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I sat. Morwen sat opposite me and placed her bundle atop the boulder, unrolling it. There was a wineskin, a stoppered jar, a wooden cup, a leather bag, and a knife of chipped stone. She unplugged the wineskin and poured a measure of dark liquid into the wooden cup, showing it to me. "I will drink first. ”
I watched her drink, watched the muscles of her throat move. When she had finished, she poured a second measure and handed me the cup. I sniffed at it. It smelled earthy and bitter and foul. "What is it?”
"Mushroom tea. " Her pale gaze held steady. "A gift of the earth, Imriel. ”
I lifted the cup toward the stars. "Blessed Elua, hold and keep me," I said, and drank. It tasted like it smelled. I gagged, but I managed to swallow it, setting down the wooden cup.
"Well done. " Morwen unstoppered the jar and daubed unguent on her fingers, closing her eyes and smearing it onto her closed lids. She blinked a few times. "Lean forward and close your eyes. ”
I obeyed. Her fingertips felt cool. I kept my eyes closed as she smeared unguent on my lids, trying not to flinch at her touch. I could smell the ointment, sharp and herbal. I could smell her, loam and fermented berries. I could taste the mushroom tea on my tongue, acrid and bitter, drying the tissues of my mouth.
"It begins. " Morwen reached across the boulder to grasp my right hand. "Here. " She placed the leather bag in my palm. "As I promised. ”
I stared at it, gaping. When I closed my fingers on it, I could feel the shape of the mannekin charm it contained. My blood pounded in my veins, in my wrists and ankles and temples. My entire body throbbed.
"And here," she added, picking up the stone knife.
Fast; so fast! Before I could react, the stone blade snicked forth, the tip sliding beneath the yarn bindings around my right wrist and severing them. My heart expanded within my breast and freedom rushed in upon me, swift and almost sickening. I drew a deep breath, reeling where I sat. "Ah, no!" I whispered. "Elua!”
"Did you think you would be able to see, bound as you were?" Morwen asked in a hard voice. "Don't worry, I will make the offering. " She turned her left hand palm-up on the boulder. The stone knife snicked again, chip-edged and keen, opening a cut on her wrist; and then she did the same to her other hand. Her hands reached for mine, slippery with blood. "Put the mannekin aside and hold hard to me. If nothing else, you will see. And you will understand. ”
I did as she said.
For a long time, nothing happened. Morwen closed her eyes and breathed slowly. Her face was calm and serene beneath the claw-marks, despite the steady seep of blood from her wrists. I tried to emulate her, but my body was shivering with an uncomfortable mixture of excitement and nausea. My belly clenched on the mushroom tea, and I thought for a time I might vomit.
Slowly, slowly, it passed. The shivering stopped. My body began to feel warm and heavy. I relaxed, bit by bit, feeling stored tension ease from my neck and shoulders. Morwen opened her eyes and smiled at me.
"You see?" she said. "A gift of the earth, nothing more. ”
I laughed. "We're allowed to speak?”
"Oh, a little," she said. For some reason, it made us both laugh. I sat, holding her hands across the boulder, and thought about how much better things would have been if we'd spoken honestly and openly from the beginning. If the Cruithne had spoken frankly about the Maghuin Dhonn, their powers and their claims, instead of shunning them out of superstition. If the Maghuin Dhonn had approached me and spoken frankly of their concerns, instead of trying to trick and bind me.
I tried to tell Morwen this, but the words emerged in a muddle and I was overly conscious of the way my voice echoed within my own skull.
"Hush," Morwen said. Her pupils had grown enormous. "Just watch for a time. ”
So I did.
It seemed the night had grown brighter; or mayhap my vision was altered. Everything seemed very sharp-edged and clear; the stones, the blades of grass, the slow, spreading puddle of blood trickling over the edges of the boulder. I could see near and far all at once; a branch on a distant tree and a twig caught in Morwen's hair. It was exhilarating, but it was unnerving, too. I tried looking at the sky overhead. At first the black velvet spaces between the stars were calming; then I thought about the night sky's infinite depth, and it made me dizzy.
"Think of a pleasant time," Morwen said.
I thought about Sidonie.
