Morrighan (9 page)

But he hadn't betrayed me.

Not in the way I had thought. I'd been quick to believe the worst of him.

And just now, he had risked his life to free me from Harik.

He was leaving. Today.

“It's dangerous on the other side of the mountains,” I reminded him.

“It's dangerous here,” he countered. I leaned back against his chest, forcing him to touch me. He cleared his throat. “Piers said he saw an ocean beyond the mountains when he was a boy.”

“He must be the same age as Ama if he remembers it.”

“He doesn't remember much. Only the blue. We'll look for that.”

Blue. An ocean that might not even exist anymore. It was a fool's quest. And yet Ama's memories had fueled my own dreams.

Are there really such gardens, Ama?

Yes, my child, somewhere. And one day you will find them.

Somewhere. I brushed back the hair whipping across my face and looked ahead at the windblown, barren landscape.
No, I will never find those gardens, and Jafir will never find his blue.
He and his clan would never make it. They would all perish.
Soon.
I felt the word burn in my gut as surely as I felt Jafir's chest at my back. They would die.

“Jafir—”

“What?” he answered, his tone sharp, as if hearing any more arguments from me was too much for him to bear.

There is no future for us, Morrighan. There can never be.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

I had once believed there might be a way for us, but now that seemed as lost and faraway as one of Ama's gardens.

Chapter Twenty

Morrighan

We saw it at the same time. It was a dust cloud rising behind a knoll, and in seconds, the cloud became something else. A caravan. Horses laden with packs. It looked like a small city, though I already knew the numbers. Jafir had told me. Twenty-seven, eight of which were children. Seven broke loose from the pack, a wild storm of hooves, muscle, and madness heading toward us.

Jafir pulled back on the reins and muttered a curse.

They stopped, surrounding us.

“Get down,” one of them ordered.

Jafir whispered his name to me. It was Fergus, his father. I slid from the saddle, and Jafir followed. “Stay behind me,” he ordered. But they moved like a skilled pack of wolves, positioning themselves in a circle around us. My heart banged in my chest.

Without warning, Fergus lunged forward, his fist flying through the air, hitting Jafir and sending him sprawling backward into the arms of two others. They held him so he wouldn't fall. Blood spurted from Jafir's mouth.

I cried out and rushed toward him, but Steffan grabbed my arms, jerking me back.

“
Where's my grain?
” Fergus screamed at Jafir, his face contorted in rage.

“I gave it to Harik. It's gone.”

Fergus looked at me, his eyes bulging. “For her?” he yelled in disbelief. “You gave it to him for
her
?”

Jafir wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He and I made a deal. You are bound to honor it. Let her go, or you'll defy Harik.”

A snarl twisted across Fergus's face. “Honor?” He laughed and walked over to me, shoving his face close to mine. His breath was sour, and his eyes were slivers of black glass. “You have the knowing, girl?”

I hesitated, not sure what I should say. I didn't owe this man the truth. Jafir's gaze locked on mine, and I saw the misery in his eyes. He shook his head slightly.
No.
If I had no worth, they might still let me go.

I looked at the crowd gathering behind him. The rest of the clan had caught up, a sea of eyes and gaunt stares. A baby cried. Another child whimpered.

Soon.
It clutched at my chest.
Four days out.

“Answer me!” Fergus yelled.

“No,” I whispered.

He hissed out a frustrated breath and grabbed my chin, turning it one way and then the other. He looked at Steffan, who held me. “Fit enough for a wife. She's yours, Steffan. She should be able to bear you a brat or two—my grain's not going to waste.”

“No!” I yelled. “I won't—”

Jafir's roar came on the heels of my scream. “You can't defy Harik! He—”

Fergus spun, punching Jafir in the stomach, the force of it vehement and brutal, making the men holding Jafir stumble back a step. He struck him again in the ribs. I screamed for him to stop. Jafir's head lolled to the side, his feet collapsing beneath him. Only the men gripping his arms on either side kept him from crumpling to the ground. Jafir coughed, spitting out blood.

“Like you defied me?” Fergus yelled. He grabbed Jafir's hair, pulling his head back so Jafir had to look at him. Jafir's eyes remained defiant.

“You betrayed the clan,” Fergus growled. “You betrayed me. You're no son of mine. Just like Liam was no brother.” He drew his knife and held it to Jafir's neck.

“No!” I screamed. “Wait!”

Fergus looked back at me.

“Harik was right! I do have the knowing, and I am strong in it!” I said. “I'll guide you safely through the mountains and well past that, but only on one condition—I do it as Jafir's wife. Not Steffan's.”

“Shut up!” Steffan yelled, shaking me.

Fergus smirked. “Look at yourself, girl. You're in no position to lay down conditions. You'll guide us at my orders.”

A woman squeezed past the others, laying a hand on Fergus's shoulder. “Give her what she wants, Fergus. If she has no hope for the end of the journey, what's to keep her from guiding us into peril?”

“Or abandoning us to die halfway through the wilderness?” another woman called out. A rumble of fear ran through the rest of the clan.

“Hush!” Fergus yelled, waving his knife in the air. “She'll do as I say if she wants to live!”

You'll do as
I
say, if
you
want to live,
I wanted to tell him.
I've already seen you all dead just four days out.
But I held my tongue because his moves were erratic and the knife still waved in his hand.

