Page 102 of The Vanishing Throne

I pull my coat tighter around me and move to sit on the beach not far from where Aithinne stands in the water, a safe distance from the tide. I don’t venture any closer. Getting soaked through once today is quite enough for me.

‘I see you were completely serious when you said you loved the water,’ I say.

Aithinne doesn’t answer for a long time, just tips back her head to the moonlight. Finally, she steps onto the beach, moving gracefully over the pebbles as she comes to sit next to me.

I can’t help but notice the number of stitches along her arms. Though finely sewn – apparently Derrick won’t do less than perfect stitching under any circumstances – the dark thread contrasts with the pale glow of her skin. So many cuts. Dozens.

‘There’s something special about the sea, isn’t there?’ she asks, her voice startling me. ‘My kind always believed it could reveal hidden things.’ She glances at me. ‘Even your deepest fears.’

‘Is that so?’ I say flatly. I’d rather forget what it was like to drown, what I saw on the other side.

I’m haunted by thevoices calling my name, by the feel of their hands grasping my clothes to keep me there.

‘If we were feeling particularly brave,’ she says, ‘we would submerge ourselves into the water and whisperinnis dhomh.Tell me. The waves would show us our past, our future – secrets that affected our lives. Sometimes they tell us things we wish they hadn’t.’

‘Aithinne,’ I say. ‘You’re dancing around a question. Just say it.’

‘Not a question; an observation. You’ve had a conflicted look about you since we met through the veil. At first I thought it had to do with my mother trying to murder you, but …’

I stare out at the ocean and try not to think about Kiaran.

Do you love me? Like you loved her?

Kiaran left a mark on me. It’s not physical, not like Lonnrach’s. It’s as if when my memories were emptied, my mind filled with pieces of Kiaran,feelingsthat kept me sane in the mirrored room. He did it withoutrealizing and I let him without realizing. God, how I wish I hadn’t.

‘Falconer?’

‘Why didn’t you want the throne?’ I ask abruptly.

She shrugs. ‘It was all battles, fights, and court. Humans are far more exciting. You havecolourful swear words andcake—’

‘Aithinne. Now you’re dancing around an answer.’

She’s quiet as she watches the waves come in and out, as if the ocean were breathing. ‘I’ve always known it would come down to Kadamach or me,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t hurt him. I thought I could once, but … ’ Aithinne shrugs. ‘So I accepted that I would be the one to die.’

I look at her, and I don’t see the Aithinne from the bonfire, the faery who told the first Falconers to seek their vengeance and make her brother pay. Aithinne wasn’t hardened by war; she washumanizedby it. After everything Kiaran did, she still loved him. She never stopped.

I don’t say anything. I’m afraid that if I do I’ll say the wrong thing or she’ll stop speaking. There’s so much more I want to know about their past.

Aithinne tips her face to the moon again. ‘Kadamach and I were created together, you know. Our minds were once indistinguishable.’ Her expression hardens. ‘Then we were separated, raised in different kingdoms, and trained to destroy each other. When he killed my subjects on the battlefield, I knew he would come for me next.’

‘So you created theFalconers,’ I say.

‘The Falconers, themortair,’ she says softly. ‘I built an army to send against him. Only Kadamach and I had the power to kill each other’ – her voice turns harsh – ‘but I wanted his kingdom devastated for the grief he caused mine.’

‘The Cailleach showed me what he did.’ I watch the waves go in and out and try not to remember. I can’t. ‘Where he started the battle. I wish I could forget.’

‘I know what you saw,’ she says quietly. ‘It was the very thing that drove me to create your kind.’

‘But you never killed him. Why?’ I would have hunted him for what he’d done. I would have savored finding him and murdering him.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ she whispers. ‘I didn’t hate him enough. I thought I did, but when he asked for my help … ’ She looks at me. ‘We had just spent so long at war that we couldn’t remember anything else.’

I press my shoulder to hers. She gives me a grateful smile. ‘I can feel himhereagain’ – she taps her temple– ‘and we haven’t been connected like that in so long. After everything we’ve been through, I won’t betray him. Not when I’ve just got him back. I want us to have a thousand more years to make up for all the time we lost.’

‘We’ll find a way to save the realms without either of you dying,’ I tell her. It’s the only thing I can say. I can’t tell her to choose – I can’tlether choose. ‘I swear it.’

Is she going to cry? I don’t believe I’ve ever made a faery cry before – except Derrick, and that was only while I was reading himA Christmas Caroland Scrooge stopped being a bastard; Derrick said he had something in his eye.

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