Ama did not back down, and I was stunned at their familiarity with each other. “You have no rights here,” she said. “She is nothing of yours.”
“So you’d like to believe,” he said. His gaze turned back at me. “Look at her hair. The fierce gleam in her eye. She wants to kill us all. That is mine.” I could not mistake the pride in his voice. My stomach turned over, and my head ached. I felt my meal rise in my throat, the boar alive and gamey. My memory flashed with the whispers of Ama, Oni, and Nedra, the whispers that I had long denied. The truth.
I looked back at him, swallowing my disgust and shame. “You are nothing but an animal to me, same as the others.”
Steffan bolted toward me, spouting about lessons and my lack of respect, but Jafir stepped in front of him, knocking him to the side and advancing toward me in his place. He raised his arm, the back of his hand poised to strike me. “Hold your tongue, girl, unless you’d like me to cut it out.” He leaned close, his voice lowering to a growl. “Do you understand? Now, step back with the others.”
My eyes stung. Who was he? Not the Jafir I thought I knew. My vision blurred. “How could you do this?”
He glared at me, his face and chest glistening with sweat in the firelight. He smelled of horse, dirt, and deceit. “Step back,” he ordered again between gritted teeth.
I returned his glare. “I hate you, Jafir de Aldrid,” I whispered. “And I vow I’ll curse your name and hate you with my last dying breath.”
“Enough! Ride out!” Harik yelled, turning his horse around. “We have what we want.” And then at Ama, a pointed glare. “For now.”
They left, Jafir last of all, following on their heels.
Their departure was hasty and wild, just like their arrival, and Pata screamed, scrambling to avoid a horse charging in her direction. She fell, but the horses kept going. One stepped on her, crushing her leg. She writhed in pain, and we ran to her aid. Carys examined her and said the leg was badly broken. Six of us gently lifted and carried her to what was left of the longhouse and cleared a place among the scattered debris to lay her down. Carys began examining her leg as Oni whispered words of comfort into Pata’s ear.
Micah came running out of the darkness, dragging a bag behind him. “The last one dropped this! It slid from his saddle, and he didn’t even notice.”
“Then we may at least have something to be grateful for,” Ama said, as she took an inventory of what might be salvaged.
One bag of wild oats.
I would not be grateful for it! And I would never stay my hand again when a knife was in my reach.
Chapter Eighteen
Jafir
The revelry lasted late into the night. They piled the plunder in the lodge, ate what was left of the boar, and drank generously from Harik’s brew. Fergus was in high spirits, looking over the pile. “Our clan will leave tomorrow,” he said as if, with this much bounty, there would never be a better time. But Harik eyed the pile too. A hefty share was his. He and his men would stay the night, then head back to his fortress across the river in the morning. With the high water, it was too dangerous to cross at night. The water already lapped over its span.
I lay on my bedroll, staring up at the sky between the open rafters. Exhaustion raced through me. Every part of me had been tight and ready to pounce for hours. I’d done everything I could to lead them astray, even saying I had spotted fires in opposite directions. But when the strong smell of roasting boar wafted across our trail, there was no stopping them.
My muscles had coiled into knots, watching both Harik and Steffan, uncertain what they would do. Watching them all.
And then seeing Morrighan. Her eyes. Her expression.
I hate you, Jafir … I will hate you with my last dying breath.
I closed my eyes.
We were leaving. She’d be grateful for that. She would never have to see me again.
But I would always see her. Until I drew my last breath, it would always be her face I saw when I closed my eyes at night, and her face again when I woke each morning. I would force myself to forget the last words I heard from her lips. I would remember others.
I love you, Jafir de Aldrid. Words that, now, I was sure I had never deserved.
I finally fell asleep just before dawn and woke late. When I walked outside, Steffan was sprawled on the ground, passed out and straddling the doorway, still reeking of Harik’s brew. I stepped over him and saw Laurida and Glynis packing up belongings, tying many of them in the skins we had stolen last night. Down near the paddock, I saw others loading up horses with more goods.
“Fergus wants your help with the supplies down in the lodge,” Laurida told me. When I got there, he was alone, putting the supplies into stacks.
“Where are Harik and his men?” I asked.
“Gone.” Fergus didn’t look up, still consumed with the goods, his eyes heavy from little sleep.
I looked at the supplies. They were all still there. “Harik didn’t take his share?”