33. Brennen #2
She scoffs. “I tried, but I couldn’t. They’re warded by the Fates with dàn carved into trees with knives dipped in my own blood.
I think it connects my life force to the valley, my blood soaking the trees, traveling into their roots and the land itself.
I could feel it, that connection, when I’d get too close to the boundary.
Still, it was wonderful,” she says, wistful.
“Compared to this, at least. My bed was so soft and plush with all the moss I could gather. I was able to hunt. I could follow the fish and watch the birds fly through the forest.”
She pauses, her eyes darting to the opposite side of the river.
“One day there was a storm. The wind was unlike anything I've ever seen.
Trees were uprooted, thrown clear across the river.
One of them held a ward. I felt it, when the boundary broke.
Something snapped in my chest, and in a blink, I was free.
I didn't think. I didn't consider that leaving the valley would cost me so much. That would lead to all this.” Her eyes go glassy as she gestures to her shoreline and chain.
“The wards blocking the After still stood, so I found the fallen tree, and I ran through the gap. Stole a horse and kept going until I was too exhausted to continue. I was so hungry, and I was afraid I wouldn’t find a place to hide.
I think I knew deep down I could never escape the Fates. Not forever.” She pauses, trailing off.
“What happened next?” I say, my voice quiet so as to not break through her trance.
She closes her eyes, and I wonder if she’s hearing the screams. “I remember falling asleep against a tree. And then, nothing. Not until there’s a knife in my hand, and blood coating my fingers as I pull it across a neck.”
My pulse stutters, my mouth going dry. “You didn’t leave intending to kill anyone?” I ask.
She winces. “No. I would never, ever want to end a life. But it doesn't change the fact that I did. That I ended so many. I can still feel the woman’s back against my chest. How cold the hilt of the dagger was in my hand.” She shudders, her face going pale.
“It doesn’t feel like you think, cutting through a throat.
It’s not smooth, and it requires a surprising amount of force.
It haunts me, that feeling. I dropped the dagger as soon as I realized what I’d done, and I tried to help her, but it was too late. ”
Nausea roils through me at Bea’s words. At her description of the feeling of ending not just any life, but Marsaili’s.
My vision goes fuzzy at the edges, and I shake my head, my mind swimming as if I’m wading through the thick fog that hangs over the glen.
“You cannae tell me why you killed them because you dinnae ken. You dinnae remember.” It comes out as a statement rather than a question, a rough whisper, almost to myself.
Could what she’s saying really be true? That she didn’t choose to kill anyone at all?
My heart thunders, an emotion I can't name coiling around it. Not confusion. Not regret or shame, but a jumbled mix of them all, growing stronger by the second. And not for the first time since she took it, I wish I still had my dàn of truth.
“But there is a reason,” she says, wrapping her arms around her waist as if she is about to shatter, and is trying to hold herself together.
“Something’s wrong with me, Brennen. I just don't know what. I never wanted to hurt anyone. Never. And yet, when I wasn’t chained to this river, that’s exactly what happened.
Maybe the curse binding me here corrupted my soul.
Or maybe it was corrupted long ago. Maybe there are bigger consequences to leaving this shore than the Fates told me. ”
“It's why you wish for death,” I say, breathless, and she finally meets my eyes, giving me a sad smile.
“Aye. It is. I told you, I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I meant it.
But I don't want to be here, either, living in constant shame, guilt eating away at me. No one is meant to live forever. To suffer forever. I’d like to think before I go, I’ll find a way to pay my debt to Ban-dia a’ Bhàis.
That maybe in the After, I’ll be able to find the peace I will never find here. ”
My mind whirls, tiny cracks forming in my protective shield of anger.
When she looks away again, her eyes are brimming with tears.
“Does that satisfy your question? Will you stop asking me about that night, now?” she asks, swallowing.
She’s trying not to cry. To keep those tears within the boundaries of her long eyelashes.
Her lips tremble, and she presses them together.
I nod, sensing that if I were to press her, I wouldn't get any more information. Not now, when she seems so raw and vulnerable. When she truly doesnae seem to remember. What would I even ask? If she regrets it? It’s clear as the river that she does. That she would take it back if she could.
The cracks in my resolve spread, tiny fissures branching outward.
I stand. “I’m going to hunt.” I clear my throat, an uncomfortable pressure settling on my shoulders. “Do you want me to catch you something?” I ask. She doesn’t eat often. Though maybe she simply doesn’t need to. Not like the rest of us mortals. She said her body doesnae change.
She sniffles, clearing her throat as she discreetly wipes her eyes with the palm of her hand. “No. I’m not hungry.”
“Alright,” I say, even though I’m not, either.
I cannae imagine eating anything right now, but I need to move.
To work off some of the discomfort building inside me, because suddenly everything seems so much more complicated.
Because Bea isn't a monster at all. Mad from her curse, perhaps. Dangerous, certainly, but every part of my body believes she never intended to kill anyone, and I now have proof that she isn’t the vile, cold-blooded killer I was warned she would be.
She is simply a victim of her mind, and it changes everything.
But even worse, it changes nothing.