Strike hard. Strike true. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Lily is waiting for you.” Then I lifted the ax, my eyes full of tears, and struck the merciful blow.

Everything shimmered and shifted. I could not hold my balance and fell sprawling onto the floor; the ax dropped from my hands. Outside, the birds screamed. My breathing came in gasps. My vision was so blurred I saw only a fuzz of shifting shapes. But I could hear. I heard a man’s voice, hoarse and shaky, saying, “Thank you. Oh, gods. Oh, gods, at last.”

With an effort I sat up. I rubbed my eyes. Things settled and came clear. I made my myself look at what I had wrought. There was no gore, no severed head, no body pumping lifeblood. Only a dark-haired man of around five-and-thirty, gaunt and pale, clad in a long loose shirt. It was Ash, and the curse was broken.

He reached out a hand to help me up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

I had no time to ask what he meant, for there was a sound of footsteps from the stair, and in ran Geiléis in her lovely green gown, with her golden hair shimmering around her like an enchanted cloak. For a moment I saw them as they had been, young and in love and full of desperate hope. Then Lily reached Ash, and they threw their arms around each other and clung tight, like an image of lovers from an old tale of magic and wonder. Which, in a way, they were.

There was someone else there too. A little man in a hooded cape, standing up on a stool to reach the tabletop, pouring something from the flask to the cup. For Ash had not been quite alone during his long, long imprisonment.

It was over. No further need for me here. I would leave the tower, return to the house, find Flannan and head south. South for Laois and Mathuin. I just had to get up and walk down the stair. But my body was curiously unwilling to obey me. I felt weary beyond measure, as stiff in my joints as if I had spent a whole day in the saddle. I reached up a hand to brush stray hair from my face and saw a shadow creeping over my skin, like a scaly, hideous garment. My fingers were curling into gnarled claws. I tried to speak, but my lips and tongue would not form the words. Could not.

I’m sorry, Ash had said. I’m so sorry. Because he had known. And she had known. She’d known all the time. The curse was not broken after all. I sank to my knees, put my disfigured face in my ruined hands and wailed.

41

Grim

“I’ll find him,” I say. Take the message from Brother Eoan. Red fury’s rising in me, can’t let it get a grip, got to stay calm, think things through. Might be a false alarm. Might be harmless. The claws in my gut are telling me it’s not. Why would that fellow be sending messages to Mathuin of Laois? Only one reason I can think of.