Page 24 of The Crimson Throne
The arm attached to the shoulder I stabbed withers, the skin wrinkling inward and sagging off his bone.
The man starts screaming. His neck tendons stand out, his veins shrinking, his cheeks sinking in, the bags under his eyes stretching so much that I wonder if his eyes will fall from his skull.
He drops to his knees and throws out his bony arms to catch the fall. Both his wrists snap. The man smashes face-first into the ground, broken teeth skittering across a stone paver. His body convulses as theneedle jammed into his shoulder saps away every ounce of blood in his body.
This is the fate someone intended for Mary.
Instead, I watch dispassionately as the man’s shaking body shrinks, the skin clinging to bones, the muscles going flaccidly dry.
It takes only moments.
I bend down and carefully extract the needle from the man’s ragged corpse. The body turns to gray, crumbling dust. I should have found a way to keep him alive, I suppose, to question him about where he got the cauldron, how he’s working with the Red Caps.
But there is a tiny dot of blood on his tunic.
And I know the bean-nighe has washed her copy of the shirt entirely clean. Right now, she’s pulling out the other shirt, the one made of finely woven white linen and covered with soot stains.
The one currently owned by a man who is going to be killed by a Red Cap after the wall falls.
I let out a stuttering breath as I tuck the needle back into my bodice, careful that the sharp point won’t prick my skin. I don’t want to look at the body. I don’t want to let my mind wrap around what I just did.
Murder.
The Sluagh are gone, back to the empty fields and windswept moors where their human lives ended. I pick up the cauldron, dumping the remains of dirt from it. I must ensure no one else gains control of this weapon.
“Hello?”
My eyes meet the red-haired man’s.
I was so focused on the cauldron, I nearly forgot him.
“Hello,” I say, matching his English. “Are you…” I don’t know how to finish that. He was just attacked by a swarm of Sluagh that he musthave thought were nothing but birds. He’s obviously confused and hurt.
“I’m fine,” he lies.
His doublet is ruined, the back ripped apart. Scratches mar his face, arms, and back, but none of them are too deep, mostly because he was smart enough to use his cloak as something of a shield. He was lucky.
Was it luck that brought me here?I think as I stare into his vivid green eyes.Or was it the bean-nighe?I wouldn’t be at the border if she hadn’t warned me about the wall. I wouldn’t have used the needle if I hadn’t seen her washing the brown tunic.
And I wouldn’t have found the cauldron. My being here was by design.
I hate this. I hate the strings the fae know how to pull. I hate the way they wrap around my wrists like manacles.
But I also know that I needed to be here. The Red Cap threat is real. It’s more than just a few weapons crossing the barrier.
Much more.
The red-haired man rips off his ruined doublet, settling for the plain undershirt beneath. It’s torn as well, but not as badly.
Finely woven white linen.
I shake my head.
Most nobles have similar shirts. The bean-nighe might not have been washing one of his.
Or maybe that shirtwashis,I think,and my intervention now averted his future murder at the hands of a Red Cap?
I shake my head, wincing at the pain from being hit. I can’t let myself descend into questions about fae and fate. It’ll drive me mad for sure.
