Bloodstone (15 page)

I snorted.

‘Well.’ Eili rolled her eyes. ‘Except you, Seth. But you’d do it for fun.’

‘And a scrap,’ I said mildly. ‘You know what I think. It’s a crime, and you’ve all let Stella get away with it. Spoilt bitch that she is.’ I met Finn’s
eyes. ‘Because you’re all scared of her.’

‘Too right I am,’ laughed Eili.

For all her skill, I didn’t think Eili quite sensed what she was dealing with. And quite suddenly, I realised that didn’t matter, because Finn was too clever to take it out on her.
Hurriedly I formed a protective block, because it would be me who got it in the frontal lobes, if she decided to lash out, and from the homicidal look on her face, she was considering it.

But she was in control for the moment. Definitely clever.

‘Tell me about my mother,’ she said, and her voice was perilously calm. She was watching me as she said it, but I wasn’t going to rise to that. I’d said enough.

Eili shrugged. ‘Your mother used to be fierce. Brave as six hounds. You tell me what happened. Maybe breeding turns your brain to mush and your heart to a sponge.’ Bitterly she
murmured, ‘I wouldn’t know.’

What was it about that Fionnuala child that made me want to hurt her? It wasn’t as if she’d ever heard the stupid ramblings of that soothsayer, not even from Leonora, not in the face
of Reultan’s strictures. All the same, I did hurt her. She was, after all, thinking of doing me actual bodily harm.

‘Stella’s heart has never been anything but stone and cold iron. Eh, Finn?’

I expected her to go for me, but instead she sagged, so miserable and defeated she looked close to tears. Jed looked as if he wanted to kill me.

‘Why’d she lie to me? Why did you all
lie
all this time?’

‘Nothing to do with me, Dorsal. Neither are you.’ I shrugged. But I couldn’t quite look at her, because I was under pressure from unaccustomed shame.
Oh, leave her alone,
you bastard.

Eili laughed, rescuing me. ‘Stella wants you to be normal. She forgets that blood will out.’

‘In many senses,’ I muttered.

‘Seth, quit it—’

Hooves thudded on the earth behind us, and I glanced round at the big horse. Well, thank the gods for Englishmen with good timing. ‘You lost them?’

‘Yep,’ said Torc, riding to my side. ‘We lost them. Piece of piss. You had trouble?’

‘A bit. We lost them, too. They talked too much.’

Torc laughed. Holding onto him, Leonora smiled at Finn, but Finn didn’t smile back. She was refusing even to turn her head towards her grandmother, so maybe she hadn’t noticed how
tired she was. Because Leonora did look very, very tired. The old fraud wasn’t acting for once. That was un-faked age and exhaustion. Unease tightened my spine.

Eili must have realised it too. ‘We’re not going much further.’ Eili nodded at a strip of trees that darkened the paling horizon, tapering out to a glimmer of sea.
‘We’ll stop there.’

I folded my arms, let the roan paw the earth. ‘What does Leonora think?’

Eili hissed, and her jaw tensed. ‘That’s where we stop. We don’t move again till Cù Chaorach finds us.’ Her voice was brittle with anger. ‘And to hell with
Leonora’s orders.’

‘You’re looking good for a dead man.’

Sionnach laughed and hugged me. ‘Murlainn. You don’t change.’

‘It’s part of my charm.’ I clapped his scarred cheek lightly.

‘Where’s Cù Chaorach?’ The edge of impatience in Eili’s voice was like a honed blade.

‘Can’t locate him.’ Sionnach slewed his eyes away, angry and ashamed. He wasn’t accustomed to failure at tracking.

‘Cheer up,’ I said. ‘The atmosphere’s like a snowstorm for some reason. It’s all white noise. You know that.’

‘I know that. I don’t have to like it.’

I shrugged, uneasy myself. ‘Ach, he’ll be fine, Eili. You know Laszlo’s a challenge, even for our hero.’

Eili smiled tightly and turned away. I winked at Sionnach, and he grinned.

~ It’s true, Murlainn. He’ll be running rings round Laszlo.

I knew that. He was my brother, my captain. I trusted him not to die.
~ Your sister isn’t really worried either. We know why she wants him back.

Sionnach gave a sharp bark of laughter, earning a suspicious glower from his twin.

