Icefall (28 page)

So anyway, Branndair went after him, and so did I.

When I found him in a small glade he was standing in dappled shadow with his back against a pine trunk, his arms folded. ‘Hello, lover.'

‘Hello yourself.' I returned his rueful smile.

He reached out a hand and took mine, pulled me in and kissed me. I raked his hair back from his face and drew reluctantly away. His eyes were very silver in the green dimness.

‘You know the worst of it, Finn? I don't care.'

I stroked the scar on his face. ‘You mean, about what you're going to do.'

He nodded gently, which brought his forehead against mine. ‘I'm going to kill them.'

‘I know,' I whispered.

‘Yeah.' He kissed my nose. ‘Yeah, of course you do. Here's the thing, Finn.' He swallowed and shut his eyes. ‘I've been trying so damn hard to be Conal. And I can't be. I shouldn't be.

‘Thank God you've got that straight at last,' I murmured. ‘But I'm worried about you.'

‘That's the problem.' He sighed. ‘I'm not.'

‘We deserted those people,' I said.

‘I don't even care about that. I don't give a tuppenny shit, Finn. They deserved to be abandoned, every mother's child of them.'

‘I'm not sure that's…'

‘In my head it's true. And that's where it matters, isn't it? Because I'm the one who's going to take what we need, and strip them of everything they have, and cut their worthless throats. It doesn't matter to me. I don't regret the thought of it and I don't regret that it doesn't matter, and I'll feel no shame when I've done it.'

‘Right,' I whispered, my head still pressed against his. Dread twisted and tightened in my gut.

He kissed me again, and his mouth smiled against mine.

‘Will you still love me tomorrow?' he asked.

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Good,' he said. ‘Because it's the only thing that I still give a damn about.'

I had to make my limbs move, I had to focus on every step that I took after him as he walked back out of the wood. Maybe I wouldn't have managed it if his fingers hadn't been tangled round mine. I was more afraid of what was happening to him than I was of death, I realised, but I couldn't take a side against him: not Kate's, obviously, but not the clann's either.
Bound,
I thought as my soul chilled inside me.
So this is what it means.

And then I thought:
What's the point of it, if there's nothing I can do to help him?

Which was when I began to want to kill them all, too.

 

Hannah

‘Sionnach,' I whispered. ‘Sionnach, are you okay?'

The room was dark, so dark. I was scared of the dark but I kept trying to forget that, and by now I almost had. Or I'd almost convinced myself I had. I kept shutting my eyes. Pretending there was light, and that I just couldn't see it.

I'd paced round the walls, over and over, feeling the length of them. The cell was maybe three metres by three, and there weren't any windows. It might have been stiflingly hot, if we weren't so far underground, but it only felt airless and threatening. I felt like I was already in the belly of some beast, a wooden beast. The walls and the floor were lined in smooth timber: I knew that only because they were warmer to the touch than stone, and I'd run my fingertips down narrow panels and grooves.

I'd tried to reach out my mind—to anyone, even one of the cold-faced guards who'd put us in here—but my mind could go nowhere. There was nowhere for it to go. It was a horrible sensation, as if the world had shrunk down to this cell and no more. Like we were all that was left of everything.

I felt so scared and lonely I huddled down against Sionnach's inert body, fingering his throat desperately. Yes. A pulse. Blood in his veins and a heart beating. A little pathetically, I lay down and put my arms around him, willing him to wake. Like I was a small animal and he was my mother. Well. That was pretty close.

‘Rowanwood.'

I thought I was hearing things. His voice was very hoarse and dull, but it was for real. I whispered, ‘Sionnach?'

No response. Unconscious again, but he was alive. I cuddled against his back, slipped my hand under his shirt and touched his belly very tentatively. I was afraid of feeling my hand sink in his guts again, the hot slippery blood leaking where it shouldn't.

The instinct had taken over again, or he'd be dead. I still barely knew what I'd done, but I must have done it right. The scars were thickly raised and they'd be ugly, but to my fingertips they felt clean. No swelling, no heat. Well, of course not. That wasn't a problem. Everything else was, maybe, but not infection. He'd die of something soon, but not that. Me too. But not of infection. I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand.

