Slowly, she lifted her head.
The smoke had settled, drifting low across the courtyard, curling in thin grey ribbons like breath on a frosty morning. It blurred the edges of everything, softening the outlines of what lay beyond.
Her chest tightened at the thought of what was hiding beneath the smoke, her breath catching as she searched the haze, dread coiling tighter with every second.
For a moment, it was almost peaceful.
A groan of pain broke the stillness. Soon a cacophony of pain and fear, of soothing voices and panicked voices, all mingled together.
Beside her, Clíona was still whispering Alton’s name, over and over, a prayer without end.
Aoife pressed her back to the marble again, gathering what little strength she had left, and released Clíona.
With trembling hands, she pushed herself up.
Clíona struggled up next to her, looking at the last place she had seen Alton.
Bodies lay scattered across the ground.
Mostly soldiers, the captain among them, the braiding at his shoulders red with blood.
Two villagers she could identify.
Her gaze caught on the first.
Tomás O’Healy.
He lay on his side, one arm bent beneath him at an awkward angle. Aoife saw him as he had been last summer, when life had been simpler, leaning in her father’s doorway, grinning as he presented a trout in exchange for a handful of hooks.
She dragged her eyes away.
Morgane lay further away, her dark hair fanned across the stones. Her voice, light and easy, always drifted over the river as she washed clothes, as though singing were as natural as breathing. Or it used to.
Clíona let out a happy gasp and rushed away from her. Aoife could only assume she’d found Alton; she couldn’t take her eyes off the bodies.
Aoife pressed a hand to her mouth.
She had thought, truly believed, that she could find a way through this without bloodshed.
If she had said the right words. If she had played the game well enough. There might have been a way to end it cleanly.
There was a red patch of blood on Morgane’s shirt. It would take her hours to wash it out. If she left it too long, the stain would set.
The thought came clear and absurd.
Aoife couldn’t seem to let it go.
She forced herself to look away and found herself looking into the open eyes of a dead soldier.
She should have killed Halverton.
Aoife flinched from her own thought. Now it was there she found herself unable to shake it.
She had never allowed herself to think of that. Had never considered it as an option. Killing belonged to other people. To soldiers. To men like Halverton.
Not to her.
But if she had…
