Page 36 of The Crown of Moonlight
Catriona and I have dressed her in the gown she had sewn for the last Yule celebration when the family was all together, and her body lies upstairs on her bed now, waiting for us to make time to bury her.To mourn her.Because the queen’s horrors can’t even give us that.
The mill still smoulders.Padraig’s house, the old byre, the cottages.All of them are gone.I can only thank the Mother for the gift of rain that kept the fires in the pastures and fields from spreading too far up Glen Colm or towards the keep.And with the two Greys and all twelve of the soldiers dead, there’s no one left to finish the destruction they began.
More will come, though.I have no doubt of that, so we must make sure that every trace of the soldiers and Greys we have killed today is removed as quickly as we can manage.When additional Greys arrive, I need to be able to convince them that the first group began their destruction, then realised that we were loyal and simply moved on to inflict their misery elsewhere.
Still, burning the bodies is a miserable job.I can’t help wondering who they were and how they came to a place where they would participate in wanton killing and the destruction of homes and livelihoods that would leave innocent people to starve.How has Vheara turned men against their neighbours so completely that they can do such things?I’d like to believe that she and her Greys give them no choice, but that’s almost the worst part of this war: that she and the king are making us hate each other instead of fighting them.
I wedge more kindling and peat around the bodies and smear them with tallow from the cask Morag brought up from the storeroom.But I can’t bring myself to look at their faces.
These men were someone’s sons or husbands or sweethearts.Somewhere, a family will miss them and never know how or where they died.
The fire catches, then roars.Heat slaps my face.An ember scorches the back of my hand, and I hurry to brush it off.Smoke spirals up the chimney in choking gasps.
There’s an old scar on one man’s temple.I watch it burn away, watch until the men’s limbs curl inward.
More bodies are burning wherever they’d fit: the bread oven, the kitchen hearth, the forge.Morag and Faolan have carted the two dead Greys behind the ridge, where Faolan will bury them deep while Morag gathers the boughs and herbs we’ll add to the fires here to disguise the stench of burning hair and flesh.
I shouldn’t dare to hope that this is the worst of what will happen to us at Dunhaelic.But hope is a vicious ghost, riding my back and whispering of things that cannot be.
Behind me, Catriona enters the room, her tread slower than usual.She seems diminished, like the grief has taken a blade to her, carving down her cheeks, deepening the grooves beside her mouth.Her hands are as filthy as mine from carrying peat, firewood, and bodies.Smoke clings to her clothes, to her greying hair, to the deep lines around her eyes.
“Here, love,” she says, voice hoarse but gentle.“Let me tend this for you.The water should be hot now, but take a wee moment for yourself before you go back to tend the Ever’s wound.”
“I’m all right,” I say, the smoke raw along my throat.
“Och, aye.You’ll be fit as a flea in time, I’ve no doubt.But you aren’t yet, and there’s no need to pretend otherwise.Not for us.You’re not alone here.”
I am, though.Much as I love everyone who remains, I’m the last Domhnall of Dunhaelic.And alone is a word with thorns and spikes.
Catriona stands with her hands clasped awkwardly in front of her, as though she doesn’t know what to do with them.I wrap my arms around her, and she folds me into a hug that feels like it may break my bones.
Something tears away inside me.A sob slips out—small and ugly—and I bury it in Catriona’s shoulder.
Neither of us needs to say anything.Love stands beside you when war is coming, and it’s there helping you burn the bodies.There’s nothing more words can add to that.
I turn away, wiping my blood-blackened hands across my apron, but there’s one more thing I have to know.
“Who killed the soldier in the kitchen?”I ask.“Was it Morag or the dogs?”
“The soldier deserved a worse fate,” she spits.“They all did.”
I turn back to face her.“I’m not asking for the soldier’s sake.”
“Oh.Well, Morag wouldn’t say.”Catriona steeples her hands in front of her lips, debating what to tell me.Then she shakes her head.“Torin was always her favourite of the dogs, though.If I had to guess, I’d say he defended Morag, and the soldier killed him for it, then Morag hit the man with a pot and knocked him down.Maybe the other dogs did the rest.”
I nod, the ache in my chest twisting tighter, and I add this to the growing list of casualties.Morag still finds it hard to slaughter and dress a lamb.Killing a man will take its toll on her, whatever the reason.And Faolan and Chyr?They’ve both killed before, but I doubt either takes death lightly.
Something presses against my leg, a reassuring weight.I look down, expecting to find Rab there, then I remember he’s up on the mountain with Iain.Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I imagine I can still feel the other dogs around me, the tick of their claws on stone, their warm breath as they lie panting and watchful while I work.The sensation is so real that the hairs bristle on my arms.
The door to the receiving room is thick, oak-banded, and swings on well-oiled hinges.I’m relieved to see Chyr twitch to attention on the long oak bench opposite the hearth.The scent of boiled linen and the too-sweet smell of Ever blood mix with the resin smoke from the hearth.Flame shadows dance across the walls.
Chyr’s chest and arms are bare—the dress he hated so much is finally gone.The heavy plaid of Domhnall tartan I wrapped around his waist earlier is slung low across his hips, the wool dark with damp.In the firelight, sweat sheens the beautiful curve of his shoulder, the thick corded muscles of his arms, the hollow of his throat.
“It’s becoming a habit, me having to tell you not to tear yourself open,” I say.
His grin is weak but valiant.“Maybe someday I’ll follow your advice.”
“You’d have less blood leaking through your bandages if you did.”
