Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) (18 page)

‘This had better be a shortcut.’ I felt I had to keep talking. If I didn’t say anything, the silence was horrible. Liath’s whole posture had changed; she was low to the
ground, tail stiff, as she slunk into the pinewood. Where the pines thinned, where the heather and the scrub petered out and the ground fell away into a crumbling sandy cliff about ten feet high,
she stopped altogether and lay on her belly, ears back and hackles high. But she didn’t as much as growl at the moving horse shape I could see across the glade and through the trees. She
pricked her ears at me with a curious sort of perplexed trust.

Cold horror loosened my guts as I stared past her. It hadn’t occurred to me there might be more than one fully-grown horse-monster in the woods. In my mind’s eye I saw clearly what
I’d seen in the blaeberry scrub: not something out of a school anatomy lesson, not a dead animal: something that used to be a man. I clamped my lips together. Just as well there was nothing
left in my stomach.

And then I heard the voices.

Carefully I looped the chestnut’s reins over a sturdy looking branch, close enough to Lassie to discourage the horse from making a run for it. ‘Don’t pick right now to
move,
’ I hissed at it.

We’d left the mere behind, I realised as I crouched and crept closer, but below me was a rough beach and a smaller loch, the sand and stones criss-crossed with the tangled roots of pines.
Between the straight trunks the little loch glinted calm and silver in the summer sun. It was a very beautiful place, but you could have cut the atmosphere with whatever knife had carved those
holes in Sionnach’s face.

Right now they stood out very white against his skin. He ignored the brown-haired woman who sat on a rock, carving something into a chunk of wood with the blade of her knife. All his fury seemed
to be focused on his twin sister.

‘Oh, Sionnach.’ Eili, adjusting the buckle on her horse’s bridle, gave a low laugh. ‘I wouldn’t have let him be killed. Don’t fret.’

‘In what way was it up to you?’

Eili shrugged. ‘I knew Finn was close enough. I knew she’d save him. And if she hadn’t, you or I would have.’

‘You made me kill a kelpie!’

‘I know, and I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I intended.’

Midges were settling on my hairline but I was scared to scratch at them. I was scared to move.

‘What was your intention?’ asked her brother. ‘To kill Seth?’

Shit.
I clapped a hand over my mouth to stop myself gasping, but Eili glanced up in my direction anyway, frowning slightly.

She turned back to Sionnach and said, ‘I never meant to kill him. Not now, not yet. And as it turned out,’ she smiled, ‘I didn’t.’

The silence dragged. I couldn’t breathe. Sionnach said: ‘What about Finn?’

‘Ah. But for Rory, she’s his closest kin. By love, if not by blood. And she’s never liked me.’ Eili’s smile was cold. ‘After all, I’d never harm the
Bloodstone. I can’t hurt that turncoat bastard through
Rory
.’

I wished I hadn’t come. I wished I’d abandoned the bloody dog. I wished I could be anywhere but here. Risking a glance over my shoulder, I bared my teeth at Lassie, who’d slunk
a little closer. But still she lay there watching me inquisitively, her tongue hanging out.

‘And you?’ Sionnach’s lip curled as he looked at the other woman at last. Taghan, that was her name, I remembered. Taghan, the grumpy one.

The brown-haired woman set down her knife and leaned back on her rock. ‘I’ve no intention of killing Seth. Anyway,’ she grinned, ‘your sister’s claimed him from
me.’

‘Of course I did.’ Eili smiled at her. ‘I don’t see how you could have stayed in the dun otherwise, Taghan. Someone had to take the revenge from you.’

‘See, personally speaking, Sionnach, I don’t want Seth dead,’ Taghan soothed. ‘He’s my Captain. But why should he have
her
, when I don’t have Feorag?
You must see the natural justice. Fair’s fair.’

Sionnach spat. He stared at his sword and then back up at his twin. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘sometimes I wish I’d gone to help Conal that day he died.’

