breath slices through the air between us. I watch her struggle with the memory, not knowing what to do. Wishing I knew what to do. “Don’t come near me.”
Drip. Drip. Oh god, blood from her closed fists hits the rocks by her feet. Drip. Drip.
I grasp her arms. The blood drips onto the rocks so fast now, streaming through her hands. “Aithinne.”
Aithinne stares at me. “I’m fine.” Her expression has gone cold, emotionless, and shut off. “It doesn’t hurt,” she says mechanically, as if she’s repeated it every day of her life. It doesn’t hurt, I remember her whispering on the trail. Her mantra.
I stare at her dumbly for a moment, then take her hands and pry her fingers open. I can’t help flinching at the sight. Her palm is marred with half-moon marks, dug so deep that the flesh is peeling away. Blood pools there, so dark against her pale skin.
As I watch, the skin begins to heal, leaving nothing but blood behind. “It always heals,” she tells me in that awful dead voice. “See? It always heals.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. I know from experience the lies we tell to comfort ourselves, to comfort others, so others never realize how broken we really are.
My scars are all on the outside; what I went through is bared for the world to see. Aithinne’s scars are so well hidden that she fooled me.
The truth is, memories weigh a great deal. Each one bends your bones a little more until the heft of them wears you down. Now I know that some scars go so deep that they never fade.
CHAPTER 12
LONG AFTER nightfall, we are far beyond the limits of the city. We walk through overgrown grass in fields that were once prosperous farmland. In winter, the land outside Edinburgh would always be bare, ready to be tilled before the growing season.
I remember how ravens would gather in the soil, all black flapping wings and sharp laughter. Now the rapeseed and weeds are so unkempt that they reach my hips. No animals rustle through the fields; it’s quiet around us but for the soft patter of rain.
I follow Aithinne’s steps carefully. The only light in the field is from the moon peeking through the thick rain clouds overhead. Its halo burns through the clouds, tinged a rust red. I try not to think of how seeing it like that reminds me so much of the battle, of saying my goodbyes to those I loved.
I never thought I would be responsible for . . . this. All of this. Before the battle I tried not to think too much about what the human realm would be like if I lost. I always assumed I would never live to see a world taken over by the fae. That I would die before I let that happen.
You sacrificed my realm to save yours.
My chest tightens. Stop thinking about it, I tell myself. Keep going. One foot forward. Now the other. That’s how I hold it all back, every ounce of regret. One step and then another, over and over again.
Aithinne pauses for a moment, brushing her fingers along the tops of the weeds. She’s been so quiet since the river. She washed the blood off her hands and hasn’t spoken to me since. Now she has her head tilted as if she’s listening for something. It’s so dark I can’t make out her expression. She breathes deeply once, twice.
Her voice startles me. “Just up ahead.”
Before I can ask her anything, she’s starting forward again, her steps quick. I follow her, wading through the tall grass. There’s nothing in front of us but fog, so thick around us that the moisture presses against my skin, my face, dripping down my eyelashes. I can barely see more than a few steps in front of us.
Something is silhouetted in the fog, three figures in the dark—animals. Horses? Once I notice the light that emanates from them, I stop abruptly.
The faery horses are as beautiful now as they were the night the fae army rode into Edinburgh. They are alight from within, the metal that holds them together so soft and delicate it’s slightly transparent. Beneath it, glowing golden blood races through thick veins around mechanical pieces that tick tick tick gently inside. Ensconced within is a real horse’s heart that beats in a steady rhythm. The horses breathe together, thick smoke streaming from their nostrils and across the dark grass.
The night of the battle, my first