Though the chamber we occupied had no windows, I sensed it was dawn when I stirred awake. My son was mewling in the cradle by my bed. Sometime in the night, Emalia had sneaked into the room and fallen asleep next to me. Her curls were splayed across the pillow, her mouth pursed and brow furrowed in some perplexing dream.
A pang of joy stabbed at my heart that both my children lived and breathed beside me. As a child, I had heard too many tales from my mother of births that had gone terribly wrong. It was Dylene's mercy. Somehow I had even escaped my brother's bear form, Theodric having saved of our lives.
I settled back into the pillows after retrieving my son to nurse him. My hand went to his one foot. I gripped it and bit back fear. We had come this far, I would not let such a thing keep him from his destiny. We would find a way to make it play in our favor.
Rustling skirts echoed down the silent hallway outside. I heard Teàrlag's raspy cough, her throat dry from smoking her pipe too often. My heart froze. Éibhear. Surely he was fine, he was a Tormod with the gift of the Changing.
Teàrlag's drawn expression in the doorway told me otherwise, the heavy lines in her ruffled skin somehow deeper after only a few hours. I clutched my baby in one arm and reached out, lighting a hand onto Emalia's downy curls.
“If you are well enough, you best come with me, my lady,” she whispered.
Shifting under the sheets, I laid my son back in his cradle. My muscles were loose and unsure as though I had never walked. Just the same, I wrapped a heavy woolen blanket over my fresh nightshift and stepped into my slippers. A raw ache ran up my back but I ignored it.
Teàrlag led me down the hallway. We stopped at the bedroom across from the stairs. The door squeaked open. Gray morning light washed over the window panes. Theodric stood next to it, arms tight around his chest as he gnawed on his knuckle. Argath stood at attention next to the bed, his gaze hard in front of him and posture rigid.
The only sound was Estra weeping softly in Abbán's arms on the floor. A bloodied bandage was wrapped around Éibhear's middle, the sheets permeated in red. His face matched the snow outside, beard and ragged hair bright orange. I knew he was dead before anyone said anything.
“He passed just as you left the room, Tearlag." Argath didn't look at any of us as he spoke.
Teàrlag gripped my hand and we walked together to the death bed. I blinked down at him, clenching my fists. I opened my palm. I hadn't realized I had picked up my prayer pendant out of habit as I had left my room. Leaning over his body, I opened his mouth and placed the pendant under his tongue. Such a boon would surely see him directly into the halls of his ancestors.
I met Argath's eyes as I straightened. “What happened?”
“It was fast.” Argath's eyes snapped away. “While I was trying to restrain Haneric, Éibhear went into the Changing as he was coming down the stairs. Before he could reach his full stature, Haneric lashed out at him and caught him in the gut with a claw. I didn't even know he was wounded until we had restrained Haneric and we all regained our human forms.”
Abbán gripped Estra as she wailed, Argath's fist closing around the hilt of his sword like it was Haneric's neck. Abbán peered up at me, a smear of blood on his throat. “I chained up Haneric and we carried Éibhear here. But there was nothing we could do. The wound was too deep.”
I stumbled back from the bed as the Tormod cousins mourned their fallen kin. Sinking into the seat by the window, I stared blankly out towards the dark forest. Theodric exhaled heavily through his nose and rested his hands on the window sill.
“This is all my fault. I knew that Haneric was too far gone to be saved but I couldn't just leave him there to die at your family estate. Not after all he had endured-”
“What he endured?” I hissed, clamping my hands on the black wooden arm rests and leaning forward. “I would take that blade from your hip and go kill him myself right now if I had the strength.”
Theodric narrowed his weary eyes at me. “No you wouldn't. Not your own flesh and blood.”
“By the lives of my children, I would. He threatened me and mine, my son before he was even born. I would kill him right now.”
My vision blurred with exertion and I fell backwards into the seat, chest heaving. I was all raw nerves and veins bulging. Anger filled me like a tonic, fueled by the wails behind me. A murderer twice over, no one needed to tell me. Haneric killed both Éibhear and Brisam. Two men whose worth was three times that of my useless, little brother.
Theodric knelt in front of me, gathering my trembling hands. “Do you know how Haneric came to be that beast?”
I swallowed hard and looked away, narrowing my gaze at the floor. I didn't want to hear. I didn't want excuses, I wanted justice. But curiosity led me to listen just the same.
“Your father was killed on a hunt, correct?”
My gaze ripped back to his face. “Yes.”
“I was with him when he died. It was the same day I came under the curse of a mercenary Tormod shaman.”
The body of my father was brought back to Ignit Covert covered in a bloodied horse blanket. A hand had fallen into sight, blue with severed veins as futile as unearthed roots.
“Shredded to pieces by a beast,” I breathed.
“That beast...it was me,” Theodric's voice cracked. “We were seperated from the main group of nobles hunting stags that day. The shaman found us. We later found out was employed by the Vittamars, seeking to put a stop to your father's claim to the throne once and for all. The shaman set his curse on your father's seed, any son in his line would experience the Changing. For our people, without the knowledge of the Tormod's, this is a death sentence. I shot an arrow at the man and missed. I don't know how, perhaps the breeze-”
“And that is when you were cursed as well.”
“Yes. Unlike your father, however, I was the one under the curse. One moment I was a man and the next, a bear. I don't know what happened but I woke up naked and being carried by Sidimund to a litter. I was covered in blood. I later was told it was your father's.” Theodric gripped my hands tighter but I didn't notice. I was numb, a harsh rushing in my ears and body shaking violently. “When you experience the Changing without a guide like Argath to aid you, you are powerless. It consumes you and you have no memory of what happened. Slowly it drives you mad. Your mother spent years trying to rein in your brother, spending money like mad to cure him. We didn't know until Haneric told us himself when he came here.”
The money my mother begged from my husband. It hadn't been for gambling. She had spent it trying to find a way to break the curse over her son. And drank to drown the hopelessness of the situation. I pulled my hands from him and laid my face in my palms.
“I thought- I hoped I could help him here. But he proved to far gone.”
I sniffed hard, rubbing my forehead. “What do we do with him? He is a danger to himself and others.”
“I think last night finally broke him. He isn't making any sense down in the dungeon.”
“So what are you saying? He'll stay here?”
Theodric shook his head with a groan. “I don't know what else to do but keep him down there. We can make it as comfortable for him as possible.”
“And he'll live out his days an insane prisoner?” I rose to my feet. “Wouldn't it be best to kill him? Show him mercy?”
Theodric stood and turned back to the window. A rose colored dawn spread out over the spiny trees. He sighed. “I cannot kill another member of your family.”
I wobbled on my feet, massaging my temples. It was all too much to grasp especially after the night I had experienced. My mind reeled, trying to configure logical outcomes for my brother. I had no luck.
“I will do it then.”
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