If Leonora was much closer to the sea she’d be sleeping on the beach, but at least we’d found a high patch of woodland and Torc had started to build a fire. Jed was watching him,
huddled into his thick jacket, but Finn stood apart, staring out at a broad strip of moon-frosted machair and the range of dunes beyond it. After that there was only the sea: I could smell it, and
the distant islands, and the woodsmoke of the fire, and the coarse cropped turf of the machair. I could almost smell the moonlight. Hairs rose on my neck, and suddenly I was in love with the world
again.

Feeling conciliatory, not to mention sorry for her, I sauntered up to where she was ripping sea-pinks savagely from a rocky outcrop. ‘You’re okay? You did fine back there.’

She shivered. I resisted the urge to put an arm round her shoulders.

‘That man. Cuthag.’

‘He scared you?’

Stupid question. She took her time answering it, and fair enough.

‘He didn’t scare me. He just...’

‘Walked on your grave.’

‘Danced on it, more like. Stamping down the earth. I could feel it.’

I was glad she couldn’t see my shiver. ‘He’s just a thug. Don’t sweat the small stuff, Dorsal. And he’s very small stuff.’

She wasn’t sweating. Very calm, very cool, she was. ‘And he’s representative, would you say? Cuthag?’

‘Dorsal, you make my flesh creep. Of some people round here, yes.’

‘What are you telling her?’ asked a voice behind me.

Gods, Leonora’s sudden appearances could still make my blood freeze. I hated that about her, among many other things. But I didn’t get a chance to snap back.

‘Why? What shouldn’t he be telling me?’

You know those places where the earth’s fire comes close to the surface? You can see the carapace cracking, feel the heat building. That’s the image that came into my head, and I
knew she would break one of these times. I hoped I wouldn’t be around when she did.

‘I don’t trust him to tell anything well.’ Casting me her witchiest glower, Leonora put an arm round the girl. It was the unthinking ease of love, and it riled the devil inside
me.

‘I don’t trust you to tell
anything
.’ I was so snagged in my own long-suppressed frustrations, I suppose, Finn’s didn’t register with me, though I could
sense the heat building, that compact little ball of fury that starts in the base of your spine and intensifies as it reaches the nape of your neck. I could feel an echo of it myself. But I was
angry too; angry enough to run off at the mouth. ‘Looks like I’ll have to tell Finn why she’s such a nonentity. Nobody else will.’

‘Seth!’ snapped Leonora. There was a touch of panic in her fury.

‘The Veil, Dorsal, is why nobody takes any notice of you. It’s a filter between you and the full-mortals. Not only are you so different you’re downright weird, you’re
instantly forgettable. And you always have been.’

Leonora pulled me round to face her, and gave me a stinging blow across the face.

Fair enough. I put my hand to the mark of hers, stunned into reason. Damn, the woman had a fierce strength, even now.

I waited to get a slap from Finn, too, but she only stood there, staring emptily at her grandmother.

‘Don’t bother slapping
him
,’ she whispered.

‘He had no right—’

‘Well, I do!’ she yelled. ‘I thought it was me. I thought I was a pointless person. I thought I was a nobody. I thought it was my fault!’

‘Finn, I’m...’

‘Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry,’ she hissed. ‘Because you don’t mean it.
Do you
?’

She couldn’t contain it any more. I should have seen it coming, we all should, because her eyes looked about to burn up, like boiling mercury. She let it rip, and the missile of fury
struck Leonora smack on the forehead.

Finn blinked and shouted with pain, clapping her hands over her eyes. Leonora stumbled forward to one knee, and I caught her arm to stop her hitting the ground. She looked shocked to her core,
but she didn’t look scared, and the pain in her eyes wasn’t all physical. Eili and Sionnach and Torc were running to us but they halted, silenced by shock. I watched Finn with
fascination.

She’d hurt Leonora, really hurt her. I wondered how she’d deal with that – how Leonora would, for that matter. She’d lashed out at me before – not quite so
effectively, I must admit – but never Leonora. What was it I’d said to Conal? That the Rooney girl was a start? Finn certainly seemed capable of worse. Right now, though, the cold fire
in her eyes was gone: all used up, and she looked too empty even for misery.

‘Well, thanks for taking that bullet, Leonora. Feel better now, Dorsal?’

