A Spell for Heartsickness (The Rune Tithe #1)

CHAPTER 26

T he ferry docked at Bán Cuain, a fishing village neighboring Coill Darragh. Briar had seen it when he’d flown in. The houses were painted to brighten cold, gray winters. The air smelled of brine. Morning sun shone, but the brisk April wind stole its heat.

He stood with his back to the crowd, looking out to sea. The water lapped at the wood posts, where barnacles and algae clung. He wondered why this bay wasn’t a hotbed for magic to siphon off, like Coill Darragh. Then he remembered the squadrons of fishing vessels on the opposite shore, waiting like an army, and figured that had something to do with it. The wards preserved Coill Darragh’s purity against invaders.

Something was missing from it all. Briar thought of Gretchen rolling off the edge of a roof. He thought of éibhear giving his life and cursing his son to stop an invasion of witches from destroying their home, his people. Kenneth, dead, but the effects of his actions echoing. All this set in motion ten years ago, and Briar found himself at the center with no clue how to stop it.

He breathed deep the sea air. On his shoulder, Vatii startled and looked behind them.

“It’s a good day for sailing.”

Briar whirled. Standing on the pier, the scarf Briar made for him wound several times around his broad shoulders, was Rowan, looking breathless and scared like he’d run there. He took a cautious step forward.

“I’ve never been sailing,” Briar said. “Used to live in a town just like this, but we—well.”

Rowan said, “I’d take you sometime.”

Briar thought of his mother, and how she’d have liked that for him. “You came to say goodbye after all.”

“No,” Rowan answered. “I came to tell you something. Something I should have said ages back. And probably you know already. I’ve not hidden it well. But I’ve not said it out loud and it’s been a weighty curse to keep it from you so…”

Briar couldn’t bring himself to speak, throat stoppered. The yearning to hear what Rowan came to say warred with the need to set foot on a ferry bound for another shore, a different future. Rowan’s jaw firmed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. It looked like he might say nothing at all, like the words were lead, too heavy to summon.

When he did speak, it stole all the sound, all the air from the pier.

“It was never casual for me.” The words knocked Briar in the chest, but Rowan continued. “I tried to pretend that it was, but it wasn’t. I’ve feelings for you. I’ve had them a while, but been too afraid to tell you in case you didn’t feel the same, or I scared you off, but I’m telling you now because if I don’t, then I’ll always wonder. And I know it’s a terrible time. I’m feckin’ terrified of what’s happening to you. To us both. So if it’s not the same for you, then I promise you I’ll not ever mention it again. I’ll go on being your friend and won’t ever bring it up because I don’t want you to feel this is all that matters to me, ’cause it’s not. You’ve been a good friend to me, and I’d not ruin that for anything, but I had to tell you the whole of it. That I’m mad about you. You’re bold and brave, and you’ve made me braver, too. Brave enough to say this. That I love you. I love you something fierce.”

He opened his clenched fist. In his open palm sat not the claddagh, but the engagement ring. He’d held it so tightly that it left indents in his skin.

It was never casual for me.

Never, in all the time he’d known Rowan, had Briar ever heard the man speak so much at once. The monumental effort it had taken to summon the words weighed heavy as unbroken storm clouds between them. Despite the cool weather, sweat beaded on Rowan’s brow, and he breathed hard, awaiting an answer.

Briar wet his lips and opened them, but no sound followed. Despair was a physical thing, and he choked on it. He couldn’t say the one thing he’d longed to ever since that kiss in the snow.

What he said instead was, “He has the cure.”

Rowan said, “Pardon?”

“Linden. He has the cure.”

Slack-jawed relief bloomed on Rowan’s face, followed slowly by confusion. “That’s good news, isn’t it? Wait, hasn’t he given it to you?”

“He said he needs his resources in Pentawynn to prepare it.” Briar swallowed the lump in his throat. “And that he wanted to give it to me as an engagement present.”

“Engagement—”

“We have one show, and he’ll propose and cure me. It’ll be fine,” Briar babbled, meaning none of it.

Rowan’s tone grew suspicious, angry. “And if you didn’t want to marry him? What then?”

Rowan’s guesses cut too close to the quick. Regret that he’d let the truth out was a sour sting as Briar bit his tongue and tasted the ever-present, lingering fume of his potions. “It isn’t—”

“How much would it cost?”

“Too much.”

“We’ll pool together, all of us. I’m sure the whole town would help, if we asked.”

That struck a well-worn chord in Briar. He couldn’t name the emotions bursting out of him, but the words that did were lies he’d told himself over and over. “I have to do this on my own.”

