18. Bea
BEA
Sunlight filters across thick planks of wood, the floors swollen with time and slightly warped.
I’m in an empty room, one that feels ancient in a way I can’t put my finger on.
Dust motes dance in the slanted light from the window, and there are symbols carved in long lines around the hearth.
There's a heaviness in the air, mixed with a faint dampness that clings to the walls.
A cloud passes over the sun, the scene darkening, and my vision shifts. The room is no longer empty, but I can’t make out what else is here. It’s fragmented. Vague colors and shapes with pieces of the image missing.
Then I hear it. Rhythmic tapping. The toe of a shoe against the floor.
And above that, a hum.
A shape moves, and I see a curtain of blonde hair, the color of gold, long and straight. It falls forward, blocking the woman’s face.
I try to speak, but my voice doesn’t comply, sticking in my throat.
The hum slows, and the tapping suddenly stops.
The woman shifts, and the vision cracks, splintering like broken glass, the pieces refusing to align. I try to gather them, to piece them back together, because this is important. I feel it. But they continue to crack and spread.
There's a sharp thud and then—blood.
The room goes completely silent as the crimson puddle spreads, pooling across the warped floorboards. Too much of it, and I’m certain whoever it's coming from is no longer alive.
The woman.
I try to get to her, but my body doesn’t move. I’m trapped inside myself, unable to do anything but witness the bloody horror in front of me. A scream rips from my throat, but it is silent.
Until it isn’t.
Because I am no longer screaming in my dream. I am back at the river, and the scream is real.
I scramble to my feet, to run, the vision of blood—so much blood—fresh in my mind. My ribs seize, and my ankle throbs as I twist, collapsing back down, my tired mind slowly turning back to reality.
The river rocks are cold beneath my cheek, and the smell of peat fills my nostrils. The sound of the rushing water and heather rustling in the wind grounds me. “A nightmare. It was only a nightmare,” I whisper, still breathless from fear.
But was it?
I turn toward the river, waiting for the clothes of the woman I saw slaughtered, but they do not come. Relief floods my entire body.
It hasn’t happened yet.
The thought comes unbidden, and yet it feels right. Goosebumps rise on my arms. Surely it won’t happen at all. It was only a nightmare, brought on by the guardian’s presence. Wasn’t it?
“Dreaming of the ones you slaughtered?” I stiffen at the tone of his voice—Brennen’s voice—deep and raspy.
The hair on my arms stands on end. He must have returned from the village sometime in the night, but my body and mind had been too tired to realize it. I roll over, a groan leaving my throat as the pain in my ribs flares.
Brennen sits a few yards away, his fire going strong—flames of yellow and orange, a foot high and just out of reach—taunting me, and I shiver. What I would give to experience that heat, if only for a moment.
He sits with his back against his sack of food, knees bent, arms draped across them, hands folded, staring at me with an intensity that makes me want to scurry backward.
I almost do, but even the slightest movement brings tears to my eyes. My body is still so sore from being beaten, almost worse now that I have lain still for so long. We stare at each other in silence for a few moments until I can’t stand it anymore.
“Did you give the boy his shoe?” I ask, my voice hesitant.
His jaw tightens, but he nods.
There’s more, I can sense it. His eyes are tired, dark circles evident in the firelight, and his shoulders are tight. He’s holding his small knife and a block of wood in his hands, and every so often, he makes an angry scrape across it, a sliver of wood falling to his feet.
The silence sits heavy on my shoulders for a few moments, and I shrink under the discomfort of it.
“What are you carv—”
“Why do the villagers think someone will die if they see your face?” he cuts me off.
I lay my head back down, studying him. He’s angry, but it doesn’t feel pointed directly at me.
The rage that follows him everywhere isn’t as suffocating, though I still see it in the lines of his face and stiffness of his shoulders.
Still feel it radiating off him in waves that needle beneath my skin.
I sigh. So much for pleasant conversation. “People fear what they don’t know. Somewhere along the last century, the tale of my curse has changed. I know the cause of every death in this kingdom. Almost,” I add the last word under my breath. “And never once has it been from looking at me.”
He chews on my answer for a minute, his eyes bouncing between my bruised face and the river.
“I deserve to be here,” I say softly, “but that doesn’t mean I’m a danger to anyone. I don’t want to hurt people. I never did. If you believe nothing else, believe that.”
His hands still, and he sets his carving down, standing and stalking toward me. He crouches down to eye level. When he speaks again, his voice is dark, his eyes searching.
