70. Bea
BEA
SIX YEARS AGO
My entire body aches as I sneak through the trees, my shoulders relaxing a fraction as the sun slips beneath the horizon.
In the darkness, I’m safer. Less likely to be seen.
I’m not sure where I’m going as I flee. Where I’ll be able to escape the Cutter, but at least wherever I hide, I’ll no longer be at that Fates’ damned river.
The sound of shoes crunching on stone in the distance stops me in my tracks, and I duck behind a thick tree.
I peek around it to where a lantern light flickers in the distance, illuminating a sturdy cairn of stones that appears to mark the edge of a small village.
It’s tall, rising to at least the height of my shoulders, and the lichen growing along it tells me it has been there a very long time.
I squint into the night at the two people leaning against it, sharing a kiss.
I cannot make out their features, but even so, my heart aches at the sight.
The taller one, a man, reaches out to caress the woman’s cheek, and she places her hand on top of his.
My own palm tingles, as if my soul wishes I could be the one experiencing such an embrace.
What would it be like, to be touched so tenderly? For a man to linger at my side in the darkness of night, showing me such love and devotion? He gives her one last kiss, then turns away, disappearing with a pack on his back. He’s leaving, then. Saying goodbye before taking some sort of journey.
The ache only grows at the thought of such freedom.
The woman remains as the man disappears, staring into the night long after he’s gone.
Is she hoping he’ll come back, or is she waiting for someone else?
Sudden fear prickles along my neck at the thought that someone could be coming. That the Cutter could be coming. I’ve stopped moving for too long, standing here spying on them. Foolish when I’m still within the Cutter’s domain. She’ll know I’m gone by now. That her wards failed, and I’ve escaped.
Keep going.
I hear the words with every beat of my heart.
Keep going.
Keep going
Keep going.
They clang through my skull—a warning. No. That’s not strong enough—a premonition. My pulse thrums like the wings of a hummingbird, too fast, and my breaths go shallow as panic grips my lungs. I need to go. Now.
I do not think—I run, racing toward my favorite constellation. The arching lines of stars to the east I call the lark, the points reminding me of a bird taking flight, soaring into the heavens. For years, I have dreamed of doing just that.
This might be the closest I ever get.
My feet fly over grass and stone, and I look over my shoulder, the shadow of danger growing closer, breathing down my neck.
I’m moving so fast, I don’t realize there’s someone in front of me until I crash into them in the darkness.
We tumble to the ground with a thud, the air whooshing from my lungs as my back hits the dirt.
“I’m sorry!” I say, scrambling to my feet. “Are you alright?” I glance over my shoulder.
The woman from the cairns pulls herself up, assessing me. She must have moved since I last saw her, closer to the village now, the cairns a dragon’s length behind us. She seems to notice my fear, because her eyes dart in the direction I came from. “Are you in danger?” she asks.
The woman is beautiful, with long blonde hair and gentle eyes. Even with her brows furrowed in confusion, she gives me an encouraging smile.
I do not answer her.
“You are,” she says, stepping forward. “Come, then.” She grabs my hand, yanking me up a worn path in the earth before I can protest.
“I can’t—”
“I can help you. We’ll lock the doors. Whoever’s coming will never find you,” she says, and my heart leaps. I want to believe her so badly. Want to believe that hidden away in this stranger’s home, I will be safe. Invisible.
Is it possible this is the answer I’ve prayed for? Maybe the goddess led me here on purpose—to this kind woman who just happened to be waiting directly in my path. It has to be so.
Hope soars in my chest. “Thank you,” I whisper, my voice shaking as I continue to follow her up into the village.
“Here,” she says, stopping abruptly and pulling me through the door of a dark cottage.
It’s large, with several rooms and a small fire in the hearth.
“My family is sleeping, but I’ll find you a cot.
You can rest by the fire tonight.” She locks the door, and my heart rate slows a fraction.
For a split second, I think this is it. I’m safe, at least, for now.
Maybe this woman and I will be friends. I can help tend to the house. Disappear into oblivion, just another villager in a tiny town. One among hundreds in the kingdom. I’ll need to find gloves to hide my hands. Maybe a way to dye my hair to hide the red, or keep it covered.
Possibilities of a future I never let myself imagine unfold in my mind, tears stinging the back of my eyes at my relief. My hope.
And then I hear it.
The thunder of dragon wings. A roar, and the crackle of fire.
“No,” I whisper, darting to the window. Every last sliver of hope melts into terror as Athair appears in the sky, Cailleach straddling his back. They’re circling overhead, Athair’s gaze locked directly on this house.
How do they know I’m here?
He roars again, and flames shoot from his mouth, a trail of fire with heat so intense, sweat breaks out on my brow. The crackle of flames reaches my ears as the roof begins to smoke.
“You have to get help,” I say, turning back to the woman. “The houses here are too close together. If this fire spreads, your entire village will burn to the ground.”
“Ma!” she screams, darting forward, but I grab her arm and shake her.
“Listen to me! Do you have a warning bell?” I grab the woman’s hands.
She nods, eyes darting to the hallway once again. “By the cairn.”
“Go. Ring the bell, then hide behind the cairn. The Cutter is coming.”
“I can’t leave them!” she sobs, fighting against me to race toward the back of the house.
“I will get them out. But you have to go warn your village. I don’t remember the way back to the cairn. You have to alert everyone before this fire spreads and it kills every last person in this town.”
Her eyes snap wide, her mouth opening on a gasp, but she moves to the door. I run back to the window, where Athair still circles overhead, getting closer with every rotation.