For a moment I thought he’d plunged the sword into Eili’s belly; that’s how stricken she looked.

‘I told you to, didn’t I?’ she said. Her voice was brittle, like the thinnest of thin ice. You could touch it and it would break, and Eili would shatter into a million pieces.
‘It’s what I wanted. You should have. He was your Captain and it was your duty. If I could have gone to him myself, if I could have been any use to him with my last breath, with the
last of my blood running out of me, I would.’ Her face was tight with unbearable distress. ‘I wish I had.’

‘It was him or you. They’d have cut your throat!’ Sionnach grabbed her arm, as if he wanted to shake her till her bones rattled. ‘
Eili
. I held your hand before
we were born. I touched your face before we drew a breath, before we saw the light of day. And now you’re a stranger to me. How is that right, Eili? You’re turning into someone
else.’

‘I am always and only ever myself.’ Eili put her fingertips to his chin, lifting it. ‘But I can’t always be the same. Sionnach, please. You’re the only love I have
left.’

He gritted his teeth. ‘Seth paid for what he did. Conal wanted you to absolve him, in his last minute on earth he told you that. But you chose Seth’s penalty and he paid it.’
He took a breath. ‘And all these years later? You’re still making him pay.’

‘You wanted him to pay! You were with me,’ she said. ‘For a long time.’

‘It has been a long time,’ Sionnach said gently. ‘Too long, Eili. You’ve given him pain every night of his life since Conal died, isn’t that enough? If you healed
him for that purpose, it’s witchcraft and you know it. It’s yourself you’re destroying.’

‘Oh, no. No it isn’t.’ She stepped back, head high, eyes cold. ‘I always wanted it to take a long time. Why did I make his sword the best in the dun? Why do I always ride
at his back to protect him? I want him to last as long as it takes for me to be the one. I want him to live till I kill him.’ Her voice dropped to a serpentine whisper. ‘And I want him
to know it.’

Sionnach stared at her for one moment longer. Then he barged past, shoving her aside. When Eili regained her footing, she was trembling, but she took a breath and smiled at Taghan as the crash
of the undergrowth faded with the hoofbeats of Sionnach’s horse.

‘Don’t listen to your brother,’ said Taghan, picking up her knife. ‘It’s your decision. Seth’s yours to kill when you want it.’

‘I know, But I won’t risk the clann, not while we’re at war with Kate.’ Eili mounted her grey and took the reins. ‘Finn, though? I’ve no compunctions about
getting rid of her. You’re right, it’s only fair.’

For an instant my belly was full of ice, because she glanced in my rough direction once more, a funny smile playing on her lips.

But she can’t have seen me, because she put her heels to the grey’s sides. ‘Now, Taghan, shall we be getting back? I’m expecting visitors.’

I couldn’t move, physically couldn’t. I was terrified that if I stood up she and Taghan would still be there, even after their own horses’ hoofbeats had
faded. I just lay there in the gritty sand, shivering and trying not to shiver. It was taking up all my energy. I had a sick, tilting feeling in my head and stomach, like being abruptly
disconnected from my old life, like I had no chance of seeing and living it again.

So Eili did heal Seth’s back; she’d healed it just fine. She did it for a reason, that was all, and now everything made such a horrible unnatural sense. No, unnatural was the wrong
word. I thought of the horse, and the corpse in the scrub. And Seth’s body buckling, and the yellow eyes of Branndair as he made his suicidal leap at the kelpie’s throat, and the insane
delighted smile on Eili’s lips. The sense it made was all too natural, preternatural: red in tooth and claw.

T
ooth and claw.
Just as I thought that, I felt hot breath on my cheek, then the rasp of a bossy tongue. I opened my eyes to stare into brilliant yellow ones, and Liath nudged
me hard in the face. Then once more in the belly.

That finally got me moving. I stumbled to my feet.

I watched her tail lash. I watched her grin and pant.

