Page 67 of Song of the Dark Wood

She’d grown up watching the people of Ballybrine mourn and wail publicly. But Rowan’s grief was quiet, private—jammed beneath her lungs and felt every time she tried to take a deep breath. Her heart was haunted, the sorrow appearing out of nowhere then dissipating into nothing. There, and gone, and everywhere all at once. She wanted to hoard it to herself, but couldn’t bear to sit alone with it.

“I don’t want to be alone, and it’s nice to know there were other people who treated her like a person and not just someone they could get something from,” Rowan said. “She was always so stoic in the face of everything and so hard to read. I admired it so much. I walk around with everything written on my face. I just couldn’t imagine what it was like to be so good at hiding it.”

“You really do have a way about you,” Charlie laughed. “It’s entertaining to watch.”

Rowan crossed the room to look at the half-finished painting. It was a landscape of the view outside the window: the walls of the keep, the dark forest in its fall colors.

“I don’t know much about art, but I think it’s quite good,” Rowan rasped.

Seeing its unfinished parts filled her with such a potent sadness that she felt like she needed to sit down. Orla didn’t get a chance to really be someone of her own making. Who would Orla have been if she’d gotten free of her life as acting Red Maiden? It was strange to mourn both a person and their potential.

“It’s not bad. Although, landscapes weren’t Orla’s thing. She liked portraits. She did one for me and one for Conor too. You’ve probably seen his in the sitting room.”

Rowan barked out a startled laugh. “She painted that? It’s amazing.” She had been shocked by the painting the first time she saw it because the artist had captured the eternal storminess in Conor’s eyes. She couldn’t imagine the talent it took to paint something so dynamic.

“She’s had a long time to perfect her work. There are a few paintings over there she wouldn’t let us look at,” Charlie said, waving his hand to a bunch of canvases in the corner.

Rowan crossed the room and took them out one by one. There was a painting of Mrs. Teverin, one of Elder Falon, and several of people Rowan didn’t recognize but knew must have been family members judging by their resemblance to Orla. She gasped as she pulled out a stunning portrait of Aeoife outfitted in a pink dress. Her smile was bright and lifelike, her strawberry-blonde hair painted into twin braids. Aeoife would have loved it.

Rowan stared. Orla had hidden tremendous talent. If Rowan had even a hint of such skill, she wouldn’t have been able to keep it to herself. Unless, of course, it was her talent for bringing plants back to life.

There was one more canvas, and Rowan’s hands shook as she pulled it out. She held it up to the light and immediately started to cry. It was a portrait of Rowan.

“That explains why she was so particular about her green paint order. She wanted to get your eyes right,” Charlie said. “Had to travel beyond the mountains for that one. All the way to Solemnity.”

Orla protected Rowan and Aeoife from prying eyes, even in Wolf’s Keep.

Rowan stared at her own face in the painting. Her hair was unbound, and she was clothed in a dark green dress that she would have never been allowed to wear in Ballybrine. It meant so much to her that Orla had painted her as something other than a Red Maiden. In the painting, her arms were crossed over a book held to her chest. Orla was always teasing Rowan about her love of romances, reminding her they had no place in her life, no matter how handsome Finn was.

When she was young, Rowan hated that Orla burst her bubble, but as she grew up and worried about Aeoife in the same way, she started to understand it was an act of love. It grounded her in the reality that romance would spell disaster, regardless of whether it was with a man or the Wolf.

Rowan’s face was somewhat serious in the portrait, her lips only half smiling, her eyes full of a barely contained fire.

“She does you quite a justice,” Charlie said. “Don’t tell Conor it’s here, or he’ll snatch it up so he can stare at those green eyes all day without you knowing.”

Rowan’s cheeks heated. “I don’t think we need to worry about me telling him anything. You, on the other hand, can’t ever seem to keep your mouth shut.”

She went to set the painting down on the floor, and only then did she notice it weighed considerably more than the others. She flipped it over and there, tucked in the wood over which the canvas stretched, was a journal.

“Goddess above! Orla, you evil genius!” Rowan squealed.

She snatched the journal and pulled it open. A folded paper fluttered out, landing at her feet. She was shocked when she bent and saw her name on it.

Rowan swallowed hard as she looked at Charlie.

“Found what you were looking for, then, lass?” Charlie asked.

“I didn’t know what I was looking for,” she admitted.

Rowan was simultaneously eager to read the words and desperate to postpone their finality. They might be the last words that Orla ever shared with her, and the knowledge of that was too weighty to hold. She took a few steps and collapsed into the plush chair by the fireplace.

As she took a steadying breath, she unfolded the letter and started to read.

Rowan,

If you’re reading this, it means I’m gone. Goddess above! That feels dramatic to write, but also maybe not dramatic enough considering the lives we lead.

A few weeks ago, I started feeling this strange sense of foreboding. I figured I could count on your nosiness, so congratulations on being at least a little bit predictable. I used to think the only predictable thing about you was your rage, which you don’t hide as well as you think.

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