“So you can answer my questions,” he says, and dread wraps around my heart. I know where this is going.
“Do not ask me why I did it. I won’t tell you.” I fight to keep my expression neutral.
He shakes his head, standing.
“You’re a coward,” he spits.
I close my eyes, relief that he did not try to catch me flooding my chest, but shame quickly replaces it. He’s not wrong. I am a coward. A monster. But I’m also just a woman trying my best to atone for what I’ve done. It has to be enough, because it’s all I can do.
I pick up a few rocks and work to stack them.
“I am many things,” I say, echoing the words of the muse of love and madness.
The wind picks up, the stab of pain behind my breastbone following right behind it.
I want to cry as I drag myself to the river’s edge.
Everything hurts, and I am so very tired—but the river doesn’t care.
Death doesn’t sleep, and certainly not just because I long for rest.
Clothes drift nearer, and I’m grateful when I find the dress and shawl of an elderly woman. She will die of a failing heart in her sleep, but I do not feel sorrow for her. Based on her smile lines, she’s lived a long, good life.
I try not to let my disappointment win when there are no pockets to search for the items to my spell, finishing my song and sending her clothes down into the After, taking an extra second to send a prayer for peace behind them.
My stomach growls, and, biting through the pain, I prepare to stand. It’s been days since I’ve eaten. If I’m to heal, I need something to nourish my body, but I do not have the strength to try to catch a fish today. Nor the stomach to eat it raw.
With a sigh, I turn toward my bramble berry bush, a little more than a dragon’s length away. Even starving, it doesn’t sound appetizing. Nor does it sound filling, but it’s something, and just like always, I can’t afford to hope for more.
I make it to my knees, crying out as I try to put one foot forward to stand. I can’t stop the tears that spring to my eyes—not of pity for myself or frustration, but pure agony.
Somehow, I manage to get almost upright, but the anguish of my ribs twisting overwhelms me, and I stumble, unable to find purchase on the mossy, wet surface beneath my feet. My arms flail as I tumble backward, and I brace myself for impact, but Brennen catches my hand, yanking me up.
The moment our skin touches, fire erupts between us. But as hot and intense as it is, it isn’t painful. The burn grows by the second, shooting up my arm and settling in my chest, plummeting into my belly.
I suck in a sharp breath, and his green-eyed gaze snaps to mine, wide and wild.
He feels it, too.
His eyes trail down my nose and across my lips and jaw, and for a single second, I think he sees me. Not the murderess. Not the Washwoman.
Bea.
For one impossibly long moment, something flickers in my chest. Something dangerously close to hope. He’s not looking at me with his usual anger or frustration. It’s something different that hides deep within his eyes. An emotion I can’t name, but that makes my skin tingle.
The top of my foot grows warm, and this time, the heat does sting. The pain grows agonizing, forcing me to break eye contact as I reach down to grab my ankle. It feels as if someone is pressing a brand into my skin, and I hiss, pulling my skirts up to look.
I suck in a sharp breath.
On the top of my foot, wrapping up the front of my ankle, is a long, straight line with three wavy strokes running through it. Confusion twists in my gut. It’s a dàn. A dàn that hadn’t marked my skin only seconds ago.
So how in the goddess’s name do I have it now?
“Mallachd ort!!” Brennen curses, yanking his hand away, and I nearly fall again. I should. But I don’t. Somehow, I remain standing.
“What have you done?” He stares at my skin for a long moment, then drops to one knee and unlaces his shoe, ripping it off. Beneath it, the skin is bare. I see nothing—and yet the look he gives me is of such fury, I physically recoil.
“How did you do that?” he says, jumping to his feet.
“Do what?” I ask, stepping back. I lift my arms for balance, but this time, the rocks don’t feel slippery, and it takes far less effort to keep myself standing. What’s happening?
“Give it back.” Brennen takes an aggressive step toward me, and I hold my hands up to stop him. He’s shown me he doesn’t plan to hurt me, but the fury in his eyes is different now. Less calculated anger and more feral, wild rage.
“Do not come even a step closer. I haven’t done anything.”
“You stole my dàn.” He says it like I’m daft, and a flash of anger surges in my blood. Why is every problem always my fault? Without fail, every piece of blame falls to me, no matter the situation, and I’m tired of it.
“You grabbed me.”
“You took my dàn of steadiness.”
