Chapter 15 #2
I didn’t know how to reply. Bethel had acted like a jealous lover, staging an erotic show for someone she perceived as a threat.
She had risked her own engagement and Torgrin’s rank to make her ownership of him clear.
Yet she still wanted to marry Goodwin? Did she want to be queen so badly that she was willing to ignore that King Hared might have killed her mother?
Bethel and I were very different daughters.
‘So, what brings you here today?’ he asked.
‘I’ve had an urgent letter from home, and I wish to ask your permission to return.’
‘Is it the man who raised you? The one who is unwell?’ he enquired kindly.
‘Yes,’ I admitted.
‘Take as long as you need, Caris.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Within the hour, I had saddled Nightmare and packed enough supplies for my trip. As I left the fortress, I saw Torgrin and Atlas talking by the gates. I didn’t stop when they called to me, partly because of how strained things were between us, and partly because I didn’t have a moment to spare.
I rode hard, promising Nightmare a good rest when we reached the river. We stopped only to sleep and eat, although I spent most of the night lying on my back, staring at the sky, willing the daylight to come. The sun rose early both mornings as if I had made it do so.
It was midday of the next day when I arrived.
The forge was silent, and emptier than I’d ever seen it.
The hearth sat cold, no warmth or light was left in the blackened stones.
Both chimneys were still and dark, and it hit me how long it must have been since they’d last seen a fire.
I swallowed the ache in my throat and led Nightmare towards the barn, the one place that still felt familiar.
Inside, there’d be fresh water and hay waiting for her.
She nickered softly, a greeting to the old black mare who’d birthed her.
Nightmare’s sire – Iain’s towering grey stallion – had been gone for years now.
‘I’ll take care of that wretched mare for you.’
Dana held her plump arms wide, and I went to her like a child.
‘How is he?’ I whispered to the older woman.
She patted my back. ‘You need to go to him. I think he’s been holding on for you.’
The cottage door creaked as I opened it, my steps were hesitant as I walked across the sparse but tidy room. I rested my forehead against the rough wooden door to Iain’s room and took a steadying breath.
Keep the Darkness in. Don’t let it take down this cottage too.
The room was warm, and sunshine from the window caught the dust motes that floated above Iain’s still form.
Once a sunny yellow, his hair lay completely white against the linen, and his face …
gods, his face had hollowed in on itself, all rough edges and shadow.
I could barely see the man I’d once known in the fragile skin and bone left behind.
For years, something unseen had been gnawing at his mind, stealing his thoughts and memories piece by piece.
And when it had finally robbed him of himself, it turned on his body, hollowing him out until he could no longer work.
I had kept the forge going on my own, feeling his absence with every strike of the hammer even though he was only a few steps away.
But now, as I stood by his bed, I felt the weight of all those lost moments.
Every word we hadn’t shared, every laugh that had faded before it was heard.
My throat tightened as I reached for his hand, once so strong it could bend iron. Now, it was cold and limp in mine, the life I had always thought indestructible slipping through my fingers. He was too still, his chest hardly rising with harsh, shallow breaths.
‘Little Worm?’
My heart soared at the nickname and the recognition I saw in his eyes.
‘I’m here.’
‘Under the bed,’ he rasped out.
‘Under the bed?’
He nodded, closing his weary eyes.
I knelt on the floor and reached under the bed to find something wrapped in cloth, though it scraped roughly across the floorboards as I pulled it out.
I fought back tears when I unraveled the cloth. The sword was perfect; the blade flawless, and the hilt impeccably balanced. Before sickness weakened his mind and body, he had been the master swordmaker, and the blade I held proved it.
‘For Little Worm.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I whispered, running my hands over the entwined lines that formed the base of the hilt.
‘Two worms.’
‘Two worms?’ I asked as I ran my fingers over the ridges.
‘Not alone,’ he said with a gasp, covering my hand with his.
What does he mean? His eyes closed once more and his breathing slowed.
I fingered the fabric Iain had wrapped the sword in. It was red but had faded in patches to a pale crimson. A few brown threads were embroidered into it. I looked closer to see a pattern of empty holes that remained.
My heart began to race.
