The Washwoman at the River’s End (The Curse of the Fates #1)

1. Bea

BEA

The blood on my palms will never wash clean.

Not in the frigid waters of the River Bàsail, where the valley descends into a rocky glen, and mist curls and creeps amongst the pines like beckoning sìth. And not with the tears that sting my eyes as I inspect the smattering of red in the soft infant dress in my hands.

It’s a beautiful gown, the color of marsh marigolds, but dots of crimson mar the lace, their dark centers fading to rust as they spread outward like thistle crowns.

The blotches are stubborn, but I’m not discouraged. This dress, unlike my hands, I will be able to cleanse.

Magic slides along my tongue, cold and bitter, pulling my song from my throat as I work, but I do not fight it. Without my voice to call this soul home, she will wander the moors forever, unable to go to her rest.

Come follow the river. Do not be afraid.

Her mistress will find you by the end of the day.

You cannot escape her, be you goddess or maid.

So follow my river. Do not be afraid.

I continue to sing as I check the pockets, a heavy lump of disappointment settling in my stomach when I find them empty, but I’m no stranger to the feeling.

I quickly push it away. This child’s passing should not be tainted by my own selfish longing for freedom.

Still, a sliver of it remains, lingering.

Clearing my throat, I begin my song again.

I work the fabric along the pebbled riverbed, forcing myself to concentrate on the stains rather than my own misfortune and chastising myself for that flicker of hope.

Why would an infant be carrying anything at all, let alone one of the relics needed to break this wretched curse binding me to this shore?

The blood finally loosens, unfurling into vermillion trails that dance like ribbons in the current as they float downstream and disappear into the dense black fog of the After. The place the river ends, where dark mist spills down into whatever comes after we take our final breath.

I do not rush the cleansing of the bairn’s soul, inspecting every inch of the dress.

If I’ve received her clothes, the Cutter will be preparing to sever her thread.

She’ll pass within minutes, as will the other souls I’ve already washed today.

Souls that will soon rest in the old temple graveyard in Sterlargh, half a kingdom away.

A temple that, any moment now, will collapse, crushing every last person inside its hallowed walls. I’ve seen it in my mind thirty-three times this morning. Thirty-three faces twisting in terror as they reach for their loved ones. Thirty-three names softly spoken on the wind.

My grip tightens on the fabric as the disaster plays out in my mind once more, my vision blurring as tears spill over my lashes and trail down my cheeks.

It’s not often I weep for the dying. Not anymore, at least. After a century of this endless loop, death has simply become a part of life—threads woven, measured, and eventually, cut.

But today is different. So many people will lose their lives at once, and their deaths will not be peaceful.

It’s the worst part of my curse, I think. Being forced to know the cause of every death in the kingdom before it happens, but unable to stop it. Even a monster like myself isn’t immune to such sorrow, and so I weep for the infant in the yellow-lace gown. For all of them.

It’s not until I’m certain the clothing is pristine that I let it drift from my fingers and allow the river to carry it away.

I stare after the dress, my heart aching as long, inky shadows strain toward me, pulling the garment faster than the water can carry it until it disappears into the black mist.

I dip my hand into the river, then place my fingers over my aching heart. “An Glèidheadair, welcome her,” I whisper, then bring them to my lips. “An Treòraiche, guide her.” And finally, I touch my forehead. “Am Breitheamh, have mercy on her.”

The wind finally eases, the soft purple heather scattered along the glen going still, and I close my eyes, giving myself one final moment to grieve before pulling myself together to carry on.

I sigh, sitting back on my heels and wiping my palms on my wool apron.

It’s an old habit, and one that changes nothing.

The deep red blood that stains my palms and trails up my forearms remains, as does the memory of where it came from.

The reason I will be chained to this river for the rest of my immortal life.

It floods back to me with a startling clarity—the people I killed, their screams—as if the Cutter asked her sister to weave the sound into my memory to ensure I would never, ever, forget what I did.

As if I could.

I sink onto the cold stones, moving the heavy, thick chain around my ankle so I have room to curl my legs beneath me.