Sionnach stirred again, a few times, but it felt like hours before he woke properly. I was so glad I could have cried, but I hugged him tighter instead.

‘Easy,' he gasped.

‘Sorry. Oh, Sionnach. Sorry.'

I let him go and sat up, then knelt over him. His hand grasped mine, and I pulled him upright as gently as I could.

~
What are you apologizing for? Thanks.

~
It's okay. Oh, I'm so glad you're okay.

~
I'm fine. I'm still going to bloody kill you.

I laughed unsteadily. His arm went round me and we leaned together against the wall.

‘You said something earlier.' I licked my lips. ‘
Rowanwood.'

‘Oh, that. The cell. Lined with rowanwood. It blocks you.' ~
Can't get your mind past rowan.

‘Oh.'

We sat in silence for what might have been an hour. Or five minutes.

‘How long have we been here?' he asked.

‘Four days? Maybe five? I think, anyway. Going by the meals. There's no light except when they put the food in.'

‘Four days? I was a mess, eh?'

‘Yeah. You were.' My voice shook. ‘You hungry?'

He laughed quietly. ‘Yeah. We recover…'

‘Fast. I know. You guys still make my head spin, honest. There's bread left. Dried meat. Some water. Here.' I crawled across the floor and fumbled for it, desperate not to knock over the jug, not when I'd rationed it so carefully. Sionnach's hands found mine in the dark and he took the jug from me. I heard him gulp it, desperately.

‘Take it easy,' I whispered. ‘There isn't that much.'

He stopped, put it down. ‘You're thirsty, Hannah.'

‘I'm okay,' I lied, and put some bread into his hand. ‘The food's crap, by the way. I'm kind of glad I can't see it.'

He gave a dry laugh. ‘It'll do.'

They must have been watching and waiting. Sionnach had only just swallowed his last bite of bread when I heard a plank of wood slide sideways, and a single strip of light appeared at the top of the cell. Even that hurt my eyes. When I'd blinked away the dazzle, I could see that the ceiling was panelled with rowan, too.

I smiled at Sionnach, and he squeezed my hand.

The door swung open, and two guards came in, flanking Kate.

I didn't remember her being so beautiful. She was astonishing, I've got to admit. She wore amber silk that turned her eyes to gold, and spike-heeled boots I'd have killed for, if the sight of them on her hadn't put me off. How did her skin get that glow underground? She was like a patch of sunlight. I looked at the boots again. They had a distinctive red-lacquered sole, and I thought,
I know that look, it's a trademark.
There stands a woman, I realised, who goes over the Veil a lot more than any of us suspected. In my mind's eye I saw Lauren, all alone and all vulnerable to her, and my heart turned over with remorse, and with a sudden recognition of my own stupidity.

Sionnach had moved slightly in front of me, but Kate simply gestured to one of the guards, who shoved him aside. He winced with pain, and suddenly Kate didn't look so warm and beautiful after all.

Tilting her head, she stood right in front of me.

‘You have such pretty hair,' she murmured.

‘Thanks,' said Sionnach, earning a blow from the guard.

Ignoring him, Kate trickled my hair through her fingers. I tried not to shudder, not to jerk away. But she knew I wanted to. Her lovely mouth curved in a broad smile.

‘Pretty hair,' she said again, ‘though that's to be expected. A little faded, of course. That happens with the dilution. Bad blood, bad full-mortal genes. But yes, for a fifth generation mongrel you're not unattractive.'

What the hell? Second generation, I was second generation. I hunted for Sionnach, caught his bewildered eyes.

‘I dunno what you're on about,' I snapped. But an icy trickle of fear was creeping down my spine.

‘Dear me. I'd have expected more intelligence, but perhaps that suffers from the dilution too.'

I wanted to say something really cheeky. I wanted to be cool and hard. I wanted to say
You don't scare me.
Fat chance. I was so very scared, and I didn't want to ask why. And I didn't want to test what the guard might do to Sionnach.

I also wanted her to leave before she said anything else. Because I could feel it coming. Whatever it was.

