16. Bea
BEA
The stone is cool against my cheek as I watch the river calm. The scent of peat and bog myrtle eases, and the mud settles back to the riverbed.
Something dark twists in the shallow water, and I reach out to grab it. Even my pain can’t stop me from trying to find the pieces to the spell.
It’s cold and slick—a broken shoe, the sole pulled away from the fabric that makes up the body. The leather is worn, a hand-me-down, I think, based on the several rows of replaced stitching.
The image of Billy’s shoe tumbling off his foot as he fell flashes in my mind, and a pang of sadness for the boy settles beneath my sternum.
It’s what I thought when I first saw the child emerge into the valley with hate in his eyes.
That he was nothing but a lost boy, looking for something to distract him from his hungry belly—a feeling I know well.
It’s been weeks since I’ve been able to catch a fish, existing on nothing but berries and water.
His clothes were worn, threadbare, and his cheeks gaunt. It sours my stomach, knowing the way the Fates bask in luxury in their gilded palaces when there are children who go without food in the very same kingdom they claim to love.
I wince as I scoot back to my bed, biting my lip against the pain. It takes several minutes to slow my breathing and heart rate, but eventually the pain dulls enough to allow me to raise my arm to remove the small strip of leather binding back my unruly hair.
Picking up the moon-shaped rock I use as a pillow, I sift my fingers through the soft peat to search for my needle.
It’d been a gift from the goddesses, I’d thought, when I found it between the rocks on the river's edge.
Likely from a time long before it became my prison, when women would do their mending and washing on this shore.
I was once one of those women, trading stories and laughing with friends as we went about our daily chores, ignoring the clothes floating down the stream as if turning an eye would keep death from coming for us.
The memory is like a splinter in my finger, a dull and persistent sting. If only things had remained that way.
I thread the thin strip through the needle and begin to work on the boy's shoe. The leather is brittle when the needle punctures it, but somehow, it holds, and I wonder if Brennen would be willing to spare some oil from his lantern to soften it.
Brennen.
Thinking his name sends a shiver down my spine, but I’m not sure if it’s from apprehension or wonder.
I can’t stop thinking about the way he’d stopped the attack without even a moment’s hesitation.
I know it couldn’t possibly have been for my sake, but it makes me once again wonder what he experienced in his life to react so viscerally to witnessing violence.
And yet, he joined the Dìdeanair—chose to serve the Cutter—the most violent Fate of them all.
“What’re you doing?” A gruff voice skates along the back of my neck—Brennen’s—and I stiffen. My heart rate picks up as, with deliberate, commanding steps, he stalks around me, eyeing the needle in my hands.
“Where did you get that?” he snaps, his mouth pressed into a tight line.
Even with pain radiating through my entire body, a smirk tugs at my lips at the distrust in his eyes.
Good. Let him wonder where I found it. The needle hadn’t been on me when he’d searched my body yesterday, his invasive hands touching places he had no right to feel. Though, will this lead him to search harder? Will he somehow think to look beneath my pillow?
The thought is too horrifying to even entertain, but I don’t want him to see my fear.
“Why?” I ask, slipping a hint of amusement into my words. “Are you afraid I'll fell you with a mending needle?”
He doesn't answer, hand on his sword as he stops directly behind me. “You're fixing a child’s shoe,” he says it as a statement, his voice clouded with disbelief.
“Excellent observation. No wonder you made An àrd,” I say, giving him nothing more. He doesn’t seem to notice my taunting.
“Is it the boy’s?”
I lift it up slightly to show him. “Aye.”
There are several heavy beats of silence, but I sense when he drops his hand from his waist.
His brows pull together in obvious confusion.
“Why?” he asks. The word doesn't sound angry or taunting, but like genuine confusion, and I take a few seconds to think of my answer, wondering how much I want to say. I’m rather enjoying him being so afraid of me.
It brings a humor to his presence here that makes it almost tolerable.
Will telling him my true intentions make him think he has nothing to fear from me?
That I’m not quite as dangerous as he believes me to be?
Or maybe it will humanize me a bit. Maybe if he’s not afraid of me, he’ll be willing to have actual conversations with me. That would be even more enjoyable than watching him fear me.
Hope flickers in my chest at the thought.
Maybe I can convince him to tell me stories.
Things I’ve missed in the kingdom over the last century.
It would certainly be a preferable way to pass the time than drawing a half-finished dàn over and over in the mud or skipping rocks for the thousandth time.
