Aoife’s sleeve. “Aren’t you coming home now?”
She hesitated. Her throat ached.
Her father answered for her. “No. But we can visit her here, can’t we?”
Aoife forced a smile and nodded. “Yes. All the time.”
Their figures grew smaller as they retreated down the lane. Aoife stood at the edge of the estate, the manor looming silently behind her, and listened until their footsteps faded.
Aoife turned toward the house. Everyone else was gone. Only she and Halverton remained.
The courtyard was silent except for her footsteps. The ground around the flogging post was still dark with Cormac’s blood, the sheen of it catching the light. Her stomach turned.
At the foot of the stairs, she stopped. Halverton sat halfway up, staring at his hands. They were raw and bleeding, marks of his struggle to cross the boundary.
She turned to take the other staircase, the crunch of gravel drawing his attention.
“You think you have won,” he said, voice hoarse. “You are as bound as I am.”
“I know,” she said, facing him.
He gave a low, humourless laugh. “Why are you not afraid?”
“Because you taught me what fear is for,” she said. “It keeps people obedient and small. And I’m neither of those things.”
She climbed toward him. He didn’t move. A few steps beyond him, she stopped. Reaching into her pocket, she took out the last of the herbs and bandages she carried, turned back, and descended the few steps between them. She held them out.
“For your hands.”
He reached up and took them without a word.
Aoife turned away, climbed the rest of the stairs, and walked through the open door of the manor. She never looked back.