Page 82 of The Falconer

Sorrow flickers across his face. If I hadn’t been staring at him, I would have missed it. ‘I’ll die.’

I’m surprised by his answer. ‘What? Why?’

His mask slips back into place, stern and unyielding. ‘It’s a sacrifice I made, Kam. I can never go back there.’

I step away from him, before I ask anything else. I’m tempted to say something reassuring, but it feels patronising to console someone who has seen so much, who knows first-hand just how harsh the world can be. Sometimes words simply fail.

I lower myself to the sand and yearn to touch the water, but I don’t want to be insensitive. It wouldn’t be fair to Kiaran.

‘Go on,’ he says. ‘I don’t mind.’

I smile slightly and softly brush the surface of the water. It undulates under my fingertips, sending delicate ripples across the entire loch, lit up like lightning ferns. How strange and lovely. ‘You never told me how you avoided being trapped under the city with the others,’ I say.

Kiaran settles next to me on the sand and crosses his long legs. ‘No, I didn’t. It’s an unremarkable story.’

The water is cool when I sink my hand in and wiggle my fingers into the smooth, lustrous sand beneath. I love the way it slips across my palm, how it glitters like starlight. There is a long silence between Kiaran and me as we watch the ripples cross the water. I do as Kiaran said to, and let myself remember the time before all of this, before we met.

I think of home, of my past. Naming constellations on clear nights. Spring when heather colours the garden. Travelling to my father’s country estate outside St Andrews. Lying with Mother in the grass on lazy afternoons, watching clouds rush overhead so rapidly it was dizzying.

Mother used to see the shapes of flowers in the clouds. She’d spot snowdrops and primroses and irises – I think because those were her favourites. While she saw a garden in the sky, I only ever saw . . . well, clouds. Ever the realist of the two of us.

‘MacKay,’ I say, ‘do you think . . . if I had never worn theseilgflùrthat I’d be normal?’ I trace my fingers along the surface of the water again. ‘Like my mother?’

‘Her abilities hadn’t been triggered, so she never felt compelled to hunt thesìthichean.’ Kiaran shakes his head. ‘Unfortunately for you, the seal breaking would have interrupted any normal life you might have led,’ he says. ‘You would still have to fight. You never had a choice.’

Hunting the fae has always been the one thing I thought I had control over. I choose when, where and how they die. I choose my weapons and how long I allow myself to delight in us fighting before I finally end their lives. But now I know the truth, the real reason I hunt.You never had a choice.

I wipe my wet palm against my trousers and say bitterly, ‘No choice at all, aye? Haven’t any active Falconers ever stopped hunting?’

Kiaran leans back on his hands. ‘A few tried. In the end, they couldn’t avoid their true nature any more than you’d be able to.’ He looks over at me, eyes swirling amethyst and molten silver, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. ‘Unless I’m wrong. When you imagine yourself years from now, is it the Seer you’re with? Or is it you and me, planning our next slaughter?’

I avert my gaze. I won’t answer that. He already knows the truth. ‘What’s in the nature of asìthiche, then?’

He stares at the water intently. ‘Thesìthicheanhave become consumed by their obsession with obtaining power. They’ve lost everything else they ever cared for.’

‘Don’t they have power already?’

‘Ah, Kam. Power is immeasurable.’ He breathes out the words as if he knows from experience just how intoxicating it is. ‘It’s thrilling, seductive, a craving that becomes an ache inside. A need that is never sated or forgotten.’

Every faery I’ve killed brings me physical relief, respite against guilt. In the rapture of their deaths, my memories cease to exist and all that’s left is the lightweight joy of power.

I’m no better than the fae. We both kill for a single moment of relief. How can I ever admit that to Kiaran? I live for the hunt now. It’s not just about survival or vengeance any more – it’s become an addiction, too.

When I close my eyes, I can so easily imagine power surging through me, as startling and blissful as the rush of it in those first few seconds following a faery’s death. There it is – the same hard pump of blood through my veins, the electric current that raises the fine hairs all over my body. The feather-light feeling, as if I’m floating off the ground.

Except this time, I swear I can hear my mother humming under her breath, in the same light way she used to. I’m gripped by the memory, by the soft lull of her voice, by the power coursing through me that’s so strong my chest aches with it.

With a smile, I murmur, ‘I wish you could hear her.’

A ridiculous thing to say, but the words slip from my tongue with little resistance. The singing is so soothing, I could fall asleep to it, right here on the beach.

‘Hear who?’

I nestle my cheek against my knees and ignore him. It’s vital that I hold on to the memory – I’m afraid that if I lose it, I’ll forget the sound of her voice.

‘Kam,’ Kiaran snaps, grabbing my shoulders.

A light, airy laugh shatters my calm. My mouth fills with the grotesque tang of iron and blood and it feels as if it’s being forced down my throat. I cough and gag into Kiaran’s shoulder, then shove him away so I can retch onto the sand. All that comes up is saliva.

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