Chapter 8
E mer’s hands ached. Her shoulders ached. Her very soul itself ached.
When darkness finally claimed her, it was not a restful slumber but merely her body’s inability to remain conscious. While her escape had been short-lived, its consequences certainly were not.
The rough material of the blanket caught on her shoulder wound, pain ripping her from sleep like a fish from the sea. She swallowed her scream as she took in gulps of air. Her hand hovered above the throbbing as she fought her instinct to grip her afflicted shoulder. She glared toward the chair by the fire, prepared to make a sharp remark to defend her vulnerable state, but Calder was not there.
With a pinched brow, she turned to scowl at the jar of salve, but her eyes snapped shut from the pain. With Calder no longer in the room, she rationalized that she could use it now and he would likely never even know she accepted his help. Making herself a martyr for the sake of pride was not an honorable hill to die on. At best, it was a foolish, stubborn, and slightly elevated patch of dirt.
Begrudgingly, she reached for the concoction, coughing at the potent smell. Profanity filled the air along with the bitter and astringent notes of the remedy. She spread the viscous balm over her shoulder with shaky fingers. While the mixture had a cooling effect, the pain that woke her was only heightened after it was applied.
Sitting in the bed, she braced herself against the window, allowing the cool air to fill her lungs and soothe the nausea that churned her stomach. The window in Calder’s room faced the sea and Emer dropped her head to rest on the sill as she watched the sun slowly begin to rise, painting the sky red.
She faintly recalled a rhyme about the meaning of a red sky being either warning or delight. Before she could remember which was associated with morning, the door began to open, disrupting her thoughts.
Calder carried two bowls, one in his hand and the other balanced on his forearm. With the other hand, he held the door ajar, only allowing enough space to enter the room and close it softly behind him.
The silence between them persisted as he made his way further into the room. Given all that had transpired the night before, his lack of acknowledgement only made Emer’s scowl deepen. She picked up one of her boots—which she did not recall taking off—from the floor next to the bed and threw it at his head.
Calder snatched the boot before it could make contact, without spilling a drop of the bowls’ contents. “Are you ready to be civil?” he asked, having the audacity to sound bored.
She responded with a vulgar gesture she had seen Finn use in the past that had proven quite effective in expressing his displeasure.
“Well, isn’t that attractive. Are you always this lovely in the morning?” he queried.
Emer did not answer and he shifted his attention to the boot still clutched in his hand, turning it and inspecting its sole. “You are quite tiny, you know that?” he observed before throwing the boot into the corner of the room.
Calder placed the bowls on the desk near the bed. “What is going on? You look like a púca crawled from under your bed and terrorized you all night,” he teased.
She had, in fact, been terrorized all night.
By pain.
By nightmares.
By the scent of him clinging to his bed.
Worst of all, the thought that this was all him. That he had used this mysterious man to shake her, to make her compliant.
“Did you send him after me?” Even though her tone was harsh, the lack of volume betrayed her exhaustion.
“The… púca?” Calder took a half-step back to stare at the bed he now stood in front of. Distracted, he missed the wild look that flamed in her eyes as she glowered.
She kicked her foot out and caught one of his shins.
“Fuck!” he grunted as he stumbled away.
“The man from last night!”
Calder took another step back and his expression turned sour. Eyes fixed to hers and hands in tight fists he said, “I may not trust you. I may not even like you all that much. But I would never have orchestrated or allowed what happened last night.”
Although it was not the first time she offended him, she was surprised she had. It was evident that there was more he wanted to say but he didn't utter a word. The longer he watched her, allowed her the silence if she chose it, the more convinced she became that he had nothing to do with the man from the shadows.
“What exactly did happen?” he asked.
She was not ready to absolve him yet. Even if he did not direct the man’s actions, he had given him the opportunity. Calder was the reason she was trapped and unable to defend herself. For that reason, she decided that he was just as worthy of her bitterness.
“You happened,” she murmured .
A raven who put her in a cage to see if she would sing. Instead she tried to fly and learned she only knew how to fall in the right direction.
She closed her eyes and planted her head against the wall, the last of her fight leaving her.
He nodded.
“I intended to apologize to you this morning,” he began and Emer cracked one eye open.
“But?” she questioned, expecting him to comment about her sharp tongue and multiple attempts to assault him from the comfort of his bed.
“But,” he echoed. “I don’t even know your name and I would like to address my apology properly. So, a deal. Breakfast in exchange for your name.”
She turned to him, wary as she considered his offer. Her name seemed harmless enough. It was not as if it would reveal more about her than he already knew, and it required minimal compromise.
“My name is Emer. Em to my family.”
Heat rushed to her face as she scolded herself for offering a nickname that she did not want him to know or use.
“Emer,” he repeated back.
She expected him to say it like a curse but found the lilt of his voice rolled it over his tongue like a wave.
“Named after the wife of the great leader of the Painted Legion, perhaps? And a symbol of wit, fairness, and ferocity if I recall correctly. Hence why she captured the eye of one of the most brutal men in the history of the Isles.” He recited the origins of her name as if reading it from one of his books.
That lore was not part of his people’s history, yet he knew it as well as Emer did, and she couldn’t decide if that intrigued her or made her even more suspicious.
