Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Minerva had walked the cliff path in sun and fog and rain, in the pale early morning and the blue gray of dusk.
She knew the path, where it curved and where it dropped away, the smell of the sea, the sound of the waves and the wind.
But as she walked it now, there was a warmth low inside her that had nothing to do with the late afternoon sun or the exertion of the walk and everything to do with the hours she had spent in Dashiell’s bed, the light moving across the walls and floor as he moved above her, and then she above him, and the world outside continued its ordinary business without them.
Her lips curved in a secret smile.
Beside her, Dashiell walked close enough that his arm brushed hers with each step. They had spoken little since they left Carrek, and she was glad they understood each other so well, both recognizing that in this moment silence served better than speech.
Below them, the waves pounded their ancient rhythm, crashing gray-green water and white foam against the rocks. The path appeared empty in both directions and for a moment she thought neither Jago nor Tamsyn had come.
And then she saw them, two figures standing side by side where the headland curved. Tamsyn faced the sea, her back to the path, strands of fair hair pulled free by the wind. Jago stood inches away, his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched.
Minerva felt Dashiell’s hand find the small of her back then fall away. She glanced at him. His expression was ruthlessly neutral, that flat, emotionless mask he donned at will.
Tamsyn turned, her expression wary but not hostile. Her gaze settled on Minerva and did not move to the man at her side. Her refusal to acknowledge Dashiell came as no surprise.
As they drew near, the pendant warmed, the heat negligible at first, building with each step forward. Without thought, she raised her hand and closed her fingers around the piece, the heat spreading through her hand, her arm, her shoulder.
“Minerva,” Tamsyn said. Her gaze did not move to Dashiell. “I confess I did not know what to make of your note.”
“I am glad you came,” Minerva said.
“Are you.” The reply was not quite a question.
Jago stood to one side, watching them. He nodded at Dashiell who nodded in return, the exchange neither friendly nor hostile. Then Jago’s gaze went to his sister and Minerva read love and worry and something protective in his expression.
“Why are we here?” Jago asked.
“I asked you to come here because I believe you are in danger,” Minerva said.
“Danger?” Tamsyn’s chin came up. “From whom?” Her gaze did go to Dashiell then, cold, filled with hate.
“Not from any person,” Minerva said, taking a step closer, hand outstretched as if she reached toward a skittish colt.
“You are in danger from something that found a wound in you many years ago. It found a place in that wound and has never released you.” She included both of them because in truth she did not know which of them was the villain of the story.
Jago made a sharp exhalation but said nothing.
Tamsyn stared at her and for just an instant, Minerva saw a flicker of unease, of fear. Then her expression schooled itself once more into one of managed warmth and deliberate composure.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Tamsyn said, her tone cool.
“I think you do,” Minerva said gently, taking a single step closer, her hand still outstretched.
Instinct told her it was Tamsyn. It had always been Tamsyn.
Jago had not been on the cliff that long ago day.
He was a man with nothing to hide. “I think some part of you has known for a very long time.”
The pendant burned hotter still. Minerva closed the fingers of her free hand around it and willed her expression to stay calm, easy. The brothers were here now, she could feel them pressing on the stone, their malevolence and hate tinging the very air.
Tamsyn’s foot moved, sliding forward in a lurching, disjointed step.
Minerva knew what was happening before Tamsyn’s expression finished shifting to one of surprise.
She had stood on this same path, felt her own feet carrying her toward the drop while every part of her mind fought against it.
She had felt the brothers then. She felt them now, their malevolence focused on Tamsyn.
She knew what this was. She knew what it felt like from the inside.
Then Tamsyn’s other foot moved, and she jerked like a poorly strung marionette, her expression changing to one of terror. She twisted her upper body away, straining against what her legs were doing.
“Tamsyn,” Jago said sharply.
“Jago,” she cried, the word high and terrified.
Jago caught her upper arm in the same instant Minerva stepped forward and seized her hands. For a moment, the three of them formed a single straining shape, Tamsyn’s feet shuffling toward the drop, her hands gripping Minerva’s with desperate strength, Jago holding her arm.
The pendant burned, fierce. Angry. The ring on her right hand burned now as well, the heat of the stone a match to its twin.
