Beneath the Forsaken City (8 page)

“How bad is it?
”

Aine jerked upright at Taran’s voice behind her, feeling as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. She rolled down her shredded sleeves to conceal the scrapes she’d been washing in the stream and straightened her dress before turning.

“Not bad. Just needed cleaning to avoid infection.” She kept her tone light, but the memory of those terror-filled moments pinned to the forest floor made her shudder. She wrapped her arms around herself and trudged up the bank toward camp.

Taran came alongside her. “Are you all right?”

How was she supposed to answer that question? Aine had not allowed herself to dwell on the day’s events, but they still hovered in the back of her mind. In fact, all the terrible things that had happened
 
—Conor’s ambush, her kidnapping, their bloody escape from Glenmallaig, and then her near-drowning in the Amantine Sea
 
—hung like a dark cloud over her subconscious. But that wasn’t the answer Taran sought. He wanted to know if she could hold herself together until they arrived at Forrais, nothing more.

“I’m fine.” Aine gave the mercenary a wan smile. “Can I help with camp?”

Taran shrugged and fell into step beside her as they walked back to the men.

Nearby, Sigurd stood watch over Lord Gabhran, where he’d been tied to a tree. Pepin was putting dried meat, vegetables, and fresh herbs into a wooden bowl of water. Aine watched, baffled, until he nudged several small rocks from the fire and used his leather vest to drop the stones into the bowl. Steam hissed from the water, which began to boil before her eyes.

Taran immediately took up a hand ax and began to chop kindling. Apparently their discussion, cursory as it had been, was over.

There was no room for another person in this well-rehearsed dance, so Aine found herself a seat on a rock out of the way of camp preparations. Unfortunately that brought her closer to their prisoner than she wished to be.

“Girl,” Lord Gabhran called to her.

She stiffened, but she ignored him.

“You might as well tell me. Why does Lord Riagain want you so badly?”

Aine turned her head away and fixed her eyes on the crackling fire, determined not to answer him.

“Are you a witch? Is that why my lord wants you? You know, your aunt takes a dim view of witchcraft. You might have been better off at Brightwater.” Gabhran paused, and his tone was softer when he next spoke. “I’m sorry, you know. It was bad of me not to stop him sooner.”

Aine jumped to her feet and spun to face him. “Sooner? Don’t fool yourself,
Lord
Gabhran. You are no more noble than the horse you ride. You would have let him have his way with me, and then perhaps you would have been convinced to have a turn.”

Gabhran’s gaze raked her from head to toe, and a smile parted his lips. “You may be right on that. You are a beautiful woman, Aine Nic Tamhais. Especially when you’re angry.”

“No.” Her voice shook with the effort of holding herself in check. Sigurd stood by, his eyes flicking between them, but he didn’t look inclined to intervene. “I’m not angry. I’m furious.”

Her eyes homed in on the dagger at Sigurd’s waist. Before either of the men could react, she yanked the mercenary’s blade from the sheath and fell upon the prisoner. She jerked his head back by a handful of hair and pressed the point of the dagger to the soft spot beneath his jaw.

Gabhran stiffened, not daring to move a muscle, his eyes wide with shock.

“How does it feel, Lord Gabhran, being completely at another’s mercy?” She put more pressure on the blade, and a spot of blood appeared at the point. “Knowing that any moment, I could kill you or maim you and there’s nothing you can do about it? That’s what fear tastes like.”

“Aine.” Taran’s hand touched Aine’s shoulder.

“Someone stop her!” Gabhran appealed first to Taran, then to Sigurd. “The woman is mad!”

Sigurd crossed his arms across his chest and stared at Gabhran, his expression never changing.

“Stop me? Like you stopped your man back there?”

“Aine, that’s enough.”

Taran’s quiet voice broke through her anger. She withdrew the blade from Gabhran’s throat and turned away, her heart pounding so hard it crushed the air from her chest. Fury still surged through her veins. For a moment, she’d considered killing him, and Taran wouldn’t have stopped her. She blew out her breath and found that her whole body was shaking.

Taran cleared his throat behind her. “My lady?”

Aine didn’t turn. When she spoke, her voice was clogged with unshed tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s rather less than he deserves. Lord Gabhran incites bloodlust in every woman he comes across, I’d think.” His tone was joking, but Aine heard the steel beneath it. He had just as much reason
 
—more, really
 
—to want the man dead as Aine did.

“You are allowed to be angry,” he continued. “But the man who threatened you is dead, and Lord Gabhran will wish he was once he reaches your aunt’s dungeons.”

“I wanted to kill him,” Aine whispered. “I could have. I never thought I was capable of such a thing. What is it about this place that makes one have such savage thoughts?”

“Aron is a hard place, my lady. You were just too young and sheltered to see it before. The strong and the savage prey on the weak and the helpless. It’s not right, but that’s the way it is.”

Aine faced Taran, and for the first time, she glimpsed the pain behind his hard veneer. He was no longer the hired sword but rather a father still mourning the loss of a child. Was that what he had meant when he’d said Comdiu had abandoned him? Was that why he was helping her? As penance, or perhaps as a chance to save someone else’s daughter?

If it had been Ruarc or Conor or one of her brothers, she might have taken comfort in his arms. But Taran was a stranger, and they were still days from Forrais. She straightened her spine and swiped a dirty sleeve across her eyes. If she were to survive, she had to be strong.

“By the gods, you
are
a witch!”

