“How did you get it?”
Perhaps asking was not the done thing, but it seemed the natural progression of such a conversation held in the quiet twilight hours; something that might only be asked when we were both naked and half asleep, on equally vulnerable footing.
When he didn’t answer at first, I thought we might both pretend I hadn’t asked at all. But then he sighed and pressed another kiss to the back of my hand; it was becoming a nervous tic.
“After my parents died, my sister and I became the responsibility of the King’s state. It was not a glamorous life. Particularly for young women.”
He spoke haltingly; with difficulty. I squeezed his hand and tried, gently, to help him find the words.
“For your sister?”
He nodded.
“For Brigid. She was still a child really, but she was growinginto a young woman and those around her were beginning to take notice. Too much notice. She was beautiful. Sheisbeautiful.”
He added the last part so fiercely, as though he imagined I’d disagree with him despite never having met the girl. But then he sighed, his eyes screwing shut in a momentary grimace that told me the conversation physically pained him.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I whispered. “Not if you don’t want to.”
My heart was heavy with a foreboding sort of understanding – and I hadn’t even heard the end of the story yet. I could only imagine the ache of Caelan’s own heart having actually lived through it. I untangled our hands and laid my palm over his chest like I could feel for that pain, root it out and soothe it with the heat of my Flame. And maybe I did, in some small way because he laid his hand over mine and shook his head, eyes suddenly determined.
“It’s hard for me, in my position, to share everything I want to. But this is something Icanshare with you.”
He took a deep breath and tried once more.
“Brigid was attracting notice,” he said again. “From one noble-blooded man in particular. A young man with peculiar appetites and just enough power to see them sated. He didn’t like that Brigid refused his advances – but he did enjoy making her bleed for the audacity.”
The fire in my chest waned, pulling back into a low, mournful flicker at the sorrow and simmering anger in Caelan’s voice.
“It is among my greatest regrets,” he went on, enunciating each word with dark intent, “that I never had the satisfaction of soaking my hands inhisblood. But I’m proud to say that Brigid did. When she’d healed from the beating, he came back, you see. Not to apologise – to see if she’d changed her mind. So she let him believe she had, and when he drew close enough, my ferocious little sister snatched his pretty jewelled knife from his belt and slashed it across his face.”
“Oh gods,” I murmured. “What did he do?”
“He had her thrown in a cell, of course. He wanted to do worse. He wanted to retaliate in kind, but I went to his father and requested a deal.”
“You took her punishment.”
He said nothing for a moment. And then, with quiet fervour: “I’d have let them carve my eyes from my head if I had to.”
The pride and fury in his voice resonated; it was familiar, something ingrained marrow-deep in us both. I recognised it because there was no pain I would not endure to protect my own.
“Of course you would,” I said.
“I’d do anything to protect her. And you would too, wouldn’t you?” His eyes flicked over mine, reading me as easily as ever. “For Sorcha.”
I blinked at him, and my Flame gave a jolt beneath my ribs. I had imagined Magnus in Brigid’s place, but –For Sorcha.Gods, of course I would. I would do anything for that girl. She was as good as mine now, wasn’t she? My sister by heart, if not by birth.
“Yes,” I said simply. “I would.”
I don’t know why the thought struck such a chord, but my Flame simply would not settle. Even when Caelan folded me into his arms and smoothed his hand down my back in those long strokes that normally coaxed me to sleep. I lay in his arms, my mind ticking back and forth over fragmented thoughts and drowsy, waking dreams. Tanner sitting in his favourite spot at the bar, beaming at Sorcha. Caelan’s defiant green stare beneath an open, ragged wound. Ciara McAlpine’s tear-soaked face as she clung to a bottle of whiskey. Brigid, pictured as my cousin’s double with Caelan’s vivid eyes, lunging at a faceless nobleman with a silver dagger in her hand. Sorcha’s bloodied knuckles. Fischer’s sickening red grin.
“You’re still awake,” Caelan said finally, the low rumble of his voice tugging me gently from my thoughts.
“Yes.”
“What is it you’re agonising over?”
I swallowed. “Caelan, I need you to do something for me.”
