67. Bea
BEA
Brennen has only been gone a short while when I’m alerted to the sound of footsteps approaching through the woods.
“That was quick. Did he agree to help—” My dàn of warning flares, and I turn toward the pines, trailing off as a man appears. A man I've seen before.
Kenna's husband Hamish stands before me, his cheeks red with fury and a long dagger glinting in his hand.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice catching. He stalks forward, malice etched into every line of his face, and I scramble back.
“I know you sent my wife away.” He flips the dagger in his hand, and it smacks with a thud against his palm. “Do you think I'm stupid? I've been searching for her, but no one has seen her since she was sent here. Did you think I would give up?”
I do not answer, the only sound in the glen the river and my ragged breaths.
My heart pounds against my ribs, so hard I fear they might split wide open.
Every instinct screams for me to run, but where would I go?
Two dragon lengths away? Fleeing will do nothing, so I straighten my spine and choose to fight. “I never saw your wife. I don't know—”
“Stop lying to me!” he roars. Spit flies into my face, his breath rancid as he leans forward, stopping only inches away. “She is my wife, and you will tell me where she went. Do you understand me?”
“I never saw her—”
The blade is pressed beneath my breastbone before I can blink, its sharp tip already cutting through my dress and piercing my skin. I gasp in pain, taking a step back, but he grabs my arm, yanking me forward.
The blade pushes deeper, and he twists it, then yanks it out. Hot blood blooms around the wound, making my dress stick to my stomach.
“Move again, and I'll gut you like a fish,” he hisses.
I can barely feel the pain through my fear. Not fear that he'll stab me again, that feels like an inevitability at this point, but that he will know he has to catch me and ask me where his wife is.
Is that how my nightmare will come to be? I’ll be forced to tell him where Kenna went, and he will go to the Faerie Pools in search of her? I can only hope she is far away by now. Somewhere safe, hidden away where she can never be found. But what of the woman who lives there? I cannot fail her.
He leans down, lowering his voice to a near growl. “Now, this is your last chance.” He grips my arm tighter. “Tell me, Washwoman, the answer—”
Dread pools in my stomach, hot and sticky, and I scream, cutting off his words.
I grab the knife from my apron pocket, my dàn of weapon accuracy igniting as I stab it directly into the side of his neck, exactly where I aimed. Hamish shouts, knocking my hand away from the hilt of the dagger.
“You wretched bitch!” he screams, ripping it from his neck and throwing it to the ground. Blood spurts from the wound, not enough to kill him, but maybe it will slow him down. “Where is she?”
“I'll never tell you! I'd rather die!” I shout, turning and trying to break free of his grip.
Maybe I can get to the knife and strike him again.
The worst he can do is injure me, and if I lose enough blood, I'll hopefully go unconscious before he can ask me his question again. Or maybe his anger will overcome him, and he’ll strike me hard enough to allow me to enter the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness.
He yanks me back, stabbing the dagger into my stomach.
“Brennen!” Pain blinds me, ripping through my body and turning into a scream that tears from my throat.
It's utter agony, but I have felt it before and survived.
I fight back, reaching my bloodstained hands out to claw at his face.
“You fucking whore!” he seethes, ripping the dagger up toward my sternum. He takes it out again, stabbing me through the side of my rib cage, the angle changing as it hits bone. I scream again, my vision going black and fuzzy at the edges.
“You bastard! You'll never know where she went!”
“Never. Is that right?” he laughs, an evil, maniacal sound as he stabs me again, this time in the upper chest. Blood squirts on his shirt, bright red against the white.
My legs give out from under me, and the man doesn’t bother to try to hold me up as I fall onto the hard ground, stepping back to leer at me.
“How many stabs will it take to break the Washwoman?” he taunts, leaning down and placing his blade across my neck.
I look toward the river, just out of my reach. If I could get there, would it sweep me away from him? Or even better, could the current carry him off into the After?
“Tell me where she is, and maybe I won't slit your throat.”
I spit in his face, and he roars in anger, butting the hilt of his weapon against my head. My skull cracks, and black dots blur my vision, but the world does not fade to black. He raises the dagger overhead, blind with rage, and begins to swing it down towards my face.
But it never reaches me.
It falls to the side of my head, the man's scarred hand still wrapped firmly around it. He screams in agony, blood spurting from the stump of his arm, and I scramble back.