“Hold on to me, Tamsyn,” Minerva said, keeping her voice low and steady. “Hold on and don’t let go.”
“I can’t— I’m not—” Tamsyn’s voice was fractured with panic and fear. “I’m not doing this. I’m not doing this—” Her eyes were wide, her skin so pale it looked gray.
“I know,” Minerva said, holding tight to the other woman’s hands. “I know.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Dashiell move. He caught Tamsyn at the waist and half-dragged, half-carried her back from the edge. Only when they were several yards away did he release Tamsyn and step away.
Jago caught her as she sagged, gasping, her legs giving way entirely as she sank to the ground, Jago going with her, bracing her back.
“What the bloody hell,” he said, his voice roughened by both fury and fear. His jaw was set, his eyes wild. He flashed a glance at Dashiell, who stood now between them and the drop. “What is happening to her?”
The pendant burned white hot. The ring circled Minerva’s finger like a brand. She felt the pull of them, the urge to open wide, to summon the darkness that permeated the very air. But no, not here. Not yet. That was for the cellar, for the Occupant.
This was something else, the darkness and malevolence of the brothers oozing through any crack in Tamsyn’s mind and soul. The cliff. Jory. This was about Jory.
Minerva crouched before Tamsyn and took her hands once more.
“Tamsyn,” she said. “Look at me. Look only at me.”
Tamsyn did as she bid, her eyes wide and dark, her skin chalk white, terror etching every line and plane of her face.
“It cannot take you now. Jago has you. Dashiell is between you and the cliff. But it is still here and it will not let go of you so easily. The only thing that will make it let go is the truth. Tell it and this will be over.”
“What truth? What are you talking about?” Jago asked, but Minerva kept her attention locked on Tamsyn.
“Tell me what happened to Jory,” she ordered.
“Jory?” Jago said.
Tamsyn shook her head. “I can’t—”
“You can,” Minerva said.
“You don’t understand what you are asking—”
“I do,” Minerva said. “I understand that you have been carrying this for eighteen years and it is eating away at you like leprosy. Tell me. Free yourself.”
Dashiell had not moved from his position between Tamsyn and the edge. Minerva glanced at him and saw the stillness of his form, the neutrality of his expression and she wondered what this cost him. His mask was in place, but barely. The void, eighteen years of not knowing, was there in his eyes.
Jago held his sister, his chin on the top of her head, his attention on Minerva.
“Tell me, Tamsyn,” she said. “Set it free now.”
For a long moment, Tamsyn was quiet. Long enough that Minerva thought she would not answer.
Then she began to speak.
“I was walking,” Tamsyn said, the words flat, toneless, as though she had separated herself from the words she spoke. As though the events she described had happened to someone other than herself.
“I heard Dashiell shouting for help. Jory was stuck, clinging to the face of the cliff, he said. Dashiell needed a rope, needed help. He was going to run for help.”
She stopped. Her mouth closed.
“Tam,” Jago’s voice at his sister’s ear, low and close. “I’m here. I have you.”
“I went to the edge,” she said, the flat voice returning, thinner than before. “I lay down and looked over and there was Jory, clinging to the face of the cliff.” She paused. “He looked up at me, and I reached my hand down to him.
“I did not decide to do what I did next,” she said, her hands gripping Minerva’s so tight it felt like the tiny bones ground together.
“My hand was reaching for him, and I meant to pull him up. I believed I was going to pull him up. And then my intention was not fulfilled.” She shook her head, looking confused.
Minerva swallowed. She knew that gap between intention and action. She had experienced it here on this very path and in the cellar when the Occupant slithered into her mind. Her will supplanted. The horror of finding herself feeling emotions not her own, carrying out actions against her own will.
“I heard something,” Tamsyn said. “Not a voice. Not words. Simply a presence in my thoughts.” Again, she shook her head.
“I meant to pull him up. I did. But in the end, I let go. He clawed at my wrists when his grip began to slip. I remember he screamed as he fell.” She said the words as though she were describing brushing her hair, as though the action were mundane and meaningless.
Jago made a sound that was barely human.
Minerva did not look at Dashiell. To look at him now knowing all he had suffered would break her.
