Page 35 of A Tale of Ice and Ash
No, no, someone stop this! Don’t let her… please! Someone, anyone–
“Very well,” said the Queen. “Peace be upon you, misguided soul.”
She clicked her fingers. The axe swung with a dizzying thud. Eirwen could not look away even as the blood slithered onto the ground beneath the platform.
Her stomach swung into her ribcage.
She’d picnicked on that lawn.
A weak, half-hearted cheer lifted through the crowd. Eirwen sank to her knees. She looked up at the balcony, half in desperation, half in fury, but the Queen had already swirled away. This man meant nothing to her.
Cole was still standing there. For a moment, she thought he met her gaze.
The crowd started to move back through the gates. Eirwen stayed where she was until they dispersed, until the servants came to remove the body and scrub out the stains he’d left.
What else had he left behind? A life was more than a bloody mess beneath a chopping block. Who had he left behind? Who mourned him behind closed doors, too afraid to show their face today?
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
She didn’t recognise any of the servants who came to clean up. All their faces were strangers to her. What had happened to the staff? Many of them had been serving her family their entire lives with generations of their families beforehand.
The Huntsman sat on the steps of the platform, cleaning his giant axe. His huge arms were stiff with far more than muscle, his face grave beneath the mask.
She crept towards him, but he did not meet her eyes.
He shook his head. “You should have stayed away.”
“I needed to see what she was capable of.”
“And now, you know,” he said. “And you know what I’m capable of, too.”
“I… I had no idea. What you did for her.”
“I serve her loyally, so that one day I might serve you,” he said. “It is for that reason alone I have been her servant, all these years.”
What a faint, desperate hope to hold onto. Eirwen writhed guiltily in her muddy boots. She did not feel worthy of such loyalty. She feared she never would be.
A maid approached and stuffed the Huntsman’s discarded rags into a basket with other blood-soaked sheets. There was a flash of light brown curls, the colour of sugar. Niamh.
The Huntsman glanced up, shaking his head, but Eirwen paid him no heed. She followed her to the laundry room. She couldn’t let her vanish, couldn’t let today be all awful.
She waited until they were alone.
“Niamhy,” Eirwen whispered from the shadows.
Niamh stilled, the breathing inside her seizing. She shook her head, and tipped her basket into a massive bucket, plunging her arms into the hot, soapy water.
“It’s me, Niamhy. Eirwen. Please turn around.”
“No,” said Niamh. “I’m imagining things.”
“It’s me,” Eirwen continued. “I’m alive. I’m back. I’m safe.”
Niamh turned, and lifted her gaze towards the voice. In a second, she clutched her hand to her mouth, tears splurging out of her. “I must have seen you a hundred times, heard you calling me every night… but I never imagined you grown.” She swallowed. “Every time I saw you, you were just a child. I could never have imagined you like this, my sweet, darling girl…” She raced across the room, upsetting several piles of laundry, and pulled Eirwen into her arms. “You’re here, you’re here…”
All at once, Eirwen felt five years old again, wrapped up in Niamh’s arms after a nightmare. It softened the memory of the chopping block, recent though it was. “I’m here.”
“But… how? We were all sure your stepmother–”