‘You don't block so well as your cousin. Shame on you, child! Not enough practice, I think. Your mother was a natural too—never knew it, of course—but that child Lauren has real talent. She didn't need a lot of help from me. All I had to do was create a space in her mind, then come back later and inhabit it. And then, when I asked her to block, you'd think she'd been doing it for centuries.' Kate tutted. ‘You should have learned the same tricks.'

I wanted to say
I don't do tricks.
But I was too afraid.

‘Sit down, dear.'

‘No, I—'

‘Sit
down.
' Kate didn't even gesture to the guard, she put her delicate hand on my shoulder and shoved, and my knees buckled underneath me. I grunted with shock. Kate sat down and put a slender arm round me.

‘You are easily as talented as your cousin, and you're stronger. Gods, a turban fooled that girl; She saw me suck out her dying father's soul and she still didn't recognise her new therapist. Well. I assure you you're better than that, and I can help you develop. What do you say?'

I could only gape at her.

‘Join me. You owe it to me. You have no idea of your potential!' She beamed with something like pride. ‘Your uncle's cause is lost and your father is dead. Choose the winning side, Hannah! Now, here's a sign of my good faith: I'm not going to tinker with your mind, the way I did with Lauren's. Partly because you're strong and it would be such a terrible shame to break you—' she laid a finger against my lips to still my protest ‘—but mostly because I want you to come to me willingly.
Lovingly.
I want you to come to me out of love and loyalty, Hannah, and I
think
I have a right to expect that.'

I could barely get the words out, but this time it wasn't just fear, it was goggle-eyed disbelief. ‘I don't owe you either of those things! I
hate you
.'

‘You
do.
You have a duty of love to me, and I to you.' Kate tapped her cheek coquettishly. ‘I want to be able to spoil you. It's my privilege! And I'd so like to spoil you in a
good
way.'

Sionnach was staring at me, then at her. I didn't want to see the look in his eyes.

‘Stop,' I said. ‘Stop.' I had no idea if I was talking to him or to Kate. And then, because I simply couldn't stop myself, I said, ‘What privilege?'

‘A great-great-grandmother's privilege, dear.'

In the leaden silence Kate leaned over me, cupping my face in her hands and tilting it to her. She studied me for long, adoring moments, and then she kissed me. She tasted like the sweetest poison.

‘There, dear,' she said. Her fingers caressed my face, spreading their gentle coolness across my skin. ‘I knew the Bloodstone would be a human child. I
always
knew that. Gods, I was so far ahead of Leonora she wasn't even tasting my dust. So I went to all that trouble. To the otherworld, and a suitable mate! Your great-great-grandfather Thomas was adorable. Stupid, but adorable.'

I couldn't swallow, couldn't speak. I could still taste her.

‘You've the bloodline of witches, the strongest ones of all the Sithe world. Accept it!'

‘No,' I whispered.

There was no shutting her up. ‘Oh, it should have been you!
My
descendant with
my
blood! And a father like Cù Chaorach! You should have been the Bloodstone, Hannah.
You.
'

‘No,' I said, pointlessly. Honestly, could I not come up with another word? Something obscene enough to melt her on the spot, like rain in Oz?

‘There.' She clasped her hands in her lap, smiling. ‘I know you'll have to let it sink in.'

That wasn't all that was sinking in. ‘Aunt Sheena. Shania. They were—'

‘Mine too. Yes, yes. And I
do
regret that, from the bottom of my heart, Hannah. But you were the one I truly wanted.' Her beautiful face was alive with eagerness. ‘You should be proud of that! I had to sacrifice those two, my own bastard full-mortal children, so that I might finally have
you
. Do you see?'

‘Not me,' I croaked. ‘Rory.'

She wiggled her fingers. ‘Yes, yes. Him, of course. That goes without saying. But you—you are my bonus prize, and what a prize you are!'

‘I'm not your bloody bonus,' I said.

‘Well. There's something else you might like to consider, Hannah.' She folded her hands in her lap again; her eyes were bright and happy. ‘I'm not a sentimental person, but what sentiment there is in me, you appeal to it. You weren't kind to my friend Alasdair last time you met, were you?'