I scoff, my anger only growing at his insistence. “I did no such thing!”
“Have you done this before? Taken magic from anyone else?”
“What? No!” I say, but he’s no longer listening. He pulls up his sleeves, examining the inky marks on his hands and forearms.
“Six, seven…” he says under his breath.
He pulls off his tunic, revealing a broad, muscular chest covered by what must be close to a dozen more dàn, wrapping around his ribs and across his muscular chest. My mouth goes dry at the sight. At the sheer power of him. This is the body of a warrior. Someone who has seen battle and won.
His eyes sharpen as he examines the dàn, his nostrils flaring as he turns his back to me.
“What do you see on my back?”
I don’t answer as I take in the masterpiece that is the broad plane of his shoulders. The way his muscles taper in as they descend toward his waist. It’s as if he has been carved from stone. A statue, erected with the singular intent of demanding worship.
Three thick black lines run the length of his spine. Across each defined shoulder is a different symbol, dàn I don’t recognize. A fourth curves beneath his arm to run down his ribs. And several more fill the empty space around the others.
“I see your dàn,” I say, my voice coming out shaky, but it’s not from fear.
“How many?” he snaps.
I count, trying to ignore the way my stomach and tongue seem to have twisted into knots.
It is the most of a man I have seen in quite some time, and yet he doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort, his hands clenched into tight fists and rising and falling with heavy breaths.
“Um, seven, I think,” I say, my voice shaking.
Brennen turns, his nostrils flaring as he tries to control his rage.
“Tell me how you did it.”
He stalks forward, pulling out his dagger again, and this time, I’m not so sure he won’t use it.
I force my feet to remain firmly planted. “I did nothing. I don’t know how to take magic—”
“Dàn cannae be taken. They cannae be transferred. They are given by the Fates, and the Fates alone. So how did you do it?” He places his dagger against my throat, but I refuse to show him my fear.
“I. Didn't," I say, chest heaving with shallow breaths. “Do you not have a dàn of truth?” I ask.
His eyes narrow, his other hand clenching into a fist in frustration.
“Hear me clearly this time when I say it. I. Did. Not. Take. It.”
He doesn’t respond, nostrils flaring as he waits for me to give in. For me to break.
“I didn’t steal it, and I don’t need or want it. Feel free to take it back,” I say. I hold out my leg, but he stares at it as if it is coated in poison.
“Don’t touch me again,” he spits, his words clipped and furious. He lifts my chin with the dagger, and I stare directly into his eyes. I refuse to back down from him. Not when I did nothing wrong. Why is he accusing me of ill-intent when he could just as easily be to blame for what’s happened?
His eyes flick down to the dàn on my ankle for several long moments, his grip growing impossibly tighter before lowering his dagger. He curses under his breath, grabbing his shoe and disappearing into his tent.
Once again, I feel his rage—but it’s muddied, mixed with confusion and uncertainty.
I stare at the tent, searching for flashes of his shadow to see what he might be doing. Maybe he’s packing his bags, preparing to leave.
Or maybe, he’s plotting his revenge.
My stomach growls, my hunger louder than Brennen’s anger, and I swallow down my own confusion, slowly picking my way through the rocks. There’s nothing more I can do to convince him it isn’t my fault. I’m not sure that, were our positions switched, I would believe him either.
If there is one thing I’ve gathered about Brennen since he arrived, it’s that he thrives on control. Craves it, even.
Might as well give him the illusion he has it at this moment.
The ankle carrying my dàn—Brennen’s dàn—feels stronger as I walk. More sure. The slippery rocks beneath my feet do not cause me to wobble or fall again. Brennen might be furious with me, but at least I won’t fall and further injure myself.
Steadiness.
Closing my eyes, I lift one foot, but I do not so much as wobble.
Not bothering to fight the smile the feeling of having magic brings to my lips, I settle down next to the bush, picking berry after berry, but I barely taste the tartness of them as my mind spins.
The swirling lines across the top of my foot are dainty and delicate compared to the dàn on Brennen’s arms and neck.
As I reach down to feel it, it sparkles and warms, an iridescent glow that reminds me of my dragon's wings.
But how is it on my skin? How has its power seeped into my bones?
It’s clear Brennen didn’t give it to me willingly. Is it possible I'd somehow wanted steadiness so badly in that single moment that I had somehow subconsciously stolen it? I shake my head. No.
I will not start to blame myself for things that aren’t my fault, too.