Elua knows, I didn't mean to. It seemed wrong, there in one of Alba's sacred places, with Dorelei's kiss still lingering on my lips. But I couldn't help it. I was free of my bindings. The moment Morwen spoke, my thoughts leapt to Sidonie, as swift and straight as an arrow from the bow. Sidonie in a shaft of sunlight, smiling. Tangled in bedsheets.
Propped against the door of the bedchamber in Naamah's Temple, her legs around my waist. Glancing at me with stricken eyes when it was announced the Cruarch's flagship had been spotted. Throwing rose petals at my wedding, her face a mask.
Golden hair, spread on a pillow.
A golden cord, knotted.
A knot of gold on my finger.
Images crowded me, changing and mutating. I shook my head, trying to dispel them. My heart ached, and I had to struggle to draw breath.
"Let her go," Morwen said unexpectedly. "Look to the stones. ”
As though her words had given me permission, I was able to break the chain of my thoughts. I breathed slowly and deeply, gazing at the standing stones. They seemed immensely tall and powerful. When I blinked, I thought I could see runes and markings carved on them; whorls and spirals and crosses. Although I couldn't read them, it seemed they whispered a story to me. And then it seemed the stones were moving in a slow, endless dance.
Morsen drew a long, shuddering breath. "Now you see. ”
The moving runes made pictures.
The stones were telling a story.
A boy. There was a boy. I saw the stamp of House Shahrizai on his face; in his dark blue eyes, the full curve of his lips. And Cruithne blood, too. Images flickered. Clunderry, and Dorelei. Laughter. Dorelei lying motionless in a bed, and old Cluna drawing a sheet over her face. Me, and the boy clinging to me. Me, setting him down gently and prying loose his grip.
The boy, with Alais. Tending the shrine of Elua.
The boy, older, flushed with anger, shouting at Urist.
And then he was gone. The dance faltered and the world lurched.
"What?" I whispered. "What happened to him?”
"He left Alba. " Morwen's voice was low. "Wait. ”
The dance resumed, and the boy was back. My son; a young man, now. Shrewd and beautiful, with calculating eyes and a charming, indolent smile that masked ambition and complicated desires. I remembered somewhat Phèdre had said about my mother. In a roomful of people, she shone.
So did my son.
I watched him grow to full adulthood. I watched him plot and scheme. I watched him smile to himself as quarrels broke out across Alba. I watched quarrels escalate into war. I watched him acquit himself well in a losing battle. I watched him crowned Cruarch in a hasty ceremony when Talorcan was slain.
I watched him appoint D'Angelines to office.
I watched him lead an army composed of as many D'Angelines as Albans sweep across the land, crushing all resistance. He was a fearless leader, and a ruthless one. I watched him turn women and children from their homes and torch their houses. I watched him kill a wounded man begging for mercy.
I watched him ride in a victorious procession.
I watched him issue decrees.
I watched D'Angeline architects swarm over Bryn Gorrydum. I watched as the last of the Maghuin Dhonn were hunted like animals. And I watched as all across Alba, my son ordered the oak groves burned, the standing stones lashed round with chains and dragged down by teams of oxen.
I watched until I could no longer bear it.
"Make it stop. " I raised my voice. "Make it
stop!”
Morwen released my hands with limp, sticky fingers. The visions faded, although the world was still strange and pulsing. I felt sick and disoriented.
"Your son is a monster, Imriel," Morwen said quietly.
"You don't know it's true!" My voice was thick.
"I do. " She sat quiet and still, her hands resting atop the boulder in a puddle of her own blood. A lot of blood. "There were other visions around you, before; a confusion of them. At first you departed and he wasn't there. Then there was our daughter to balance him. But one by one, they all went away. This is all that's left. ”
"Why? " I whispered.
"I don't know. " She sounded sad. "It seems his mother lost a second child before term and died. What happened to you, I cannot say, save that you never set foot on Alban soil again. And it seems your son conceived a powerful hatred of the Maghuin Dhonn. ”
A mad laugh bubbled out of me. "And why do you think that might be, woman!" I shouted at her. "Name of Elua! You've done naught but plague and torment me since I came to Alba! Elua!" I ran my hands over my face, forgetting they were sticky with her blood. "Did you ever think," I said bitterly, "that mayhap if you hadn't meddled in our lives in the first place, none of this would come to pass?”