“Why?” Rowan said. “Why’s he charging you if he cares for you? Money or marriage, he won’t just cure you because he loves you? If he’s blackmailing you—I’ll get a ticket myself and come with you, convince him to do right by you. You deserve that choice!”

If Rowan had hit the chord before, he’d jammed a nail through it then.

“Stop!” Briar shouted. “Just stop…”

Rowan’s anger melted and came apart like a snowflake fallen on a bare palm. He spoke in broken syllables. “Do you love him?”

It was as much a question as a dare.

And what could Briar say in answer?

No, but I can’t see a way to save us that doesn’t involve tying myself to this man I thought I could love but who, now, in this moment, I loathe more than words can say.

No, I love you too, but there’s no future for us that doesn’t end in death.

The prophetic magic tied his tongue, but whatever he could say, the results would be the same. And perhaps the easiest thing, the kindest thing, would be to make Rowan hate him. So there was no room left to hope for the impossible. He blinked the sting from his eyes and summoned words he didn’t mean. The only ones he thought would make Rowan relent.

“I’m sorry. I love Linden. It was never like that for us. This is what I want. It’s…” He barely got the words out. “It’s all I wanted from the start.”

Grief cut across Rowan’s face like a physical blow. His normally immutable features had worn a look of open entreaty all this time. Now, his brows pinched together, his jaw went slack, and his eyes flitted over Briar, over the ground, skipping across the waves and water, back to Briar. Searching. Probably for the future Briar had just cast away. Almost imperceptibly, Rowan shook his head in disbelief. A twitching, indecisive movement.

“You can’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“Everything between us? It wasn’t just…”

Briar’s Adam’s apple felt like an iron lump bobbing in his throat. He couldn’t say that it was foretold. That Seer Niamh had said so. “This is how it’s meant to be.”

It was horrible to watch Rowan’s conviction shatter. He believed it, and why shouldn’t he? Briar had never lied to him before. Still, he could hardly hold steady at the stricken look Rowan fixed him with, at the way his aura went cold like tea left forgotten, like a long winter that stole too much time from spring.

Briar’s eyes burned, and his throat constricted so hard he thought he’d come apart.

“Oh—” said Rowan. “Oh. I thought… I— Goodbye.”

His voice cracked so the last word came out cloven in two. Already, he moved to pass, in such a rush to be away that his shoulder clipped Briar’s. It was not this, but the pang in his chest that sent Briar reeling back a half step. Every bit of distance put between them tugged and tore him in that direction. He listened to Rowan’s boots tramp up the dock. With one hand, he pressed at his sternum, as if he could reach inside and pinch closed the open seams of his broken heart. Smooth over the cracks like clay.

Rowan’s footsteps faded. Briar stood, paralyzed.

Vatii nuzzled his cheek.

The horn of the ferry blew.

“Briar?” Vatii whispered. Her worry made the melancholy prick painfully behind his eyes.

He had to go.

Briar navigated up the ramp to the ferry, weaving through threads of tourists, avoiding eye contact for fear they’d see how distraught he was and ask the dreaded question, Oh, are you all right?

He didn’t want anyone to ask because the answer was no . And, I don’t think I’ll ever be .

He found a vacant spot on the sunless side of the ferry, where the wind and the cool shade had everyone scattering for warmer views. Briar curled up on a bench, buried his face in his knees, and let the flood of tears overwhelm him where no one could see. Once the first sobs broke, it was impossible to stop them, sucked under, shoulders heaving. His vision darkened as Vatii extended a wing over his head to conceal him from anyone passing by.

He thought, I’ll be okay. I won’t learn to love Linden, but I’ll get to live in Pentawynn, show at the runways I’ve always dreamed of. Time heals all wounds, so maybe in a year or two, it won’t hurt like this.

But it hurt now.

Knees soaked in tears, he looked up when Vatii’s wing retracted and she pecked at his hair.

“Briar, look.”

Over the rail of the ferry, he could see the houses of Bán Cuain with their bright colors like a painter’s palette smeared across the horizon. The docks were a dark strip stretching into the water. On them, at the end, was a figure too tall and broad to be anyone else.

Briar went to the rail. Wind whipped the tears off his cheeks to join the salt spray against the ferry’s flanks. The figure on the docks didn’t wave or move, or do much more than watch him go. It tugged at Briar so hard he thought he would pitch over if he didn’t hold on to the rail.

Love was a burning brand in his chest.

He wanted to say it. No one could hear anyway. Not Rowan, not the people milling on the ferry, not even Vatii if he said it quietly. The roar of the wind, water, and the ferry’s engine would steal the words if he voiced them.

But he didn’t.