23. Brennen #2
“Who gifts our dàn to us, Brennen? Tell me,” he says, like I’m a child. I want to leave. To demand respect, but something in his tone pulls at the strings of my mind. Harold’s line of thinking makes sense.
My eyes flick to his dedication dàn. “The Fates.”
“But it doesn’t take all three of them, does it?”
I swallow instead of answering. I don’t have to. I know where he’s going with this.
“The Weaver spins our threads, and the Measurer decides how long our lives will be. But it’s the Cutter who ends our lives at the time of her sister’s choosing.” He pauses, watching my expression.
I dinnae answer him, but he doesnae back down from my stare. “Are you hearing me, lad?” The word makes me feel three feet tall. “The Cutter cannae cut what her sisters do not measure and weave.”
His words fill the small cabin, a pressure building in my skull. What he’s saying makes sense. If the Weaver or the Measurer gave Bea a dàn that makes her un-killable, it could be why the Cutter’s attempts failed. Why Harold's grandfather's attempts failed.
“But why? Why would they do that? Why hide it from Cailleach?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? The Fates are the only ones who can give dàn, but they’re also the only ones who can take them away.
The Cutter either doesn’t know about the immortality dàn, or she doesn’t actually want her dead and is lying to you.
If you ask me, I think it’s likely you’re just a piece of Cailleach’s game.
Figure out her next move, and maybe you can beat her at it. ”
I tighten my hands into fists. “You’re getting awfully close to treason, Harold,” I warn, even though he’s already well past it. I could imprison him for life, based on what he’s already shown and told me.
He shakes his head. “I dinnae have to like her to follow her laws. I told you. I’m an honest man, and I’ve spun it round in my mind a hundred times.
There is no higher power than the Fates, other than the Goddesses.
But we all know they dinnae care about us anymore.
” He meets my eyes. “The only answer is that one of the Fates made her immortal. All magic can be undone. There has to be a way to kill her.” He taps the book.
“This might help you figure out how to do it.”
I stand still, my jaw tight and my mind spinning. I have no doubt the Cutter wants the Washwoman dead. It was clear as glass, her hatred for the lass.
Could it be the Weaver then? The Measurer, somehow overruling the Cutter’s powers? The two of them together perhaps… I grip the book tighter. I shouldn’t take it. It will only offer me trouble.
Or, it will help me discover the truth.
“It’s all in there, Brennen. A list of every way they tried to kill her.”
My stomach churns. “Does that not prove she cannae be killed?”
“It only proves no one has tried the right method,” he says. “You know I’m right. Take the book, and find a way to end this. Dinnae let her hurt anyone else.”
My chest rises and falls with tense breaths for several moments as I weigh my options, but before my mind can even catch up, I’m shoving the journal into my bag and stalking toward the front door.
“Brennen?” Harold calls. I turn.
“If you do decide to turn me in,” he meets my eyes, holding my stare, “know my son and grandsons ken nothing of the book. They dinnae ken it exists at all. You’ll leave them out of it.”
I raise my eyebrows, a smirk crossing my lips. “Threatening a Dìdeanair?” I ask, but I dinnae blame him. I’d lie to protect the ones I love, too.
“I like you, Brennen. I think you know it’s no me who’s the threat.”
I look down at the journal in my bag, noting its heaviness. Not just the physical weight of the pages, but what it represents.
Years of torture, listed out in neat, organized lines.
A woman who cannae die, despite all of the ways they tried.
A Fate who claims she wants that woman dead, but sent me with a threat to my family looming over my head to accomplish what these villagers have been unable to do in a hundred years.
"I dinnae ken who the threat is anymore," I admit, then turn and walk into the night, the journal bumping against my side with each step.
I should hate the Washwoman. I do hate her, and I will still kill her.
The vow on my palm hasn't changed, and neither has my desire for vengeance.
But as I walk through the darkness back toward the tavern, all I can think about is the entry I'd read: Slit her throat to the bone.
The same wound that killed Marsaili. Except Bea had felt the blade slice through her skin and muscle until it scraped her spine.
Had drowned in her own blood and then been forced to endure the pain of healing, only for them to stab and burn and stone her.
What kind of monster could endure that and still show kindness to a child who'd beaten her? What kind of monster could survive a century of torture and choose to risk more pain to protect a stranger?
Not any I’m aware of.
I picture her as I walk, her freckled nose and wild red hair, slight beneath that threadbare dress she wears, her hands always plunged into the river, and try to reconcile it with what I just read. Fire blistering her skin. Daggers etching into bone.
Without thinking, I push my hand into my pocket, the wood of the robin I’ve been carving scraping against my scarred palm.
I find the junction where the robin shifts from a bird in flight to unwhittled, angular wood.
A reminder that no matter what appears to be on the outside, there can be something else hidden inside entirely, like a woman who was tortured relentlessly, but who, six years ago, murdered my geallta.
That’s the only truth that matters. It has to be.