Page 83 of The Falconer

‘Kadamach,’ a familiar silvery voice says. ‘I knew I’d find you here.’ She laughs once more. ‘And you brought your Falconer with you.’

I freeze. The blood in my veins turns to ice and I can’t breathe. I am the girl I used to be again, weak and helpless. My mother’s corpse is lying on the cobblestones. My hands are coated with blood and I can’t get it off and I scrub and scrub and scrub but it won’t come off and my dress is ruined and I’m tainted andcrimson suits you best crimson suits you best crimson suits you best crimson suits—

‘No,’ I growl.

Not that. I won’t be taken back there. I won’t become that girl again. I try to push out of the memory, but its grip is strong, so real and relentless that it plays over and over and I’m helpless against it. Then, all at once, it fades so quickly that I’m left gasping.

‘So that’s who you are,’ thebaobhan sìthsays, so softly that I barely hear her. ‘You belong to that Falconer I killed last year.’

Kiaran stands. ‘What do you want, Sorcha?’

He knows her, just like he knew that redcap. I told him I was looking for thebaobhan sìththe night we met. He knew it was her the whole blasted time. It’s another sharp reminder that I should never let myself soften towards him. He’s not trustworthy.

‘What do I want?’ she asks lightly. ‘Why don’t we start with a proper greeting? It’s been a long time,a ghaoil.’

‘Don’t call me that again,’ he says. ‘Ever.’

I’ve never heard Kiaran so quietly enraged, no matter what I’ve said to provoke him or how much I’ve tried his patience.

Sorcha clicks her tongue. ‘You might be content to forget our past, but I’m not.’

‘I won’t ever be content,’ he says. ‘Not until you’re dead.’

‘Don’t bandy idle threats, Kadamach,’ Sorcha says. ‘You’re still bound by your vow to me.Feadh gach re. Always and for ever, remember?’

Vow? He made her a vow? She speaks again, says something in their language. Her sickeningly saccharine voice draws me back to that night, to the moment I first heard her.Crimson suits you best.

Kiaran growls something in the same tongue and Sorcha laughs. I feel her eyes on me then, heavy and judging. ‘Poor thing,’ Sorcha murmurs. ‘Is your Falconer afraid? Little girl,’ she calls. ‘Open your eyes.’

No, I can’t bear to look at her. I can’t.

‘Didn’t you hear me? I saidopen your eyes.’

Her commanding tone forces me to obey. I stare at the faery who murdered my mother.

Thebaobhan sìthis more frightening than I remember – and more beautiful. Sorcha hovers above the centre of the lake’s icy surface, tall and pale and flawless as marble. Her white shift billows and flows around her in a breeze I don’t feel, the material so soft and fine that it looks like smoke. Her eyes are unnerving, cold and unblinking, vivid as emeralds.

Then Sorcha’s lips curve into a hellish smile – the one that haunts my nightmares.

My chest tightens and I can’t breathe. Desperately, I try to suck in air. I feel Sorcha in my mind then, a determined and merciless presence.

I try to fight against her, but she’s strong. She’s a weight pushing me down, down, until my memories assault me and I’m nothing but the traumatised girl inside me who witnessed her mother’s murder.

I am beside my mother’s body again, and I can smell blood. Cold rain penetrates my dress, tinting it red where the fabric clings to my legs, chilling me to the bone. The blood smells and feels so real, so thick on my hands, that I swear it’s stained my skin. I drop to my knees and heave, clawing at the sand to get it off, tears blurring my vision.

‘Sorcha,’ Kiaran snaps. He sounds so far away.

The memories stop. I’m in my own body again, out of the blood-soaked dress. I breathe hard and don’t try to stand. It’s taking all of my effort not to collapse entirely.

‘So this is your champion,’ Sorcha says contemptuously. ‘She can’t even withstand the most basic mental influence.’

‘She killed everysìthicheyou sent,’ Kiaran says, raking her with his gaze. ‘Bested by a girl of eighteen with only a year of training. How pathetic she must make you feel.’

Sorcha’s eyes burn, the colour intense even from here. ‘If you’ll recall,Iwas the one who drove her kind to extinction. You’ve never been very good at keeping them alive, have you?’

Kiaran’s knuckles are white around the hilt of his blade. ‘Tell me why you’re here.’

She ignores him and looks at me again, studying me, reading me so intently that I wish I could disappear. ‘What a sad creature you are, nowhere near as strong as your distant ancestors. That’s Kadamach’s fault, you know,’ she says sweetly.

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