Page 87 of A Beautifully Crafted Lie

“She’s waking up!” someone exclaims from somewhere I can’t see. “I need you in here!” she calls out. Laoise.

I pull away from Odhran, who hears nothing. The room is just as we left it before the coronation, with no one in it but the two of us. His eyes bore into mine. “Did you hear that?” I ask him, but he doesn’t respond. I want to close my eyes and calm my breathing, but I bite the skin off my lip instead.

“Finally!” I hear Àine’s voice and push myself to sit upright as panic claws its way out of my chest. The room remains empty, save for me and Odhran.

“She’s going to have questions,” Laoise says. “It’s been a week.”

Odhran’s once unspoiled skin now bears the marks of an unknown affliction. Wounds etch themselves across his flesh like sloppy brushstrokes of red and black paint. Each gash, each laceration, oozes with blood and shadow, as if his very essence is seeping out along with it. This isn’t a dream. This is a nightmare.

“Odhran?” I call, reaching out to touch him but stop before I make contact. My hand trembles. I’m afraid. This isn’t a fear of being injured or caught sneaking around. This is so much worse.

“It’s time, young one. Open your eyes.” Aed’s voice holds a seriousness that I can’t place. That I don’t want to place.

“No.” My chin quivers. I don’t want to. I don’t want to face whatever awaits me. I don’t want reality, especially not the one I suspect, the one where he’s hurt.

“You are stronger than you think,” Aed tells me, but it doesn’t bring me an ounce of comfort.

My eyes struggle to open as if glued shut. Everything hurts. Every movement brings with it a searing pain, but nothing as intense as the ache building deep within my soul. Odhran isn’t correcting my assumptions.

The room is bright—too bright—burning my eyes as I open them. “Where…” I clear my throat. “Where is he?” I demand, even though it hurts to talk. Even though my voice is an unrecognisable rasp up my throat. “Where is Odhran?”

“He isn’t here.” Àine’s voice carries a deep sadness. My eyes struggle to focus. All I see is her silhouette against a bright backdrop. “He’s with Sheridan and Sloan. At their camp. I’m afraid he hasn’t woken, and his wounds aren’t healing.” She places her hand against my brow, checking my temperature. Her touch is soft and caring. “He’s strong. The strongest man I know. He will survive.” But her tone doesn’t echo the hopefulness of her words.

I can’t tell whether I’m screaming or crying. Maybe both. My voice is a raw blend of anguish. As the trembling in my hands intensifies, it ripples through my body. “He promised.” He promised he wouldn’t hurt me. Tears stream down my cheeks as the faces of those around me slowly come into focus. An image of Odhran’s festering wounds flashes in my mind.

“He almost died saving you.” Aine’s lips press into a thin line. “Because of you.”

“I didn’t mean to.” I didn’t mean to betray him. It’s the truth. A truth that makes my voice sound far too small. Scenes and phrases rush through my mind like pages caught in the wind. Eadan’s death. Declan’s blood seeping through his white shirt. The battlefield and bodies with black armour strewn across it. And Odhran’s eyes when he struck me with his power.

Àine brings a damp cloth to my shoulder, burning like fire across my skin. When she removes it, the cloth is deep red streaked with yellow. Infection.

“A daglomon bite is poisonous.” Aed’s tail swishes from side to side, exposing razor-sharp teeth. “You are strong. You can fight this. We will fight this.”

I’m wearing a plain linen shirt and matching charcoal trousers. Though comfortable, they aren’t mine. “When is he coming back?” I look at Aine. It’s the same look that I saw in Eadan’s eyes before her head was severed. I’m sorry, she said, as if it were the end of the road.

I go back to my mother’s Great Room looking for Odhran, but he isn’t there. It’s dark and empty, with the windows wide open. A howling wind blows through the room, as cold as ice, and the sense of belonging and safety it once brought me disappears.

“Where are you?” I call out across the bond forged between us. It’s still intact… It’s still intact! Like a hand with a loosened grip, it’s still there, even though weak. Tears well behind my lashes as I press my trembling hand to my chest. It’s still intact!

FORTY-THREE

BRYNDIS ASHGLO

My experiment is still running. So far it has been six months. Red lines are running up my arm, and I am losing strength in my hand along with fevers and chills.

The Legends of The Forgotten, by Tibor Harper

Hours turn to days, and days string together into eleven months passing by, yet there’s no word of Odhran. It’s almost time for Samhain here in Tìr Coiteann, the human realm, yet there’s not so much as a message passed on to me through Àine, or a letter delivered to our door. Only silence, which means one thing, there’s no change in his condition. Although she hasn’t seen him herself, Àine told me he’s still unconscious and plagued by infections brought on by his wounds, both from battle and bites. Sloan and Sheridan are monitoring his condition at their battalion’s camp, just across the Geimhreadh border, refusing to bring him here out of resentment for my role in his suffering.

The cottage is lovely, with a large vegetable and herb garden alongside it, prepared by Odhran himself during the weeks I spent avoiding him. It has a massive wooden porch with wisteria climbing the railings as it overlooks a vast valley dusted by tall trees. Their leaves catch the golden hues of dusk, shimmering like embers in the fire, before the sun sees them no more. It’s everything I ever wanted, but still there remains a hollow ache in my chest. Like something was torn from my body, leaving a wound that won’t close. A wound that festers, waking me in the dead of night, damp and weary.

“Will you play for us?” Laoise asks, folding her legs under her as she sits in her favourite armchair by the window. The hearth crackles beside her, and the glow of fire kisses the outlines of her face.

“I don’t feel up to it right now.” My brows furrow when I look at her. “Perhaps later?” Disappointment wipes all other emotions from my sister’s face. She sighs, opening her book to the page she was reading earlier. She hasn’t spoken of the castle, neither of Declan, nor the new king. Every time I bring up the subject, her eyes grow distant. She won’t hear any of it, and I’ve stopped trying. “I’m going for a walk,” I announce, only to receive a half-hearted hum in acknowledgement. My fingers slide over the polished lid of the pianoforte standing in the corner of our cosy living room. I allow my touch to linger. It’s no ordinary pianoforte. It was my mother’s. Her initials are carved into the fallboard in perfect cursive.

G.A.

Glynis Ashglo.