A man stepped forward. He was taller and older than Fergus. “It would serve us all to have one of her kind leading the way,” he said. “But Laurida is right, if the girl has no hope for reward, it might spell our own doom.”

Fergus took several steps, as if weighing the man's words, and sheathed his knife. He surveyed the clan and their worried glances, then walked back to me, fingering the hair on my shoulder. “Very well, Morrighan of the Remnant. I'll strike a deal with you. If you lead us safely to a place of my liking and you please me with your helpfulness along the way, at the end of the journey, you will be Jafir's. If not, you will be Steffan's. Do you agree to this without argument?”

I knew there was no way I would ever please this man. He would never concede to my condition, but there was nothing else I could do. If I agreed, it would give Jafir and me more time—and maybe all of those who stood behind Fergus more time too.

“Yes,” I answered.

He told Steffan to release me, then turned to the men holding Jafir and nodded. They let go of his arms, and he fell to the ground, coughing. I ran to him and dropped to his side. His breaths shuddered, and he held his ribs. I cradled his head in my lap, wiping the blood from his mouth with my skirt.

“Morrighan,” he started to protest, but I put my finger to his lips. He knew what I knew. His father would give me nothing.

“Shh,” I whispered. My vision blurred with tears and I leaned closer so I was certain no one would hear. “For now, this is a way.
A way for us.
I love you, Jafir de Aldrid. I will always love you.”

I looked back at Fergus. He and Steffan already stood shoulder to shoulder, their eyes shining with victory. The clan was appeased, and he would still get what he wanted. But for now this agreement, however fleeting, bought Jafir and me more time. The only thing that was certain was that at the end of this journey, I would be the wife of an Aldrid.

Chapter Twenty-One

Morrighan

I was eighteen when we reached a place of staying. A place where fruit the size of fists hung from trees and a line of deep blue stretched across the horizon as far as we could see.

It had been a long journey. A terrible greatness had rolled across the land that none of us could have imagined. The wilderness howled with the desolation, carrying the cries of the dead.

Sometimes food was as scarce as courage. There were days I kept them alive on grass, bark, and false hope. I lied to keep them moving forward one more step. I told the children stories to distract them from their fears. Whether there was one god or four, I didn't know, but I called upon any who would listen. They whispered back to me. On the winds, in a glint of light, colors playing behind my eyelids, words tickling at my neck and nesting in my gut.
Keep going.
My ways were quiet, soft, a trusting and a listening that was sometimes not fast enough to stay Fergus's hand. If it wasn't my face that suffered the cost, it was Jafir's or that of anyone within swinging distance.

I mourned for the gentleness of my tribe, and at times thought I couldn't go on, but Ama was right. It was in the sorrows, in the fear, in the need, that the knowing gained flight, and I had much of all these. I remembered that eight-year-old girl I had once been, the one who had cowered between boulders waiting to die. In my years spent with the tribe, I'd thought I understood fear. I'd thought I knew loss.

I hadn't.

Not in the way I knew now.

Desperation grew teeth. Claws. It became an animal inside me that knew no bounds, unspeakable, just as Jafir had tried to explain to me so long ago. It tore open my darkest thoughts, letting them unfurl like black wings.

When the end of the journey was in sight, Fergus said what I knew he would all along. I was to be Steffan's wife. Jafir was to pay in flesh for his betrayal. For Fergus to give me what I had bargained for was the same as giving away power, and power was all that mattered to him, especially now that I had given him a new world and a fresh, limitless beginning was in his grasp.

There was no question in my mind what I would do. I had planned it for months. I killed Steffan first. He had possessively jerked me away when Fergus announced his decision, but in a quick, practiced turn, I buried my knife deep in his throat, and he gasped futilely for air. When Steffan fell dead at my feet, Fergus leapt at me, but Jafir was ready and brought his father down with a swift thrust into his heart. None mourned the loss of Fergus and Steffan, and Piers declared Jafir head of the clan.

“There,” Jafir had said when at last he saw the green hills and vines of fruit. “It is all yours, Morrighan. You led us here.” He reached out and plucked a handful of the wide blue sky and placed it in my palm.

“Ours, Jafir,” I answered.

I dropped to my knees and wept for all the days, the weeks, the months—and for the lost—those who didn't finish the journey with us. Laurida, Tory, and the baby Jules. I wept for those I would never see again. Ama and my tribe. I wept for the cruelties.

Jafir knelt beside me, and we gave thanks, praying that this was truly the end, praying it was the new beginning we had sought.

We stood and watched as the clan ran ahead of us into the valley that would become our home. Jafir pressed his hand to the small mound growing in my belly and smiled.

Our hope.

“We have been blessed by the gods,” he said. “The cruelties of the world are behind us now. Our child will never know them.”

I closed my eyes, wanting to believe him. Wanting to forget the blood that had been spilled by our hands, wanting to believe we could start fresh, just as my tribe had in that small vale so long ago, wanting to believe that this time our peace would last.

And then I heard a familiar voice on the wind, one I had heard so many times, calling out to me.

From the loins of Morrighan,

Hope will be born.

On its heels came a whispered name that was always just beyond my reach, not yet mine to hear, but I knew that one day my children's children or the ones who came after would hear it.

One day hope would have a name.

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