Page 65 of The Washwoman at the River’s End

“That’s not a rune for immortality, is it? I already have that one.” I point to the center of my chest.

His eyes flash, but not with surprise like I expected. It’s recognition I see in them. Somehow, he knows about my dàn. I pull down the top of my shift to where the dàn sits between my breasts, careful to only show him the swirling silver marks.

He looks for a moment too long, almost as if searching every bit of skin surrounding it, and my body prickles with awareness. Fighting the urge to cover myself from the intensity of his gaze, I allow him to examine the dàn.

“Is that what you learned, then? That I truly cannot die?” I ask. His jaw ticks, all but confirming it. Is that what I’m sensing from him now? Despair that he actually cannot kill me? That he will fail in his duty? It doesn’t feel like it, but what else could be causing his strange reaction?

“Who gave you that dàn?” he asks, surprising me.

I pull my dress back up, confused why he cares. “I don’t know. One of the Fates, surely.”

“How can you not know?” he asks, his eyebrows furrowing. “It’s painful when dàn appear. Enough that I remember every single one.”

I try to think, but a stab of pain shoots through my head. “I can’t remember. It was here when I woke up, cursed to the river.”

“Who told you of your sentencing?” he asks, leaning forward.

Another stab of pain shoots through my head, sharper this time, and my vision goes fuzzy. “I don’t remember that either,” I say, wincing.

He climbs to his feet. “But how can you not know? Why are you chained to this river?”

“Because I’ve committed crimes against the Fates. You know this. Why make me say it again and again? I woke up here, dàn between my breasts and a letter tucked into my apron.”

He pauses. “A letter? What did it say?”

I shake my head, closing my eyes and rubbing my fingers where the pain pounds in my forehead. It grows sharper by the second, screams ringing in my ears.

“Dinnae make me⁠—”

“Nothing you don’t already know! It said I was to be sentenced to the river. Cursed to wash the death-clothes,” I say, leaving out the part about the spell.

He stops. “You mean the Fates never came here?”

I shake my head, closing my eyes. Nausea roils in my stomach, the pain spreading to the back of my skull. “I have never seen the Fates. Not once in my entire life.”

He pauses. “You’ve— Never?” The surprise in his voice is unmistakable.

“Never. Not that I remember, at least.”

He doesn’t answer, and in the long silence, the pain begins to fade. My shoulders lower, and I take a deep breath. When I finally open my eyes again, Brennen is staring at the center of my chest.

“I was told,” he hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was told that, many years ago, the village was… unkind to you. That they tried to carve the dàn from your flesh.”

The memory hits me with staggering force, and my hand comes up to rest on my sternum, an echo of that long-ago pain scraping along my bones.

“They did,” my voice comes out hoarse.

“Yet you have no scars.”

I shake my head. “My body has not changed since the day I was first sentenced here. Well…except for the bloodstains. That’s happened over the years. Part of the curse.” I look down at my hands, picturing the sloping lines of the letter I found when I woke up here. You will cleanse the death-clothes of the departed for eternity, the blood of each and every soul passing through your fingers, staining your hands forever.

At first, it had been a dull red, growing a bit more visible each day as I washed. It wasn’t until that night six years ago, when hot, thick blood soaked my hands and dripped down my forearms, that the stains had become so deep. My stomach twists, and I push the image away, shaking my head. “Any scars that mark my skin are from before.”

He seems to weigh my answer, his eyes trailing along my body as he sits back down. The heat of his gaze brings blood to my cheeks, and I look away, grabbing a handful of small stones from around me and stacking them into a cairn. In my periphery, I see his hands clench into fists, but he stays silent, so long I cannot take it anymore.

“Most people aren’t trying to kill me when they come here, you know. They just want to hurt me. Make me pay for washing their loved ones' clothing. They think I’m a liar. A murderess and a liar.”

Brennen’s gaze lifts. “And are you?”