"Yes. " Morwen gave me a terrible smile. "I did. ”
I stared at her in horror. Somewhere, there were horns sounding. The air between us pulsed, filled with twisting runes and symbols. I waved my hand before me, trying to make them vanish. I couldn't see right, couldn't think right. But I was free and unbound and I could see one thing. A fault-line on her soul, a deep and awful secret.
Horns.
Clunderry.
"You lied," I said simply.
She lifted her hands feebly. Blood ran down her forearms. A lot of blood. The stone knife had cut deeper than I reckoned. "The Maghuin Dhonn have kept their oath," Morwen said. "You are unharmed. It is only I that am forsworn. I am a sacrifice. ”
After that, I went mad.
There are large parts of that terrible night I do not remember.
I remember stumbling from the stone circle, barefoot and blood-streaked, shouting for Urist. I do not remember putting on my sword-belt, although I did. I remember bits and pieces of racing through the darkling woods, thinking that the very trees despised me.
I remember seeing the castle gate open.
I remember screaming.
And the bear.
And Dorelei.
I didn't see her until later. And I didn't understand until later that the castle gate was open because Leodan of Briclaedh had staged his retaliatory cattle-raid that night, having received word that Clunderry's garrison would be short-handed the night of the full moon, and no one had remembered to close it when the garrison raced out in response.
The bear…
For a time, Kinadius and a handful of men who had managed to double back held it at bay in the courtyard, shooting at it with hunting bows, but it was hard to aim in the moonlight and it takes a lot to kill a bear. A big bear, as big as Berlik of the Maghuin Dhonn was for a man. It burst through their line just as we arrived, killing Uven, roaring toward the castle gate.
I remember Urist behind me shouting, "Spread out!”
I ran straight for the bear, racing through the open gate, holding my sword point-outward in a two-handed grip. Fast; faster than I'd ever run. I screamed. The bear roared. I could smell it, rank and musky. Fermented berries. It swatted at me, knocking the blade from my hand and sending me tumbling. Kinadius and his men shot arrows at it from behind. It roared. I picked myself up, picked up my sword. I heard my own voice shouting, "Close the gate!”
I stood in front of the gate.
The bear charged me. It was like a wave, like a great dark wave breaking over me. I swung my blade, aiming for its eyes. Its sad, pale eyes; Berlik's eyes. It rose up then; blotting out the stars. It roared. Red maw, white teeth. Black claws. I stepped inside its guard, jabbing for its guts.
It struck before my blow landed.
I didn't feel the wounds, not right away. Just the blow; a vast, inconceivable impact. I lay on my back, staring at the moon and stars, wetness spreading over my chest. If I could have laughed, I would have. "Forsworn," I whispered. "All of you. ”
Blackness.
The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the great hall. There were a great many people around, talking and weeping. Some of them were hovering over me, asking me things. I was on a table. I turned my head. There was another table. Dorelei lay on it. Her head was turned toward me at an unnatural angle. Her eyes were empty and open. There was a cloak draped over her, over the swollen mound of her belly. It was sodden with blood.
I wept.
Blackness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Where do we GO when we vanish deep inside ourselves? I do not know, but I went there for a long, long time. Alais told me later that they weren't sure if I would live or die. If anyone had asked me my preference in the matter, I'm not sure which I would have chosen. I was very badly injured and out of my mind with horror, grief, and guilt. I recall almost nothing of the days following the attack. Most of the time, I was unconscious; when I wasn't, Alais said I raved and babbled about moving stones and blood and the Maghuin Dhonn.
And my son, the boy who became a monster.
There is a mercy in madness and forgetting.
I don't think I could have borne those days.
I had a few vague memories. Lady Breidaia, weeping as though her heart would break. Talorcan, shouting in fury. Drustan. Later, I learned that Hyacinthe had kept his promise. He'd caught a glimpse of Morwen and Berlik in his sea-mirror and sent a pair of swift couriers.
Too late.
The Maghuin Dhonn had struck more swiftly.
I remember Firdha speaking ritual words, and a sense of terrible loss. And I remember a jolting wagon and a great deal of pain. Someone cursing at the Bastard. Sweating and shivering. Anxious faces. Alais, placing a cool, damp cloth on my brow, begging me not to die.