Nicole smiled. “You haven’t changed one bit.” She brushed passed him towards the bed and climbed in.

What’s gotten into her? thought Farris. Doesn’t she hate me?

Farris extinguished the torch, then sat on the edge of the bed.

“Do you still feel the same as you did before?” he said. “About this journey?”

“You need to sleep, Farris. We’re climbing a mountain tomorrow, remember?”

He sighed and lay down next to her, pulling the covers over both of them. He lay on his back at first, staring into the darkness, until Nicole shimmied towards him. She took his arm and put it over her shoulder, forcing him to face her. She pressed her back against his chest.

“No,” she whispered. “I’m glad you decided to go. And even gladder that I joined too.”

“What changed your mind?”

“You did.” She caressed his arm, making each hair stand on end. “I meant why I said, the night before we left. That the immortal… lad doesn’t need protecting.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I wanted to protect you. I wanted to convince you not to come. And when I saw there was no changing that stubborn mind of yours, I knew what I had to do.”

“You didn’t have to do anything.”

“No, you were the one with the choice. Not me. And each day, it’s looking more and more like you made the right one. I don’t know how you do it. In Hunter’s Den, Aislinn told me about your plan back in Penance. How you refused to choose between starving an army or starving civilians, and went to Point Grey to make sure none had to. You’ve always been one to see right through a problem to find a solution no one else could. It’s admirable.”

A breath caught in Farris’s throat. “It wasn’t admirable.”

“Of course, it was! All that food would have gone to waste there, while the people of Penance would have gone hungry.”

“There was a… family.” Farris’s voice cracked. “A… a family. In….”

Nicole’s delicate stroking of Farris’s arm came to an abrupt halt. “No….”

“F-farmers,” spluttered Farris. Tears came streaming forth, and he could not hold them back. “There were children, and we —”

“Shhh,” hushed Nicole. She grasped Farris’s arm. “You had no choice.”

“They had no choice. We ordered them from… from their home. And one….”

Nicole pressed Farris’s arm against her lips. The warmth of her breath soothed the fear that raged through his body. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay now.”

Farris closed his eyes tight, so tight that blurred colours formed in his vision. But those blurs took the shape of the young lad in the rafters. The one who tried to defend his family. The one Farris had killed.

Like a fever, a trembling anxiety took hold of his chest. He was openly sobbing now, in front of another person, but his fear was so great now he no longer cared who saw him. So many memories surfaced in that moment. The other starving Simians growing up in the Dustworks. Fistfights and scraps that got out of hand between rival gangs. The traitors of the Thieves Guild he killed in Penance. The lies he told King Diarmuid. Chester the Lucky floating down the canal. The Glory of Penance crashing out of the sky. The beadhbhs of the Glenn that preyed on the survivors of the wreck. The troll in the Clifflands. The horde in Penance. Morrígan opening the ground at Dromán to swallow the army of the Triad. All Farris wanted to do was close his eyes, so he would not have to see these memories again, but his eyes were already shut tight, and there was no escape. Only a voice, a soothing voice telling him that everything was going to be okay, over and over again, quelled the storm. As he focused on her voice, and the touch of her hand on his arm, Farris’s heartbeat slowed, and his breaths grew longer and full. His mind turned its attention away from those terrible memories to the Simian lying next to him, hushing him, soothing him, like a mother would a child. Something Farris had never felt before.

As if realising her effect, Nicole went quiet, and the two lay there in silence. His breathing matched hers, both chests rising and falling together. Farris’s mind relaxed now, idle thoughts winding through it. All of his attention remained fixed firmly on his heartbeat, beating loud, yet slow, and tranquil. In the silence, he could even hear Nicole’s heart beating too, sharing the same rhythm as his own.

Some time passed, and Farris found sleep setting in. But just as he was about to give in fully to slumber, Nicole whispered something. Three words Farris had never heard whispered before. Three words surely no sane Simian had ever said. Farris’s eyes remained closed as she said whatever she said, for he was sure she had misspoken. Or maybe he had misheard. Perhaps she had been asleep and spoke in the way that nonsense mutterings sometimes escape the lips of those deep in dreams. He considered saying something. He considered waking her up. For a maddening second, he considered saying those same three words back to her. But he could not bring himself to, for they were Human words for Human hearts. How foolish it would be, he thought, if he had misheard, or she had misspoken, and he was to say them back?

Hadn’t she scolded him before for acting too much like a Human? Surely it was more likely, Farris reckoned, that she had not said those words, and that he had just wanted to hear them so badly he imagined it.

Part of him pondered on the small chance he had heard her correctly, and she really did mean it, which would allow him to say those words back to her and really mean it too.

But the odds of that, he reasoned, were so infinitesimal that he may as well not even consider it a possibility at all.

No, it was far easier for Farris to pretend he was asleep and say nothing. This he did, and continued to do so, for the rest of the night.

Chapter 17:

As It Was Written

After a terrible journey through the Godspine, we have arrived in Rosca Umhír. This place is a welcome most warm, compared to what we came through to get here.

As we arrived, Lady Carríga said—

Journal of Padraig Tuathil, 22^nd Day under the Moon of Nes, AC404

***

Fionn found himself in an unfamiliar place. He looked out a tall tower, over a dark and still landscape. The breeze from outside brushed cold upon his cheeks.

Where am I? he thought, moving towards the window, which opened over the roof of an adjacent tower, its peak was lower than the one he stood in.

He looked outside.

There, sitting on the edge of the roof of the lower tower, was Morrígan. She turned to look at Fionn, then gave a knowing, malicious grin.

***

Abruptly, Fionn awoke. Beads of sweat ran down his brow, and heat pulsed through his body like he had a fever. He glanced around the room, confirming that he was indeed back in his bed chambers in Keep Carríga.

What was that dream? Where was I?

You were looking out from the Northern Tower, lad!

Fionn gasped. Sir Bearach! You’re back! I thought you were dead!

It doesn’t matter what I was, she’s there. The tower from your dream is here in Keep Carríga. Go, lad! Go!

Without hesitation, Fionn obeyed the dead knight. He leapt out of bed and threw a cloak on over his underclothes without fastening its strings.

He ran out into the empty hallway, stepping from cold, damp stone to a dusty carpet that ran through the centre of the floor.

Fionn realised that he had no idea where to go.

Left! roared sir Bearach. Past the study!

Doing as he was told, Fionn bolted across the hall, lighting a Pyromancer’s torch to illuminate the way. He paid little mind to the portraits and coats of arms that rushed past.

Door here, to the right!

Fionn stopped in his tracks and pushed through an old wooden door. It revealed itself to be partway up a spiral, stone staircase.