Finn turned on me. ‘Like I could be bothered hurting you!’

‘Thanks for that sentiment, Dorsal.’

‘Stop calling her that, you
freak
!’

Jed’s fists were tightly balled and his teeth were clenched, but Eili’s sudden stillness was a lot more alarming than his fury. Oh, this was all going too far. I touched her arm,
shook my head at her.

‘Nah, Eili. It’s a... figure of speech. He’s not the mob type. He’s got a mind of his own in that hot little head. I expect he’s had to grow one, since his mother
lost hers.’

Whoa shit.

‘What?’

Jed’s expression froze only for a second. Then he lashed out, aiming a backhanded fist at my throat, and I had to arch back swiftly. Stumbling, Jed was caught and locked in
Sionnach’s arms, saved from falling but also stopped from taking another shot. He breathed high and hard, speechless.

Sionnach shook his head at me, bemused. ‘What is wrong with you?’

I could tell he really meant it, he really wanted to know.

‘Oh, sorry.’ I made myself meet Jed’s loathing eyes. ‘Finn told me about your mother. Sorry.’

Finn blinked. ‘But I—’

I turned on Finn and gave her a whiplash of the pain she was so quick to mete out. Not too much, but enough, because she had no idea how to block. She reeled back, stunned to silence, but kept
her footing. And when she stared at me, disbelieving, she shut up.

Sionnach’s grip loosened, and Jed shook him off. Finn put her face so close to mine, I could feel the hiss of her breath.

‘Tell me something.’ She could barely get the words out through her clenched teeth. ‘What was that man Cuthag talking about?’

I blinked, playing for time. ‘When?’

Everybody had found something fascinating on the ground again.

‘He said something about Conal. And farmers.’

‘Don’t take a word of what that tosser says—’

‘Seriously? But you did, Eili. And you.’ She glared at me. ‘What else don’t I know?’

Leonora licked her lips. ‘Conal is... ah, a fighter. A captain, Finn. He—’

‘He’s not the violent type!’

I couldn’t repress my snort of derision. Maybe I felt, for the first time in sixteen years, that I was repossessing Conal from her, just a little. And I know that was childish, and I
regretted it later. But to be honest, I was enjoying Leonora’s discomfiture, too.

She almost touched Finn’s shoulder, then thought better of it. ‘He’s the son of a violent man, Finn. It’s in his genes. Ancient, and close to the surface, and he
doesn’t like it himself, but it’s there. He’s had to do things – things he wouldn’t want to – have to – do.’

The girl said not a word. She was chewing her lip. Sometimes people do that to repress tears; not her. She seemed very thoughtful, and I could feel her crushed-down rage, like the bunched
muscles of a hungry kelpie.

Leonora turned on me, eyes glittering blue. ‘I’ll expect you to take Jed and Finn back as soon as the coast is clear.’

‘You can expect all you like, dearie. The only orders I’ll take are Eili’s, and I’ll only take those till Cù Chaorach gets here.’

‘Oy, listen!’ Jed’s fists were clenched, his face white. ‘I’ve got to get home, Tinker Be—’

I didn’t think; my hand shot out of its own accord, seizing him by the throat. It was practically a reflex, but I went with it anyway, and tightened my grip. He kicked and struggled for
breath, scrabbling at my wrist, but it was no effort to hold him fast.

I looked at my hand. Looked at his blood-suffused face and his bulging eyes and his juddering tongue. Hot damn. I was throttling Mila’s boy.

I made myself break my hold. He fell awkwardly back, and I stared at him, flexing my fingers. I don’t know what I was feeling; only that I was on the edge of my temper, all the time;
always starting to slide. I felt like an addict who couldn’t get his fix. Trouble was, I had no idea what my fix was.

I spat on the ground. ‘Don’t. Do it. Again.’

Jed wheezed in oxygen, clutching his throat. ‘Right.’

‘Because I know you’ve been dying to say it,’ I hissed. ‘But it’s really not worth it. Dying. To say it.’

‘I just. Meant. I need to. Get back. To my mum.’

‘Aye, well it’s complicated. We all wish your mothers would come and get you.’ The small devil nipped again. ‘Though Stella’s the kind of mother who doesn’t
go looking.’