“You swear to me you’ll get them out?” she asks.
“I swear it to you.” I wait until they turn. “Now! Run!”
She hesitates only a second, then, with one last glance toward the hall where her family sleeps, disappears.
I do not waste a moment, racing to pound on every door in the hallway.
“Fire! Wake up!” Footsteps sound as the woman’s family wakes, and five people stumble into the hall—two adults and three children, arms across their noses to block out the smoke growing thicker by the second.
“Marsaili!” the older woman screams. She meets my eyes. “Who are you? And where is my daughter? Where is Marsaili?”
“She’s waiting for you down the hill. At the cairn on the edge of the village. Go out the back, and stay hidden. The Cutter is here.”
The woman stiffens.
“Go now. You cannot let her see you.”
Without waiting to see if they listen, I dart out the front door, waving my arms in the air. “Looking for me?” I scream into the night.
Cailleach’s eyes lock onto me in an instant, narrowing into hate-filled slits.
She shouts something I can’t hear, and Athair’s head whips to me.
He banks, diving in my direction so fast, I barely have time to scramble back.
The realm trembles as the enormous beast lands, smoke curling from his nose.
“You,” Cailleach says, a single word brimming with so much disgust it slides along my skin like oil. Her tone is sharp, as if I am the utter bane of her existence.
In my periphery, I see the woman’s family creep around the house, staying low to the ground. I step forward, trying to keep Cailleach’s attention on me.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“Stop!” she orders, her eyes never leaving mine.
The tang of magic fills the air, prickling along my skin, and as one, the woman’s family freezes.
I hold my breath. “I broke into their home. They have nothing to do with this.”
Cailleach smiles, and it feels as if the world falls from beneath my feet. “Leig loisg iad,” she says. Let them burn.
“No!” I scream, rushing forward, but my voice is lost to the roar of fire leaving Athair’s gaping mouth.
I drop to my knees, watching in horror as the woman called Marsaili’s entire family is engulfed in flames.
Their screams ring out into the night, pure agony that stabs through my skin and seeps into my blood.
I will never, for as long as I live, forget this sound.
The smell of burnt flesh makes me retch as their cries fade into moans, then silence.
“Ma! Da!” A sob breaks through the quiet.
My heart drops with horror, plummeting into the very earth I stand upon.
“Don’t look!” I scream, standing to try to block her from the sight of her family’s charred remains.
“Go back! Run!” She doesn’t listen, scrambling around me, collapsing next to the smoking corpses of her mother and father.
Her entire body shakes as she reaches toward them, skin burning as she tries to pull them out.
Cailleach lifts her chin. “They’re dead. Get up,” she orders Marsaili. Once again, magic permeates the air, and she is yanked to her feet, her body held up by the Cutter’s wicked power.
Her eyes slide to me, and she pulls a sharp, bloodstained dagger from her waist, tossing it at my feet. “Pick it up.”
“No,” I gasp, but Cailleach’s magic spreads, wrapping around me like a serpent, forcing my body to bend to her will. My fingers wrap around the cold dagger, and a cold sweat breaks out along my neck.
The Cutter tilts her head, her lips twisting into a cruel smile. “Kill her.”
The breath is stolen from my lungs, my vision turning black at the edges. “What? No—”
“Slit her throat.”
“No. Run to the cairn!” I scream to Marsaili, but the Cutter flips a finger, and she stills.
I grit my teeth against the magic, but my feet move of their own volition.
I dig my heels in, trying to refuse. “Goddess, help me,” I beg, but it’s no use.
The strength of her magic is more than I can bear, and before I know it, I’m standing behind the woman, blade against her throat.
“This is your fault, you know. You escaped. And now her, and her entire family’s deaths will stain your soul forever, just like your filthy hands.”
Tears prick my eyes, the magic forcing me to press the dagger harder against her neck, and the woman gasps.
“Please don’t kill me,” she begs. Not to me, but to the Cutter.
I fight to pull my arm back. I will not kill this woman. I will not send her below before her time. My muscles burn, my temples throbbing in agonizing pain, but somehow, my hand moves back a fraction. A gap forms between her neck and the blade, then grows another finger-width bigger.
“Kill her!” Cailleach roars, but I do not listen.
I fight even harder, tunneling into every bit of strength I have.
Blood streams from my nose in rivers, the pain in my head spreading down my spine.
Maybe this will kill me. I do not wish to die this way, but I will.
I will die a thousand deaths if it saves this kind soul who offered me help with no questions or accusations.
This woman who looked at me with kindness instead of fear and hatred.
I somehow manage to take a single step back.
“Try to run, Marsaili. Fight!” I beg her, but she remains still as stone, her eyes wide with terror.
“Run!” I scream. “You can fight it!” I prepare to turn around.
To hurl the dagger at Cailleach. To dive at her.
To fight until my dying breath, long enough to allow the woman to escape.
But in a blink, there’s a body pressed against my back, and a cold, jewel-encrusted hand on top of mine, violently ripping the dagger across the woman’s neck.
I feel the blade tear through muscle and tendon, not a smooth, quick movement, but rough and violent and uneven. It’s sickening. Horrifying.
Hot, sticky blood spurts onto my hands, and bile rises up my throat as the woman crumples. I catch her, pressing my hands to her neck, desperate to stop the flow of blood, but it gushes through my fingers, trickling down my forearms. A scream rips from my throat, violent and savage.
“I’m sorry,” I sob, but the word turns into wet gurgles as the blade is drawn across my own throat, and the world goes dark.