Page 40 of Fang & Fury

“The rest of us should bathe in the river too.” Kayla screwed her face up. “I, for one, reek of sweat.”

Next to her, Ailsa lifted her attention from the fire and turned to Kayla, lips curving. “Me, too … let’s go down shortly.”

Darach met Fern’s eye once more. “You did well readying this cave and planning everything … you even braved iron for us.”

“Aye.” Fern cut a jaundiced look at her bandaged arm. “I can still taste it though.”

“How long have you been watching the fort?” Ailsa asked.

“Ever since you were taken captive,” she replied. “It took a while to study its movements … the sentry shifts. I initially entered glamored as one of the villagers and went looking for Darach. Once I knew where to find him … I then selected the person I was going to replace … Idra was the perfect choice.”

Darach smiled once more. “Aye, no one questions the king’s general going where she pleases within the fort.”

Ailsa shifted then and cut him a glance. “You’re free now, Darach … we all are,” she said quietly. “What are you going to do?”

“That’s easy.” He picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “I’m going to bring my brother down.”

“Not alone, you aren’t,” Fern quipped. “Over the past days, I made a count of the army King Niall is amassing. It’s a thousand strong.”

Darach’s lips thinned. After seeing the goings-on in the fort, he wasn’t surprised. The barracks inside its walls weren’t enough to accommodate all the new warriors. They’d built more to the east of the village.

He stabbed his stick at the fire once more. How he longed to return to the fort and deal with Niall. His pulse quickened at the thought. However, he couldn’t let revenge cloud his judgement. He had to bide his time.

“The king told me he plans to move out at the end of this turn,” Ailsa spoke up once more.

Darach shot her a glance. “You’ve had conversations with my brother?”

“Aye … he called me to have supper with him a few days ago. It was difficult to get much out of him, but he gave me that, at least.” Her expression turned grim. “And he let me know he’d somehow tricked all those Circines into following him.”

Fern pulled a face at this. However, Darach already knew the Circines had been deceived—and found it difficult to move on from the fact Niall had dined with Ailsa. “Why did he ask you to supper?”

“To offer me freedom of sorts,” she replied, meeting his eye. “If I agreed to share his furs.”

Darach’s fingers clenched around the stick.

The fucker.

A pause followed before he asked, “What did you say?”

Irritation flashed over her features. “What do you think?”

She looked away from him, into the fire, and for a moment, no one spoke. “The Circines are suffering.” Her voice had lowered, yet held an edge now. “The binding doesn’t erase who they are underneath it. I saw it in their eyes, as I tattooed them. One or two of them even tried to ask for help.” She glanced at Kayla. “Didn’t they?”

The tattooist nodded, her hazel eyes shadowing.

“I marked it too,” Darach admitted then. “But I’ll admit they’re not my priority right now … Niall is.”

Ailsa cut him a sharp look. “A thousand souls trapped inside their own bodies, Darach … forced to fight. They’re caged. I can’t stop seeing their desperation.”

“I agree, it’s monstrous,” Kayla said, her tone gentler now. “But Ailsa, we—”

“Aye.” Ailsa cut her off. Anger flashed in her eyes. “I know we need Lara’s army … and that Niall has to be dealt with.” She drew a breath, steadying herself. “But we can’t pretend the Circines’ lives don’t matter.”

Darach studied her for a long moment. Whatever weighed on the rest of them—the size of Niall’s forces, the ride ahead, the reckoning he craved—for Ailsa, this was the thing she couldn’t set aside.

Kayla and Fern traded a glance he couldn’t quite read. Then Kayla cleared her throat. “We need to get word to Queen Lara … and soon.”

“She already knows there’s trouble brewing,” Fern replied. “A few days after I discovered Craeg Aonaranach, I sent a friend of mine south with a message for my brother at Duncrag.”