“Dashiell came back,” Tamsyn said. “He was calling out that he did not think he could reach help in time. He came back and he saw me at the edge and looked at me.” The flat voice fractured then. “He knew something was wrong.”
She looked at Dashiell then, the first time she had done so since Minerva had known her. He looked back at her, calm, silent, his expression perfectly composed to any who did not know him well. But Minerva knew him well and she saw the pain he carried.
“I panicked,” Tamsyn said. “I picked up a rock and hit him. He went to his knees and grabbed my wrists, trying to stop me or trying to hold himself up, I don’t know.
I kicked him and clawed at him and then I hit him again.
On the temple.” She looked at the scar on Dashiell’s temple for a long moment. “And when he fell, I ran.”
Minerva’s heart twisted and tears stung her eyes, threatening to fall.
Tears of relief, for Dashiell. He knew, finally, what had happened that day.
She turned her head to look at him, at the scar on his temple, at the stillness of his expression as he stared at Tamsyn who had not merely hated him for eighteen years, she had been terrified of him.
Terrified of what he had seen at the cliff’s edge.
Terrified of what he might remember. Terrified that he would speak.
He had not spoken because he had not had any words to say. The void had swallowed the whole of it.
A muscle in his jaw tensed. Then he looked away from Tamsyn and looked at Minerva and she saw the flicker of relief. The puzzle he had grappled with for eighteen years was finally solved, the guilt he had carried resolved.
She rose and ran to him, throwing herself into the arms that he opened to catch her.
She took his face in her hands, her thumbs against his cheekbones and she filled herself with the sight of him.
He exhaled, long and slow. His hands came up and covered hers.
They stood like that with the sound of the waves below and the smell of salt in the air.
Behind them, Jago spoke quietly to his sister. Minerva could not hear the words. Whatever came next between them was entirely theirs.
The pendant and ring were both cool now, but she knew that was only temporary. They had won the moment but not more than that. Not yet.
Dashiell did not know how long they stood looking out at the ocean. Long enough that Jago led his sister away. Long enough that the sun sank and the first stars began to appear, faint and tentative. He doffed his coat and settled it around Minerva’s shoulders as the air began to cool.
She did not speak and he was grateful for that. She only held his hand and let her side press against his and he was grateful for that, too.
He had lived with the void and the fragmented memories and the guilt for eighteen years. He had not known what it would feel like to be free of it.
There was relief, yes, but it was not so clean as that. He felt disoriented, as if he had stood in a buffeting wind for a very long while and suddenly stepped into still air.
He had not pushed Jory. In fact, he had done all he could to save him.
Of all the things he had done in his life, both good and bad, he could not count that among them.
“Dashiell,” Minerva said, her voice soft.
He turned to face her. She watched him, her gaze roaming his face, but she said nothing more. She had opened the door to what he might wish to say, but she did not force him through it.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I am,” she said with a small smile. “And you? Are you all right?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “Ask me tomorrow.”
“I will do that.” They stood in silence for a moment more and then she asked, “Will you summon the magistrate?”
He had thought about that, about consequences and legalities and murder. There was no other name for it. But was it Tamsyn who had murdered Jory or the entity that had inhabited her? Or a little of both?
Yes, he had thought about all of it and he had come to a decision.
“No,” he said. “There has been enough pain from that day. Whatever happens in that regard, that is for Jago to decide. I spent eighteen years living as the man who killed Jory Tregian. I will not spend my next years as the man who destroyed what is left of Jago’s family.”
Minerva came up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his in a gentle kiss. “I think Catherine would have agreed with your decision.”
“I believe so, yes.”
The horizon was fully dark now, the sea black below, the sky darkest blue, the stars properly bright at last. He found Orion, the belt stars west to east, unchanged and unchanging. He moved from the belt to the sword and then the nebula, the faint smudge of it barely visible without the telescope.
He reached for her hand again without looking away from the sky. Minerva, his brightest star. He loved her. With all he was and all he would ever be, he loved her.
They stood like that for a time, the two of them and the stars and the sea.
Tomorrow, they would finish it.
But tonight would be for them.
She brought their joined hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “Take me home,” she said.
“Yes.”
And he kept her hand in his as they walked under the star-flung sky, the headland behind them, the cellar beneath the cottage still to come.