Page 83 of Drawn in Blood
She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and smiled—or tried to—as they stood in the doorway.
“Will Odin find me here?”he signed, as he chewed on his bottom lip.
Ember smiled as she ruffled his hair.“Of course he will,”she replied. “I’ll bet he leaves you a pile of presents so big he can barely fit it through the door.”
Theo grinned brightly as he began signing furiously, fingers moving a mile a minute as he rattled off a list of all of the books he was hoping he would get.
There was no Winter Solstice party that year, just an elegant meal served in the posh dining room encased in what felt like a large greenhouse. The table was decorated beautifully, but Ember found it very difficult to make herself care. A fat, roasted pig lay in the middle, surrounded by garland and candles and citrus of all kinds. Bowls of green beans and carrots and mashed potatoes and baskets of rolls were scattered about around it, and Ember’s mouth wasn’t even watering.
Helvig was there—that was what she had decided to call him. Not the Jarl or King or whatever it is he was. And certainly not Granda’—never Granda’. To his left sat Collum, as stoic as ever,one hand almost always hovering over the dagger hanging from his belt. Every now and then he would shoot her an assessing glare, like he was making sure she wasn’t going to bolt from the room and run away.
As if she had anywhere to run to.
Rowan wasn’t there—where she was, Ember didn’t know or care. She could be locked away in a damp dungeon with little more than soggy bread to eat, and Ember couldn’t be bothered to give a damn. She picked at her food, her appetite still not having returned fully, and tried to imagine what the boys were doing.
It was the only thing keeping her sane. Sometimes she would imagine that this was all just an awful nightmare, and she would wake up at the farm with Eira cooking breakfast, Fen stealing her bacon, Maeve chasing the chickens, and Otto kissing them each on the head before he left for work. Sometimes the imagining helped ease the pain.
Today, no amount of imagining or wishing or dreaming took away the ache that was tearing her from the inside out.
After supper, Ember excused herself to the sitting room where she curled up on the couch with a book and tried to drown out the roaring in her head.
“You didn’t eat much at supper,” Gaelen said, as she sat a cup of tea and some biscuits on the oak table in front of the couch. “Care for a midnight snack?” A smile played at the edge of her lips as she sat in the chair to the left of the fire.
“How would you know what I ate at supper?” Ember asked playfully, as she took one of the biscuits from the plate. “They hardly let you in the room.”
Ember had just barely heard her mother whispering something about ‘the help eating in the kitchen’ to Gaelen before guests arrived, and it did nothing to put out the ever-growing fire in her belly.
“I could try to find your cape,” Ember thought out loud, as she sipped her tea. “One of us should be able to leave this hell hole at least.”
Gaelen laughed as she leaned back in her chair, more relaxed than Ember ever recalled seeing her.
“Even if you did,” she replied, “I wouldn’t go. My place is here, with you and your brother. I will not leave you alone.”
Ember closed her eyes as she nodded, allowing the words to wash over her.
I will not leave you alone.
“The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year,” Gaelen whispered, both to Ember and to herself it seemed, “but it doesn’t last forever.” She stood up from her chair, kissing Ember on the head as a silent tear rolled down her cheek. “Light is coming, Ember. Hold on for it.”
Theo’s facelit up as he walked into the sitting room the next morning, seeming to be very happy at the fact that Odin didnot, in fact, forget him. He tore into presents like they might be snatched out of his hands at any moment, and the way he smiled almost made Ember forget about how miserable she felt.
“How do you like your dress?” Aoife asked from her seat, as she took a sip out of her mug. “I had it made especially for you.”
Ember ran her fingers along the velvet dress and tried to smile.
“It’s nice, Mum.” She nodded, and that was all she could manage. She could barely look at her mother, let alone hold any sort of conversation. Despite her brother’s smile as he flippedthrough his new books, Ember couldn’t push away the shadow that crept into her chest. She couldn’t stop thinking about her last Yule—herfirstYule. She tried not to think about the farm and the Kitts and Maeve, tried to focus on Theo and the joy on his face, but the darkness kept inching its way back in, bit by bit.
And that’s when she saw them, perched on a tree just outside the sitting room window—a robin and a wren. She smiled as she swallowed the lump steadily building in her throat and hugged her mug of tea to her chest.
Light was coming. It had to be.
Chapter 27
A Plea to the Gods
Killian tapped his fingers on his knees as he sat in the den at the Kitts’ house. The sun was already setting out the window, and dread was very slowly pooling in his stomach. It had been a hard day, Eira had cried more than once and that alone had set Killian on edge. Otto had tried several tracking spells of different variations to find Maeve, and all came back unanswered with nothing to show for them. Even Fen tried to finish his tracking app and use it, but nothing worked. Everyone was exhausted.
It was hard not having Maeve around, especially on a day like Yule. The home felt barren, like all the joy he had come so accustomed to feeling had been sucked out.