“I believe it also means ‘swift’… which I think you beautifully demonstrated with your little knife trick,” he added .
Little knife trick?
Her jaw clenched. The movement was so quick that she nearly bit her tongue and the barbed comments on the tip of it. She would happily oblige in demonstrating another one of her tricks if he would give her a blade. Perhaps making it disappear into his other side to balance out his scars.
“Tell me, Emer, is there another trait from your namesake that I am unaware of that aided you in jumping out of a window?”
Something sparked in her stare and she slowly turned to face him.
“Why don’t you climb through yours and I’ll tell you,” she offered, utterly unaware that she had started to smile.
“Hello, Merrow.” The smile he returned seemed to say.
“Flying lessons will have to wait,” he remarked, reaching for one of the bowls he placed on the desk and extending it to her.
Emer scowled at him as she gingerly pulled at the blankets and worked to get herself to the edge of the bed, all while attempting to not further anger her wounds. Calder watched, knowing full well she would not ask him for help.
“You look pathetic,” he chastised before walking to the fire and setting her bowl on one of the chairs, while sitting to enjoy his in the other.
A short time later, Emer extricated herself from the bed and just as carefully took her seat across from Calder, drinking in the fire’s warmth and the strange sense of security she found within the walls of his room. She was sure she was one of the many secrets that they held and yet of all the questions she could conjure, her tired mind returned to those of a raven-haired boy.
Calder’s stare repeatedly fell to Emer’s hands as she ate. Her nails were torn from clawing at the tree, the beds still caked with blood. Scratches marred her fingers. A particularly nasty gouge on her left index finger trailed from the center to her fingertip, deep enough to scar. A reminder of her bravery or stupidity, he hadn’t decided. Regardless of the merit associated, there was a good chance they were going to get infected. Calder entertained bashing his head against the nearest hard surface because he knew that meant he was going to need a favor from Banner. If there was one person he didn’t like owing, it was him and now it seemed he owed him a drink and a favor.
They ate in the comfortable silence that settled between them.
“Thank you.” Emer murmured, her expression mildly confused at her own sentiment.
“Be still, my heart! The Merrow has manners!” he shouted, clutching his chest in a stunning display of humor. It was then that she lost the fight against her eye roll.
“You are the barbarian in this relationship. Not me!” she barked, crossing her arms and wincing at the way the movement angered her shoulder.
“How forward you are. I think I like it,” Calder returned with a roguish smirk.
“I didn’t mean ‘ relationship ’. I meant that in this situation , you are the barbarian.” She could tell by the glint in his eyes that her correction had not managed to reach his ears.
“There’s no need to be coy now, Merrow,” he chided.
“Are you drunk?” Emer spat.
“Why? Do you find me intoxicating?” he returned with a raised brow.
She turned to face him more fully, pinning him with a glare. “Since you are so confident in your ability to tell lies, I’ll say it again.” His eyes dropped reflexively to her throat. “In this situation , you are the barbarian.” Her tone was slow and steady.
“True enough,” he confirmed with a shrug. After a beat, he held her gaze once more. “You must know I do not wish to starve you, don’t you?” he asked sincerely .
“Then let me go,” her plea escaped, sounding far more vulnerable than she intended.
His eyes turned dark.
“Not until you tell me the truth.”
The shift in his temperament made the space suddenly seem devoid of the warmth that had been there only a heartbeat before. Emer rose and made her way across the room to stare at the map above the desk. Her eyes traveled from the keep to her home isle, and finally, to where the Well was said to be located, high atop a mountain.
The truth did not just belong to her.
It belonged to the other men on the boat.
It belonged to Lachlan.
It belonged to her father.
The truth could damn all of them just as quickly as it could set her free. Was it faithless to fear the others had not survived and could, therefore, not succeed in saving her father in her absence? Was it selfish to save herself?
She could not answer his question when she had so many of her own. A paralyzing doubt gripped her throat, and she felt a burn begin to form. Whatever she chose— action or inaction— she would have to own the consequences.
“I don’t trust you with the truth,” she explained, holding his stare and searching his eyes for some evidence that she could.
Calder hung his head with a sigh and then let out an unamused chuckle.
“We finally found something we have in common then.” His expression grew sardonic. “I don’t trust you either.”
She watched as his eyes grew more distant, no longer looking at her but rather looking through her. “I don’t have much time. What can I do to prove that I am not a threat?” she asked urgently.
“You can come to your senses and understand that you are not in control here, little Merrow. You leave when I say you leave and if your time is so precious, I suggest you do it quickly,” he remarked as he stood and made his way to the door.
The softness of his features from when he first entered the room was replaced with severe frustration. Frustration that she quickly matched, picking up the remaining boot and throwing it into the center of his back.
He stiffened, his head rolling between his shoulders as his muscles tensed. Emer froze, wondering if she had finally pushed him too far.
His head turned slightly and his gaze found hers over his shoulder. His pupils were dilated and the sight made pinpricks skate across her skin.
“I will be back before nightfall to ask you to reconsider your stubbornness or, at the very least, tempt your hunger. You may stay here for now while you… consider.” He kicked the boot into the corner of the room where it collided with its mate and then left.