Icy water soaks through my skirt, and I exhale slowly, giving the echo of screams ringing through my skull back to the river.

It does no good to dwell on my past. Not when it cannot be washed away.

Closing my eyes, I try to remember a time when my washing felt this sorrowful. A day the dead’s faces remained in my mind for longer than the minutes it took to sing my song and cleanse their souls.

It was decades ago. Maybe longer.

Years and years that passed while I served my sentence, my pathetic excuse for a life becoming nothing more than a legend. A myth. A tale mothers tell their children at night to frighten them into behaving.

I am the Washwoman. The Murderess of the River Bàsail. The Bean-Nighe, and nothing more.

I glance toward the trees. At least no one has come to find me today. That part of my curse might be worse, actually, than the premonitions of death. The Fates’ way to ensure I’m always balancing on the edge of worry, never able to feel wholly at ease.

Find me, catch me, and I must answer your question. Anything at all, except how to stop death. It’s the question they almost always ask. The reason most brave seeking out the monster at the river, and when I cannot help them, they do not leave me unscathed.

A shadow passes over me, and I shiver from the chill as I look up to where an enormous dragon, longer than a fir tree is tall, swoops across the sun.

She’s stunning, a blue so deep she’s almost violet, with a long neck and spines from horns to tail.

Here most days at sunrise and sunset, her wings are so thin and iridescent, it looks as if they’re embedded with millions of tiny diamonds.

Sometimes, she stays above the valley for hours, and I imagine she’s mine. In reality, I think she’s here to ensure I don’t escape again, merely following the orders of the Cutter’s dragon, Athair, but I like to pretend otherwise.

Pretending is one of the few freedoms I have left.

I rise to my feet, holding out my arms and tipping my face toward the misty, cloud-filled sky.

My heart surges, as if it’s forgotten I’m chained to these rocks.

As if it thinks that if I could only harness the wind, I could fly alongside my dragon, so far and high that even the Fates themselves wouldn’t be able to find us.

As if reading my thoughts, the shadows of the After reach toward me in long, wandering ribbons.

Stretching and twisting like they yearn to pull me down below.

For the thousandth time, I close my eyes and listen to the water as it disappears down the drop off.

It trickles rather than crashes, and even though there’s not enough length on my chain to peer through the black, I feel like I can imagine it clearly—a series of steps climbing down until they reach the end of this realm and the beginning of the next.

The darkness is my friend, and these shadows my only company.

Come to me, they taunt, and your pain will end. Come to me, and finally rest.

And oh, how I long to. It is my perpetual wish—to end this cursed, immortal life. I’ve imagined death so often, it feels like an old lover. Someone I cannot resist pining for. Someone I’m so intimately familiar with, and yet, somehow, they’re still a stranger to me, eternally out of my reach.

There was a time I thought I might be able to find my way into the After without the spell. Or at least, I hoped I would. Back when the agony of my imprisonment was stronger than my reason, and I hadn’t yet cared about penance or redemption. When I’d felt nothing but utter defeat.

“Take me!” I would scream, begging, fighting against my chain in my desperation to reach it. Straining toward the darkness like a rabid animal, singularly focused on ending their relentless torture.

I have tried to end my life a hundred ways. Starving myself. Drowning. Slitting my wrists with the sharp edge of a broken stone. Others have done even worse.

But I no longer try. It doesn’t matter what I do to myself—or what anyone else does to me.

I always heal, no matter the severity of my injuries.

I may waste away until I am too weak to stand, but even then, my body does not change.

I never die, and I cannot stop washing. The curse will not allow it.

The wind picks up again, and my arms fall back to my sides, heavy with defeat.

“Not again,” I whisper. How can there be another death so soon, when my fingers are still cramping from washing the souls from the temple?

Magic pulls at my tired body as I wade back to shore, grabbing my stone and leaning forward to place my hands in the stream.

I wait for the clothing to appear as I have thousands of times.

It’s always the same. A name on the wind.

A face in the water, their death playing out in my mind and the knowledge of when it will happen.

Except this time, it’s not.