After seeing the emblem my mother and I had been searching for in a dusty old book only recently, I knew its shape well. Is it possible the threads were once gold?
The cape had belonged to a knight, not a soldier.
‘Iain, were you a knight? Was it you who delivered me to Esma and Olaf?’
His eyes remained closed as his breathing slowed further.
‘Are you my father?’ I whispered, tears springing to my eyes. Could he forget his own child?
I had wondered if the man in the red cape was my father, but long ago, I decided it was easier to believe he was not. I did not wish to think he had abandoned me. Instead, he had found parents to replace the ones I lost.
Was Iain a knight? He had pulled me from the river and taught me to make and wield a sword as well as any man. As I counted his last breaths, I realised that was all I needed to know about the man who had been a father to me.
We buried Iain under a large oak tree. I told Dana the cottage and horses were hers, and she could sell or keep what few possessions he had. She had grown children who lived close by, so I did not fear that I was leaving her to grieve for Iain on her own.
Without Iain, this no longer felt like my home. Losing him meant I was alone once again.
I took my time travelling back to Murus.
There was only one inn between the forge and Murus, and I stopped for an ale – something I had never done before.
The place was worn and smelled of desperation; patrons sat in dark corners, hoods drawn over their faces.
I felt eyes on my back as I downed my warm ale.
When the shifty-eyed innkeeper tried to pour me another, I shook my head, left a coin and departed, regretting ever having stopped there.
The nights were getting colder, but I enjoyed the numbness it brought to my body.
It was on the last night of my journey that I dreamed of a black-haired woman with feathers and talons for fingers.
I could feel them tapping inside my head.
I awoke to the hoot of an owl alerting me that someone was in my camp. Nightmare was still hitched to the branch where I had placed her reins before I fell asleep, but she was tugging at them with her teeth – something she only did when she was distressed.
I stood, but before I could grab my sword, one was pointed at my chest. It was not quite dawn, so I struggled to see who my attacker was. In the shadows I could just make out two more men.
‘Well, if it isn’t the man-she who murdered my cousin.’ A voice floated towards me from the shadows. ‘You shouldn’t have stopped at that inn, man-she.’
As he came closer, I could make out a stocky man with greasy black hair. Boric’s cousin.
‘A woman killed Boric?’ asked the man in disbelief as he pressed the sword to my chest. I eyed him angrily. It was Torgrin who killed him, but I suppose I was the reason he was dead.
‘She’s why I had to leave Murus.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Boric’s cousin spit on the ground.
‘When I went to Captain Atlas to tell him she cheated, he got angry. I told him I would do something about her if he didn’t.’
I snorted, remembering how his head was in the dirt and under my boot in minutes because he was useless with a sword, not because I cheated.
‘Fuck Captain Atlas. He didn’t do shit about Captain Torgrin, who cut off Boric’s head for nothing!’ the stocky man shrieked.
A muscle twitched in the corner of my eye and I laughed at the absurd man. ‘Boric lost his head because he was a poor loser and a dishonourable coward.’
Boric’s cousin barely reached my shoulder, so it caught me by surprise when his fist came flying at me before I could duck. Blood dripped from my split lip.
He snarled at me when I laughed again. The man with the sword pressed the tip harder into my breast. Above us, the sky was brightening with the coming dawn, and I was getting a clearer view of the three men surrounding me.
The numbness that had been with me for days was fading, and a dangerous feeling was settling inside my hollow chest. No longer laughing, I leaned into the man, his sword digging into my tender flesh. ‘Remove your sword from me, or I will kill you.’
‘You don’t have a weapon, so how will you do that?’ He smirked at me. He was a good-looking man, but his eyes were hard and mean.
I allowed myself to feel it now. The rolling Darkness that I had been holding back for days. I hadn’t grieved for Iain, too afraid to let it out like I had when Olaf had died. But now I wanted it to damage, destroy, kill.
‘I don’t need a weapon,’ I told him. ‘Last chance.’ As I spoke, he pressed the sharp point into the soft tissue of my breast, drawing blood. I sucked air between my teeth. You are going to regret that.
Harnessing the Darkness was easier than I imagined it to be. Like it had been the moment I saw the barrels racing towards Hilda and Sophie in Murus, the power was waiting for me.