Aine and Taran spun toward the prisoner, who was staring at Aine with a mixture of revulsion and wonder. “My ribs! He broke them, and now they’re healed. I feel not even a twinge of pain.”

Taran strode to Gabhran’s side and jerked his head back as Aine had done and then ripped open the front of his shirt. Even at this distance, Aine could see that the blood remained, but the wound the mercenary had inflicted was already closed.

Taran looked wide-eyed at Aine and then scrubbed his hands wearily over his face.

“Now we are going to have to kill him.”

“I told you before, I don’t know how I did it.” Aine sighed in frustration and wrapped her cloak tighter around her shoulders as if it could deflect the hard stares from three pairs of eyes.

Four pairs, if she counted the prisoner’s. Gabhran watched Aine as if he weren’t quite sure whether she was his salvation or his damnation. She could be either, depending on what was decided in the next several minutes.

“Tell us what you do know,” Taran said.

The calculating glint in his eye unsettled Aine, but she nodded anyway. “My gift was healing, but not directly. When I touched someone, I could feel their sickness, but I relied on my training as a healer to cure them. I had no idea it had changed into something more.”

“So it’s possible you touched someone and accidentally healed them, like you did with that sorry bag of flesh and bone.” Taran jerked his head in Gabhran’s direction. “The innkeeper, his wife . . .”

“The ship’s captain.” It made sense. Cass Mac Onaghan had wanted her safe and secluded. He must have known Riagain would reward him for turning her in.

Aine should have guessed, though. Hadn’t she been marveling at how quickly Conor had healed, how his wounds had miraculously disappeared in mere days? But Conor had his
own magic. She had seen him do things that should have been impossible. How was she to know it was due to her and not his own innate abilities?

“We can’t take him to Forrais,” Pepin said to Taran. “He’ll trade the information to Macha the minute we turn him over.”

“Probably. I can’t say I haven’t dreamed of ending his sorry life myself, but I haven’t the time to do a proper job of it.”

Sigurd shrugged. “There are ways of making sure he dies slowly without having to wait around to watch.”

Taran loosened the dagger at his waist and weighed it in his palm for a moment, his jaw clenched. Finally, he nodded. “Pepin, stay with her. Sigurd and I will take him into the trees. The lady shouldn’t have to see this.”

The Lakelander rose to follow Taran while Aine stared, open-mouthed. They were discussing a man’s life as if they were discussing their supper. And now, in half a minute, they’d decided to kill a landed Aronan lord to keep Aine’s secret. Slowly and painfully, if she understood aright.

“Wait! Stop!”

Taran turned. “It’s the only way.”

“Why? Macha is my aunt. Surely she won’t let Riagain have me.”

“Riagain? No. But you know how Aronans feel about magic.”

“I know it’s frowned upon
 
—”

“Under your father, perhaps. Under Macha’s leadership, it carries a sentence of death. King Bress is content to let the clans make up their own minds about such things.”

Aine swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “She wouldn’t kill me.”

But even as she said it, she doubted her conviction. Macha had barely tolerated her. Given a legitimate way to rid herself of Aine, would clan ties really stop her? No wonder Taran had said there was no safety in her aunt’s house.

But even that didn’t justify this action. “I can’t let you kill a man in cold blood for my sake.”

Taran deflated. When he spoke, his voice held a new weariness. “You don’t understand what this man did to my daughter. She was only thirteen years old. She was under Lord Riagain’s protection, meant to marry Lord Gabhran to bring peace between the clans. Instead of marrying her, he slaughtered her.”

Gabhran let out a harsh laugh. “Lady Macha was foolish to think she could buy peace with a minor nobleman’s daughter after the affront Lord Alsandair gave the clan. She sent Lady Caer to die. It should be Macha with whom you’ve a blood feud, not me.”

Aine looked between the two men, finally understanding what she should have put together long before. “
Lord
Taran? You’re supposed to be dead! Killed on campaign!”

“Lord Taran
is
dead.” The mercenary glanced at her. “He died when your aunt’s ambition murdered my daughter. Lady Macha will sacrifice anything or anyone to get what she wants.”

Aine pressed a hand to her abdomen, struggling to breathe. She’d wandered into something far wider and more dangerous than she’d understood. Taran Mac Maolain had been one of the clan’s loyal lords. His disappearance had put the lands that lay between Clan Tamhais’s and Lord Riagain’s in Macha’s hands. What if it hadn’t been an accident? What if Macha really had sent Taran’s daughter to die, figuring he’d be killed in a quest for revenge? Could she have intentionally put a girl’s life in the hands of an unprincipled
 
—no, downright evil
 
—man such as Gabhran?

“He deserves whatever you would do to him,” Aine said. Gabhran stared at her in shock, as if he’d thought she would save him. “But I do not believe Comdiu sent you to do this.”

Taran exhaled heavily. “Then what do you suggest, Lady Aine? You understand now what could happen to you if he’s allowed to tell of your abilities.”

“Let him go,” Pepin said. “He’ll report back to Lord Riagain, but by the time he reaches Brightwater, Aine will be at Forrais.”

“Some comfort that is,” Aine muttered.

A smile passed Sigurd’s lips, but he focused on Taran. “You know full well how it feels to have another’s blood on your conscience. Do you wish that for her?”

“No. I don’t. But you cannot begin to know how much this pains me.” He moved toward the captive, his knuckles white on the hilt of his dagger. Aine held her breath, sure the blade would find a home in Gabhran’s chest. But Taran only sliced through the rope that bound the Lowlander to the tree.