Page 135 of Song of the Dark Wood

Something stirred in Rowan. Something burgeoned from the depths of her grief. She felt the Dark Wood reaching toward herfor comfort. She felt its power in her bones, in her heart, in her hands. She felt the stirring of a rage that could swallow up the sun.

“I need a white sheet for a shroud,” she whispered.

Conor disappeared and returned a moment later with the sheet. “What can I do?” he whispered as he knelt beside her, resting a hand on Rowan’s shoulder.

She didn’t have words to tell him that was what she needed—him beside her, sharing her grief, unafraid of her growing rage.

“She was going to be eleven next week,” Rowan whispered. “She loved fancy pink dresses and romantic fairy tales. I was going to bring her to the keep next ceremony so she would be safe. She hated sleeping in her room alone, and she was afraid of the dark.”

She brushed Aeoife’s hair back from her face and carefully placed her body on the sheet, tucking the ends around her reverently and covering her sweet face last.

“She’ll never hold my hand again. She’ll never sleep in my bed. We’ll never have sticky buns together on Sunday mornings. We’ll never look at dresses in the windows of shops in town and say which one we like best. She’ll never grow up,” she rasped. Conor wrapped his arms around Rowan, and she leaned into him. “She was supposed tolive.”

“I know, love. I am so, so sorry,” Conor whispered.

Rowan brushed away her tears and steadied herself. “I have to bring her to her mother. Their house isn’t far from here.”

Conor nodded and helped her stand with the body in her arms.

“I can carry her, love,” he said softly.

“No, I have to do it,” Rowan insisted.

Conor sighed and turned his gaze on Finn. “Did you see who was responsible?”

“I did,” Finn said, eyeing Conor warily.

“Charlie, please gather those men for us. We will be back soon,” Conor said. With that, he guided Rowan out of Maiden’s Tower.

Rowan led him down several streets before she came to a stop outside of Aeoife’s family’s cottage. They’d chosen to stay where they had always lived even after Aeoife was taken as a Maiden since they were a middle-class family to begin with. The house was charming, with a thatched roof and a white fence surrounding the yard.

Rowan hesitated on the walkway up to the house.

“What’s wrong?” Conor asked.

She swallowed hard. “I just wanted to give them one more minute of peace before I tear their world apart. Just one more minute, and then we’ll knock,” she said, blinking back tears.

Rowan didn’t say that she also wasn’t ready to let Aeoife go yet. She’d had no time to make peace with the sudden loss of the one person she’d promised to protect. The failure threatened to bring her to her knees. Rowan knew Aeoife was already gone, but there was a finality to handing her over to her family that she couldn’t wrap her mind around.

The door opened, and Aeoife’s mother was startled at the sight of Rowan and Conor just a few feet away. Her eyes went instantly to the white bundle in Rowan’s arms.

“No. No, no, no. It can’t be,” Aeoife’s mother said. She fell to her knees in agony as she looked at the white shroud.

Rowan bent toward her and placed Aeoife in her arms.

“You promised you would protect her!” Aeoife’s mother screamed, clinging to the body cradled against her.

“I know,” Rowan breathed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve done enough!” the woman shouted. Her grief was so profound that Rowan was certain people could feel it blocks away.

Conor stiffened beside her, but Rowan settled a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. She’s just grieving.”

“She shouldn’t talk to you that way,” he whispered. “You did your best.”

Rowan looked at him. “I’m the only one she can talk to that way. I am the only one who can share her grief with her. It’s far too much to bear alone.”

She turned back to Aeoife’s mother, who looked furious and broken. The woman had tried to hide her magical daughter from an unimaginable fate, and she’d failed. She’d been dragged away from Maiden’s Tower sobbing the day Aeoife was given over. Of course she was angry, and she could not yell at the elders or the men who’d hurt her daughter for fear of the same violence befalling her or her other children. She could only rage against someone who loved Aeoife just as much.

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