Honesty it is, then.
“I don't think his family has much,” I say, my eyes never leaving the shoe as I weave the needle in and out.
I feel his eyes shift from the shoe to my back, and it takes everything in me to not flinch from the way his gaze burns my skin.
“Dinnae pretend to care for the child.”
His words are a punch straight to the gut, another blow to add to my already battered body.
“I’m not pretending,” I say, keeping my voice light, fighting to appear to be unaffected by his verbal jab.
He lets out an exasperated breath. “Do you know the lad? Has he been here before?” I can't trace what's in his tone this time. Maybe anger? Confusion?
“No. It’s been a very long time since a child has visited here.”
“Then how could you possibly know his family’s means?”
I was right. It is anger lacing every word, though it's heavier than before, mixed with a sharp frustration.
I turn to meet his steely gaze. “His clothes were worn bare. Did you not notice how thin they were? And there was hunger in his eyes. And this shoe,” I lift it again, showing him the back where a tartan patch has been placed over a hole, “It’s a size too small, and has obviously been worn by many pairs of little feet. ”
His jaw ticks, and he tilts his head back, looking at me as if I’ve grown an extra set of arms. “But… Why are you mending it?”
I stop my movements, sorrow twisting between my ribs. Not for the boy this time, but because it’s clear this man doesn’t just fear me. The possibility that I might want to help a child is an impossibility to him.
I straighten my spine. “I’m not so much of a monster that I don't care if a child goes hungry. If his feet will be cold without footwear. If they don’t have the money for warmer clothes or food, how will his family buy him new shoes?
” I ask, stabbing the needle through one last time, then tying off the leather.
Several finger lengths of the string are left hanging, and I look at them longingly.
Who knows the next time I will find something that will suffice to bind back my tresses.
He shakes his head, grabbing the shoe from my hand, forcing me to look at him.
“No. I mean, after what he did to you. Why would you help him?”
I hold his gaze, hoping he’ll see my sincerity, because suddenly, the idea of even a single person in this kingdom believing I am something, anything, more than the murderer of the Bàsail is intoxicating.
“He’s a child,” I say. “I know what I am—or at least, what people think I am. But the boy was only behaving as he was taught. It’s not his fault, nor is it his fault that his family goes without.
” I reach back out and snatch the shoe, then pick up a rock.
Maybe I can saw the rest of the leather off.
There’s just enough left to still use, I think, but the rock isn’t sharp enough to break through the tough material.
Brennen steps forward and crouches down. He pulls the dagger from his waist, and despite myself, I flinch.
He freezes, giving me a moment to see his intentions, then, so slowly it’s as if I’m an animal he’s trying not to spook, he takes the shoe back and cuts off the extra leather. He hands it back to me, and the simple gesture brings a sting to the backs of my eyes.
Is it possible it worked? That being honest about my intentions caused him to, if not have pity for my situation, at least understand I’m nothing to fear?
“Thank you,” I say, using the palm of my hand to wipe the tears away before he can see them. I clear my throat. “Would you take it to him? The shoe?”
He hesitates for a long moment, rubbing his forehead, then nods.
“Thank you,” I say again.
He starts to turn but stops, holding out a hand. “The needle,” he says.
I squeeze my fist around the bone, my heart sinking, not only because I need the needle, but because it’s clear my honesty didn’t change a thing.
“I can't escape with only a sewing needle," I say, gripping it tighter. “And unless you plan on buying me new clothes, I have to mend the ones I have.”
He doesn't speak, unyielding as he continues to hold his hand out.
I study the scar running through his palm, puckered and angry. Black lines trail from the wound like poison seeping through his blood.
For a moment, I almost ask him about it, but his hard stare causes the words to freeze on my tongue.
“Washwoman,” he says. An order, and I grit my teeth. His eyes are hard, his jaw growing tighter by the second.
“It’s Bea,” I say, dropping the needle into his hand. He ignores me, swiftly pocketing it. Disappointment curdles in my stomach. How will I mend my dress now?
He stalks toward the forest, his movements strong and intentional. The fabric around his arms bunches as he puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles, and only a few seconds later, his beautiful black horse appears.
Brennen mounts her, turning her away from me. I barely hear him when he speaks again.
“If you need to mend something, you may ask for the needle,” he says, kicking the horse's sides, and even though I keep my expression neutral, I smile inwardly.
It’s such a small concession, but it feels like a victory all the same.