The man is on his knees now, a sword across his throat. Brennen stands behind him, chest heaving and eyes black with rage.
My relief is sudden and overwhelming, and somehow, expected. Of course, Brennen is here to save me. Of course, he will make everything better.
“Apologize,” Brennen growls, his voice as sharp as the blade in his hand.
“I’m no apologizing to that monster!”
Brennen shoves him onto his stomach, digging a knee into his back and grabbing him by the hair. He lifts his head, returning the sword to his throat.
“You will apologize to her. You will apologize for hurting her. For being far worse than anything she could ever be. She's no the monster. You are.” His words are low and dark, and more dangerous than the blade in his hand. “Apologize, or I’ll slit your throat. And I’ll enjoy doing it.
I will relish every second of ending your wretched existence. ”
Shock ripples through me. This isn’t the Brennen I know. The one who believes in justice so strongly, he’s often blinded by it. The one who would never enjoy causing someone physical pain. Who certainly wouldn’t enjoy ending a life.
Except… I think maybe this time, he would.
The man sputters, and Brennen drags the blade to the side, blood trickling from the small wound that opens up beneath it.
“Alright! I'm sorry,” he hisses. “Just let me go. You already took my hand, is that no enough?”
Brennen pauses for a moment, his eyes meeting mine. They trail across my wounds, the blood oozing from my chest and abdomen, flashing with darkness.
“No,” he says, his voice deadly as he pulls the blade firmly across the man's neck. Blood gurgles from the open wound, horrible wet gasps coming from his throat as he fights for air he will never find.
The magic of the curse tugs at me as the wind picks up, a stab of pain pulsing behind my breastbone, but I barely feel it.
Shock crashes over me at what I just witnessed, so violent, it rips a gasp from my throat.
Brennen just killed a man—slit his throat without any sort of trial or order.
He’d executed him. We were no longer in danger, and still, he ended Hamish’s life—because of what he did to me.
Brennen drops Hamish’s body to the ground along with his sword as clothing appears upstream. I'm too weak to move, and yet the river doesn’t care. It lifts me, forcing me to my knees, and Brennen snarls.
“No,” he says, the word brimming with venom. “You willnae wash his clothes.”
He reaches his hands into the water, and to my surprise, the curse relaxes. Brennen takes the clothes, and with a deep voice, he sings my song, rubbing the fabric along the riverbed.
“May Am Breitheamh judge you fully and find you worthy only of suffering,” Brennen says, shoving the clothes back into the current. “I know I would.”
My chest tightens. For Brennen to say such words is no small thing.
Not sparing the clothes another look, he lifts me, cradling me to his chest. With steady hands, he grabs the dagger from his thigh sheath, but I am not afraid.
Not even as he brings the tip of the knife to my breast. He lifts the blood-soaked dress from my skin, aligning the edge of the weapon with the middle of my neckline, then, in one swift motion, cuts down, exposing the entirety of my chest and abdomen.
“An diabhail!” His eyes flash with pure, undiluted rage as he takes in the multiple stab wounds, blood seeping from each one.
“Death wasnae enough for that bastard,” he hisses, pressing a blanket to my wounds, but they saturate too quickly to allow the cuts to clot. “I should have been here to stop him.”
I don't answer. I can't. The pain is too intense, and the blood loss too rapid. I will not die, but I will sleep until my body heals. It is all I can hope for, to fade into the darkness and escape this agony. Brennen’s face blurs as he reaches out to cup my cheek.
“You can't,” I try to say, but it comes out as a moan.
“Hold on,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine as he rolls up his sleeve with shaking fingers. “You’ll be okay soon, my lark.” Before I realize what he’s doing, he presses his dàn of healing directly against my wounds.
I don’t have time to protest. To tell him to save his magic. His skin touches mine, but nothing happens.
Brennen’s eyes widen with panic, and he presses harder.
“What? No!” he says, lifting his arm and bringing it back down to my injuries.
“Why isn’t it working?” he asks. I shake my head, unable to answer him.
The river surges, a wave that appears from upstream, rippling over the banks and onto my feet, a shock of cold.
I suck in a breath as my body suddenly ignites, the power of Brennen’s dàn tunneling into my skin, but as the water recedes, the sensation stops. Brennen pauses, his brows furrowing.