56. Brennen
brENNEN
My cock throbs. I’m so hard it aches, but I refuse to go to my tent, even if all I want right now is to take myself in my palm and ease the pressure. I hang my head in my hands, forcing myself to picture Marsaili’s face. To replace Bea’s red curls in my mind with blonde. Blue-grey with brown.
Because how can I betray her memory like this? How can I be having these thoughts?
It's not that I think Marsaili would fault me for having feelings for someone else. I'm certain she'd want me to be happy. She would want me to experience all that life and love have to offer.
But not with her. Even if Bea didn’t mean to do what she did.
I dig my knife into my wood carving, but I cannae focus, slicing too large a piece out of the wing.
The wind stirs, and Bea looks up from where she’s drawing in the mud, searching the river for the clothes that will soon follow. We haven’t spoken again, and it nearly kills me. The defeat in her posture. The pain in her eyes.
I’m unable to stop myself from watching as she rises and moves to the river, accepting a dress into her delicate hands. She stiffens, and I straighten as she pulls what looks like several sticks bound together from a pocket. Bea raises it into the light, twisting it back and forth.
“What is that?” I ask, peering over her shoulder.
She takes a deep breath before speaking, as if mustering up the nerve. “I think it’s a “Seun a’ chaorainn. The charm of the rowan.” Bea’s eyes narrow, and she looks up into the mist of the After.
“The charm of the rowan?” I ask, and she nods.
“Old rune magic. Three rowan sticks with a piece of bone bound to them with rowan berry thread, warded with dàn to keep away spirits.”
I peer closer, looking at the tiny dàn etched into the sticks. I don’t ask her how she knows about it. It’s magic, just as illegal as the spells I found in Harold’s book, but I no longer care.
Bea runs her fingers along the knobs of the branches, tilting her head. “Would you get a large stick? Tall enough to shove into the riverbed? And do you have any twine?” She finally meets my eyes, and I nearly flinch at the shadows beneath them.
“Aye,” I say, hurrying to grab the supplies from my tent, glad to have something I can do for her.
If I cannae offer her what she truly wants, the least I can do is help her when she needs it.
When I return, Bea is wading into the river as far as her chain will allow, still feet away from the inky mist of the After.
Realization dawns on me. “You think it will keep the souls below?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me. “Do you think it will work?”
I peer into the dark mist, in awe of her brilliance. “I dinnae ken, but it’s worth a try.”
She nods. “It’s quiet during the day. I told you I think when it’s light, they sleep. It's not until just before the moon rises that they wander the shore, and I hear their moans. Maybe if we can keep them on that side of the After, they can rest until we learn how to free them.”
I nod, holding a hand out, and Bea drops the charm into it.
I walk past her, stopping less than a foot from the inky darkness.
It does not reach out to me like it does to her, but still, I’m careful not to touch it as I firmly push the stick down into the river’s floor.
Once I’m satisfied the current won’t be able to knock the branch over, I tie the charm to it.
The bright red thread is stark against the black of the After, and it sends a shiver down my spine.
Bea calls to me from the end of her chain. “If we hear their cries of pain tonight… If I'm wrong about them sleeping down there and they cannot escape once the sun sets, will you take it down?”
“You want them out here?” I ask, turning to her and raising my eyebrows.
She twists her hands together. “No. I don't. But I don't want them trapped, either. I know what it's like to not be able to go where you wish. I do not want that for those souls.”
Her words somehow only make me want her more.
She’s willing to live in fear and feel the pain of the dead, to suffer, so that those souls don’t.
“Aye,” I say, wading back to Bea. She stiffens when I place my hand at the small of her back.
The touch isn’t intentional. It wasnae a choice, but still, I cannae pull away until she is safely to shore.
The contact is brief, but it burns my hand, my vow searing with pain. Even once the pain fades, tingles remain, energy crackling along my skin.
I shake my hand as I return to the fire, flipping the boar over to cook the other side as if nothing happened. As if none of this day had happened.