Chapter 31
Two weeks after she’d seen Cormac carried out on a stretcher, worried she’d never see him again, he came strolling into the gardens.
Aoife froze, hardly daring to breathe.
She ran to him, flinging her arms around his neck. He winced, and she pulled away at once.
“Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” he said, smiling faintly.
Up close, he was pale; his movements were careful and deliberate. When he shifted his weight, his breath caught.
“Sit,” she said, already guiding him toward the low stone wall.
“Aoife, I’m—”
“Sit,” she repeated, softer this time.
He obeyed.
For the first time in weeks, she could breathe again.
Aoife crouched in front of him, searching his face. “You shouldn’t be here yet.”
“I knew you’d say that, but I couldn’t stay away.”
“I mean it,” she said. “You look—” she stopped herself. “Did Riona get the Brewthorn I sent? Has she been using comfrey? Slánlus, and yarrow are good for healing too.”
He laughed softly. “She’s been using everything. I’m half herb by now.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He shifted a little stiffly and tugged at the neck of his shirt, revealing the bandages that were wrapped around every inch of his torso, clean and careful beneath the linen. “You can smell me if you like.”
Aoife leant in and took a deep inhale.
Cormac laughed. “I was joking.”
“I don’t joke about healing.” Aoife smiled. He smelt good, really good. Not the rotten smell of bad blood and injury, but the fresh smell of herbs. She could easily pick them out individually. Some of the tension eased from her shoulders. “Your mam did a good job.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the garden hushed around them, leaves stirring faintly overhead.
Cormac glanced at her. “You know,” he said, “what you did… it was really brave.”
Aoife stilled.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was madness. And I’m still not sure how I feel about you putting my parents in the line of fire. But it worked.”
The words landed strangely. For a moment she didn’t know what to do with them.
Her mind moved ahead of her, quick and instinctive. What did he want her to say? What version of her did he want to see?
Aoife caught herself mid-thought. She didn’t perform around Cormac; she didn’t censor herself or manipulate. Her stomach flipped nauseatingly.
Cormac wasn’t asking anything of her. He wasn’t weighing her, shaping her, waiting for her to become something else.
He meant it. It was difficult to accept.
“There were… other ways it could have gone,” she said at last, her voice quieter than she intended.
“Sure, it was a risk. One that relied on the goodness of other people. Which is not something I put a lot of faith in. But you were right.”
Cormac’s smile chased all other thoughts from her mind.
“You kept people alive. That’s what matters.”
The garden was quiet around them, leaves stirring faintly overhead.
It was kind of him to say, but Aoife knew the truth. People had died who would still be alive today if it weren’t for her.
She had been wrong about too many things and made too many mistakes.
Halverton had shaped her in ways she hadn’t even noticed at the time, and she’d let him. There were moments she could have resisted, and she didn’t. Moments she could have spoken and chose silence instead.
Cormac would never know all that had happened in the weeks they were apart.
And she was grateful for that.
She couldn’t bear to see how his opinion of her might shift if he did. He had warned her not to let Halverton change her, and she had done it anyway.
If he knew the full truth… would he even be here?
Cormac pushed himself to his feet.
“We could walk,” he said.
“Or we could stay here.” She rushed to assure him. “You can barely stand without wincing. The walk here must have been exhausting.”
“I can stand,” he said mildly. “And it’s not so bad. Come on. I’ve been cooped up inside for weeks.”
She hesitated before nodding. “All right. Slowly.”
“Slowly,” he agreed.
They set off along the path, Aoife hovering close, careful to match her pace to his.
She tried not to watch him too intently, but her eyes kept returning to the set of his shoulders, the way he guarded certain movements.
When his foot caught on a root and he faltered, she was already there, hand closing around his arm, steadying him.
He stiffened for a heartbeat, let out a breath and straightened, gently easing his arm from her grasp. “Thank you,” he said.
She stepped back. “Sorry.”
He shook his head. “Don’t be.”
They walked on, side by side, not touching now, but closer than before.
The trees had long since started to turn and they walked in companionable silence for a while, leaves crunching softly beneath their feet.
“So,” Aoife said at last, glancing sideways at him. “What’s been happening in the village? I’m missing everything.”
Cormac huffed a quiet laugh. “Did you hear about your da and Mrs Harrow?”
She frowned. “Hear what?”
“They’ve been seen together.”
She stopped short. “You’re joking.”
