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I pulled the rabbit off the spit and tore a roasted leg off, handing it to Murgha. She took it, but her gaze remained fixed on me.
“Eat, Murgha.”
“Tell me the story,” she demanded.
“Eat,” I repeated.
When she obeyed and nibbled on what I’d given her, the tightness in my chest eased. I pulled a piece off and ate while I continued.
“My father was hunting in the foothills when he heard men shouting and crying out, as well as the sound of a growling animal. He found four moon fae males fighting off a barga on a cliff. Well, three were fighting, and the fourth was injured.”
Murgha gulped hard.
“You’ve heard of this bear then.”
She nodded, brow pinched with concern. “When we were children, Papa would tell us to be good or the barga would get us.”
“Not very kind of him.”
“No.”
“They’re a fierce, territorial creature,” I continued, “and when they’re hungry, they will attack anything. They’re four times my size, claws as long as your feet.”
She glanced at her booted foot and tucked it tighter beneath her leg.
I ate the last bite of rabbit in my hand and pulled a rag and canteen from my bag. After wiping my fingers, I handed the canteen to her. She sipped it using one hand then handed it back. I settled back across from her.
“What happened next?” she asked.
“My father helped them fight the beast. He was an expert warrior and hunter. The barga finally realized it was outmatched and eventually ran off. One of the moon fae was an ambassador from Issos heading to the eastern realms with three guards. One of the guards who defended the ambassador against the barga had been mortally wounded.”
My gut clenched, for this was the part I didn’t want to tell her but knew I must.
“My father went to the moon fae, whose wing had been broken and his belly clawed open in the battle with the barga. There was no healer who could save him, my father knew. The injured male had the pale white hair and the purple eyes of a noble-born. He was an Issosian guard.”
Murgha had abandoned her meal, the bit of rabbit hanging loosely in her hand in her lap. I should’ve had her finish her meal before I told her. Too late now.
“The Issosian guard reached out his hand to my father and pulled him close. He was dying. He told my father that he had failed his mate. She was a wood fae and married to another male. He’d found her too late, after she’d married and had a child with her husband, but she was now pregnant with his own child. While he knew he couldn’t tear her from her family, he had promised he’d care for her always. He begged my father to watch over his child when he or she was born, knowing they’d be mistreated as a half-breed.”
By now, Murgha’s tears were streaming freely down her heart-shaped face, my insides twisting at the sight. But I had to tell her all of it.
“My father questioned why he didn’t ask this of one of his own men. Why did he ask this of a shadow fae who lived far from the realm of the wood fae? But the Issosian guard knew that the vow of a shadow fae at someone’s death was binding.”
She didn’t ask but a crease formed between her brow, so I explained.
“The shadow fae have a deep reverence for the dead and the spirits when they go on into the afterworld. For us, a promise made to the dying is an eternal vow. Unbreakable.”
I took a drink from the canteen then set it aside. “So my father promised to watch over the child when it was born, to be sure the babe was cared for. And he did for many years. He’d told me that she was a sweet little female, beloved by her mother andsister. And even when the man of her house threw the mother out, the girl was watched over by the sister and still provided for by the man, who was not truly her father.”
She sobbed and dropped the leg of rabbit. I leaned across the space and handed her a handkerchief. She took it, sniffling softly, and wiped her face.
“My father told me all of this on his own deathbed just under a year ago, and he passed his vow onto me. Made me swear I would protect the female wherever she was in the world. For he’d lost track of her when her clan had left Myrkovir Forest to avoid the war. Then he became too ill to find her.” That familiar well of knowing pulsed through my veins, that she—above all other duties and destinies—was the most important of them all. “To find you.”
She sucked in a deep breath, wiping her face again, my heart aching to console her in some way. But I didn’t move.
“And so,” she began in a trembling voice, “the burden became yours to watch over me.”
The pain in her voice and expression was as cutting as a sharp blade sliding deep. “Murgha”—I pulled her glassy gaze to mine—“it is not a burden for me.”
