Bea
Idon’t see Brennen for hours, and in that time, I let myself pretend he won’t come back at all.
That he’s returning to the Cutter to tell her the Washwoman is secure, and his duty here is done.
I could return to being alone, unworried about stolen dàn and angry guards.
But even as I think about his absence, something deep in my stomach calls me a liar.
My dragon roars, as if she's agreeing.
“You hush, Lolly,” I scold, though she’s right.
Even when he’s angry, which, admittedly, is most of the time, it’s nice not being alone.
Having someone other than my dragon to talk to.
Someone who, when he wants to at least, talks back, even if most of the time he’s cross with me.
So when Brennen’s footsteps return, the flicker of relief I feel doesn’t surprise me.
I turn as Brennen clears his throat and freeze.
He looks wrong. His tired eyes are bloodshot, but it doesn’t seem to be from exhaustion. Not when his teeth are clenched so tight, the muscles in his jaw are jumping.
But it’s not just his expression that catches my attention.
It’s the way he looks at me, eyes scanning my body, fingers flexing at his side.
He looks bigger in this moment, somehow.
Stronger. His shoulders are stiff beneath his tunic, the muscles in his arms bunching as if he’s holding himself back from something, though I can’t place what.
“Are you alright?” The question slips out before I can stop it, and I almost wish I hadn't asked. Based on the haunted look in his eyes, I’m not sure I want to know.
“I’m fine.” He looks away, and something tugs in my chest. An urge to go to him. To demand he tell me what’s wrong.
He sits down, farther away than usual, like he can’t stomach the thought of being within a dragon’s length of me. It’s painful, the distance, though I don’t know why. A stitch in my side, sudden and sharp.
Had he not believed me about helping Kenna?
I’d been certain he did, even if he was too stubborn or proud to admit it.
I’d thought, when he’d left for town, a sort of understanding had grown between us.
He’d been annoyed, as usual, and I’d been angry.
Sure, we’d just fought, but the argument felt at least somewhat resolved.
I thought he knew I’d helped her, even if I wouldn’t tell him where she was, and that he didn’t need to fear me hurting him or anyone else.
But now he can hardly look at me.
Is it something else? Could he have found out about the spell? That I’ve been trying to sneak through his belongings to see if he has any of the things I need to complete it?
No. That can’t be it, either. I’ve never spoken aloud of the items I need. Never asked anyone who has visited to locate them for me, worried that if I didn’t suffer to find them myself, the After wouldn’t accept them. That if it was easy, there would be no penance.
“What happened while you were gone?” I ask, unable to bear speculating any further.
He doesn’t look at me, instead pulling out his wood carving. “Nothing of importance.” His voice is tight.
I hug my arms around my waist, trying to still the nerves fluttering there. “Someone told you something about me. Didn’t they?”
His eyes snap to mine, and I see it there. The change. There’s the usual anger in them still, but beneath it, there’s…pity.
I hate it even more than the anger. “What did they say?”
He shakes his head, violently slicing away a chunk of wood. “It doesnae matter.”
“It does,” I say, my voice firm. “If someone is telling you falsehoods about me—”
He holds up his hands, shaking his head. “It’s nothing like that.”
I exhale. “Then what is it?”
He continues carving, the edge of a wing taking shape.
“I need you to tell me the truth,” he finally says.
“Did you take my dàn on purpose? And have you ever done it before?” He looks up at me, and the intensity in his expression takes my breath away.
The question catches me off guard. I thought we’d moved past this, too.
Established that I didn’t care about the dàn, and that he could try to take it back if he wanted.
So what’s changed since he left that he no longer believes me?
“I cannot keep having this conversation. No, Brennen. I didn’t take your dàn on purpose. I don’t know how it happened, and it’s never happened other than when you touched me.” I hold his gaze, willing him to believe me this time.
He takes a moment before responding, chewing on my answer. “Do you have any other magic I dinnae ken of?”
Shock ripples through me. I’d expected him to call me a liar. To insist on it, even. But his response is more tentative, like maybe he does believe me and is only being thorough in his questioning.
Hope bubbles in my chest. His presence would be so much more pleasant if he didn’t view everything I said through a haze of distrust.
“No,” I say. He looks at me with continued doubt, and I pick up a stick and draw the first few lines of the dàn in my mind, trying to think of how I can convince him. “We’ve already established you have a dàn of truth, have we not?” I ask. Going for reason seems like a smart move with this man.