“I saw it myself yesterday. They were eating lunch together at the forge.”
Aoife stared at him. “I saw my father three days ago. He didn’t say a word.”
“He probably wasn’t sure how you’d react.”
“Honestly,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t know how to react.”
They followed the path down towards the hawthorn tree. The sight stopped them both in their tracks.
Lord Halverton stood there with an axe, hacking at the trunk. Each blow sent a dull tremor through the ground. The tree that had once shimmered faintly with otherworldly life was splintering under his hands.
Aoife caught her breath. The anger radiated off Cormac, like heat from a furnace.
She half-expected him to spring forward. He didn’t move. His fists tightened at his sides, knuckles white. His shoulders tensed, locking himself still.
She touched his wrist.
He didn’t look at her. His breathing slowed.
“He’ll be cursed for that,” he said.
In that moment his restraint unsettled her more than his rage ever had.
“You’re not going to rush in there and give him a piece of your mind?”
He exhaled slowly. “While I was lying in bed, I realised how much worse I made things for you. All my fire and noise, it never fixed anything. It was your calm that won the day.”
Aoife shook her head. “It wasn’t calm. It was stubbornness. Watching you refuse to bend is what made me stand up.”
He smiled at that. “We make a decent pair.”
“Maybe,” she said, smiling.
They both looked at the hawthorn. Halverton was still striking, slower now.
“What do you think they’ll do to him?” she asked.
“The Sheedar?” Cormac said. “Turn him into a monster, maybe; make his outside match his inside.”
Aoife’s mouth curved in a faint, bitter smile. “I don’t think there’s any way to make him ugly enough for that.”
They watched as the tree slowly fell in on itself. “You were right,” she said finally. “Some people can’t change. Wanting to change him was another trap.”
Cormac looked at her sidelong. “You don’t feel sorry for him, do you?”
“No,” she said firmly. “He went through terrible things, but there’s no excuse for what he’s done. I don’t owe him forgiveness, and he’s never asked for it.”
He nodded. The wind caught his hair, lifting it slightly, the colour almost black against the autumn sky.
Cormac refused to go inside the house, and as the light thinned, it turned too cold to stay outside. They parted reluctantly, with Cormac’s promise to come again soon.
***
After that, he came every day.
Some days he barely made it to the bench beneath the apple trees before the colour drained from his face. Aoife learned the signs: when to support him, when to press a cup of water into his hands, when to pretend she hadn’t noticed his shaking.
His healing was strange, faster than any man had a right to be, but not painless. He moved slower on frosty mornings, and sudden movements stole his breath. She was there for all of it.
They spent their days in the gardens, talking and laughing, exploring corners of the grounds she’d never dared before. They avoided the front of the house, where Halverton lingered behind shuttered windows. The rest was theirs.
The cold set in properly. Autumn was almost spent. Frost edged the mornings now, whitening the grass before the sun could reach it.
From the bench beneath the bare apple tree, Aoife watched Cormac working with the gardeners.
He moved more easily now, splitting logs, laughing at a joke one of them made, his voice carrying across the yard.
When he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside, the sleeves of his shirt rode up, revealing pale silver lines snaking along his arms. The scars already looked a year old.
He finished the stack and came over to her, breathing a little heavier than she would have liked.
She didn’t comment on it. The steady meals had filled him out.
She could no longer count his ribs at a glance, no longer see every sharp edge beneath his skin, but weeks of forced stillness had taken their toll on his muscles, and she knew he felt the loss keenly.
He sat beside her, close enough that their knees brushed. After a moment, she slipped her fingers through his, anchoring him there.
“It will come back,” she said. “Strength, I mean.”
He gave a faint smile. “I know. I hate waiting. Hate feeling useless.”
She turned to him. “You’re not useless,” she said without hesitation. “Not to me.”
His smile deepened, softer this time, and he squeezed her hand in answer.
They sat in companionable silence, watching the gardeners’ work.
All was finally right with the world. Briartha would make it through the winter.
Ultán had seen to that. He’d worked tirelessly with the farmers planting winter-hardy species, not the delicacies the Eldrossi preferred, the rough winter greens and hardy root crops that would provide the sustenance they needed.
Cormac shifted beside her.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
Aoife glanced at him. There was a carefulness in his tone she hadn’t heard before.
“About what?”
“About what I am.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke. “How I’ve used it.”