I said dully, ‘You’re a wolf.’

The grin stretched wider. The wolf called Liath turned, and shook herself, and padded back to the chestnut horse.

‘Don’t you ever
dare
save my life again,’ said Seth.

Cross-legged on the woven rug, I glared at him over the inert form of Branndair. His jaw was clenched but he wouldn’t look at me, his hand gentle on the wolf’s head.
Branndair’s eyes were almost closed, but between the lids a glazed amber light glowed. Seth stroked his coarse black fur obsessively with his thumb.

‘I could say, don’t take it personally,’ I said bitterly. ‘Like you once said to me. Or we could both grow up and you could just say: “Thanks,
Finn.”’

‘If I thanked you for it you would do it again. Because there will be a next time.’ Seth spoke through his teeth. ‘We’re not responsible for each other. All right? I
wouldn’t do it for you, so don’t put me under some stupid obligation.’

‘Yeah. You always said you were a bad liar, which is a very convincing lie, ’cause you’re actually a very good liar. Aren’t you?’

‘It’s, uh…’ His brow furrowed as he worked it out. ‘I… oh, Finn. That’s not true. Or fair.’

‘It’s both,’ I told him frostily. ‘What’s this really about?’

‘Your hot little head, that’s what.’ His sneer came back with his composure. ‘Don’t get involved in things you know nothing about,
Finny
. I’m
responsible for my own life.’

‘You’re not, though, are you? Eili is. Do you like having your life in Eili’s hands?’

‘It’s not a question of liking. My life is in Eili’s hands. It just is.’ Seth splayed his fingers across his face. ‘I don’t want yours to be. Ever
again.’

‘And I don’t want to watch you die. I lost my grandmother and Conal and I lost my mother too, you selfish prick, and I won’t lose you!’

Seth ground his fists into his eye sockets and exhaled. ‘Finn.’

‘I
will not
.’ Leaning forward, I rubbed Branndair’s thick neck fur so that I wouldn’t have to look at Seth.

‘Eili will kill you,’ he said.

‘I’d like to see her try.’

‘Finn!’ he barked. ‘Grow up while you have the option! She’ll kill you before she kills me, and she’ll do it just for the fun of my reaction. Don’t give her
the excuse.’ He raked his fingers manically through his hair. ‘It was
you
she tried to kill today, don’t you get that?’

‘Of course I get it. But Eili is not going to kill me, and she’s not going to kill you either, because I’m not going to let her. What does she want? Does she think it’ll
bring Conal back?’

Seth laid his fingers against the wolf’s throat to feel the pulse of his blood. ‘We’re upsetting him,’ he murmured. ‘Finn, all she wants is my death.’

‘She can’t have it,’ I said calmly.

‘Stop it, Finn! The trouble is, you want a piece of me too. There is not enough of me to go round, understand?’ His fingers tangled with mine in Branndair’s fur, but the look
he gave me was cold and intense. ‘I’ve told you before. I’m not my brother and I’m not a replacement.’

Yanking my hand away, I slapped his face hard. Then I stood up, and walked out.

Behind me in the dun, someone was plucking a mandolin and someone else scraping on a fiddle. I heard muffled laughter, the start of a song, the snort and stamp of disturbed
horses. I put my hands over my ears and stared out at the long sweep of machair that ended in the dunes and the metallic gleam of the sea. The land was silvered under starlight like pixie dust, the
Milky Way a broad glittering brushstroke across the night.

The guard kept his twenty metres’ distance. His mind had touched mine when I came up here ~
you okay? –
but since then he hadn’t bothered. He’d left me alone
since his tentative question had glanced off the dour darkness in my brain.

I was not in the mood to confide.

As I sat on the rampart, a ragged shape blacked out the stars and flapped down. Faramach’s claws bit into my knee, but I was used to him and I didn’t wince. Stretching his wings,
craning his head, he let me rub the spiky feathers at his throat.