“Aye. But if you can take dàn, how am I to know you can’t do other things to them? What if you can overpower their magic somehow?”
I sigh, rubbing my forehead. It’s a valid question, but he’s thinking about it too hard, and though I think he wants to believe me, his Dìdeanair mind will not allow it.
“Think of it logically. If I chose to steal your dàn, I wouldn’t have taken the one for balance, would I?”
He tilts his head. “Why not? Seems a good one to take, seeing as I was stopping you from slipping on the rocks and cracking open your skull.”
I wave him off, rolling my eyes. “Och. I’ve navigated these slippery rocks for years.
I never fall. I only slipped because I was in pain, and pain is fleeting.
I don’t need a balance rune.” I pause, an idea forming.
Maybe the way to build his trust is through honesty.
Brutal, unfiltered truth. I square my shoulders.
“I would’ve taken that one,” I say, pointing my stick at the dàn peeking out from his tunic on his shoulder.
His hand goes up to touch the dàn. “Warmth?” he asks.
My gaze lingers a beat too long on the line of his throat. The broad plane of his chest beneath the symbol.
“Umm— Aye,” I stutter, peeling my eyes away to focus on my drawing. “That one, I would take on purpose. See, hunger you get used to. But cold—especially when winter comes in earnest…” I shiver.
He leans back and crosses his arms, and the dàn of healing on his forearm flashes. “Hmm. Might’ve taken that one, actually,” I say, tapping my chin.
“Why? You already can’t die,” he says, a flash of pity flickering in his eyes.
“That’s not a rune for immortality, is it? I already have that one.” I point to the center of my chest.
His eyes flash, but not with surprise like I expected. It’s recognition I see in them. Somehow, he knows about my dàn. I pull down the top of my shift to where the dàn sits between my breasts, careful to only show him the swirling silver marks.
He looks for a moment too long, almost as if searching every bit of skin surrounding it, and my body prickles with awareness. Fighting the urge to cover myself from the intensity of his gaze, I allow him to examine the dàn.
“Is that what you learned, then? That I truly cannot die?” I ask. His jaw ticks, all but confirming it. Is that what I’m sensing from him now? Despair that he actually cannot kill me? That he will fail in his duty? It doesn’t feel like it, but what else could be causing his strange reaction?
“Who gave you that dàn?” he asks, surprising me.
I pull my dress back up, confused why he cares. “I don’t know. One of the Fates, surely.”
“How can you not know?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowing. “It’s painful when dàn appear. Enough that I remember every single one.”
I try to think, but a stab of pain shoots through my head. “I can’t remember. It was here when I woke up, cursed to the river.”
“Who told you of your sentencing?” he asks, leaning forward.
Another stab of pain shoots through my head, sharper this time, and my vision goes fuzzy. “I don’t remember that either,” I say, wincing.
He climbs to his feet. “But how can you not know? Why are you chained to this river?”
“Because I’ve committed crimes against the Fates. You know this. Why make me say it again and again? I woke up here, dàn between my breasts and a letter tucked into my apron.”
He pauses. “A letter? What did it say?”
I shake my head, closing my eyes and rubbing my fingers where the pain pounds in my forehead. It grows sharper by the second, screams ringing in my ears.
“Dinnae make me—”
“Nothing you don’t already know! It said I was to be sentenced to the river. Cursed to wash the death-clothes,” I say, leaving out the part about the spell.
He stops. “You mean the Fates never came here?”
I shake my head, closing my eyes. Nausea roils in my stomach, the pain spreading to the back of my skull. “I have never seen the Fates. Not once in my entire life.”
He pauses. “You’ve— Never?” The surprise in his voice is unmistakable.
“Never. Not that I remember, at least.”
He doesn’t answer, and in the long silence, the pain begins to fade. My shoulders lower, and I take a deep breath. When I finally open my eyes again, Brennen is staring at the center of my chest.
“I was told,” he hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was told that, many years ago, the village was… unkind to you. That they tried to carve the dàn from your flesh.”
The memory hits me with staggering force, and my hand comes up to rest on my sternum, an echo of that long-ago pain scraping along my bones.
“They did,” my voice comes out hoarse.
“Yet you have no scars.”