6.

EMERÍANN

 

I’m lying on the hard mattress with one arm draped across my eyes when I hear the door creak open. I tighten my grip on the knife I keep strapped against my calf, now hidden under my back. Someone steps inside my cell. I wait for them to approach me, get close enough that I can jump to my feet and slice their throat all in one motion. But they stay near the door.

“If that’s your knife you’ve got behind your back,” that cunt Brighid says, “know that there are three armed soldiers right behind me. You’ll be ribbons before you can stand.”

I debate calling her bluff and charging her, but I can hear other feet scrabbling near my cell.

“What do you want?” I say, not bothering to move my arm.

“To apologize for the condition of the cell. We’re preparing better accommodations for you, but they’re not ready yet.”

I let go of my knife and pop up to my feet, blood pounding inside my fists. I quickly see she wasn’t joking: the three soldiers point their rifles at me. I stay in place, jaw clenched, wanting so bad to just hit something.

“That is what you want to apologize for? This cell?” I gesture out, my hands needing something, anything, to occupy them. “What about what happened out there? Beheading your father. Destroying our chance at being free. Ruining all the work we’ve done the last six months, making all the people who died for us to live freely die for nothing.” My voice rises with every word, and despite the soldiers’ fingers getting twitchier as I shout at Brighid, I can’t get myself to stop. “Hell, what about riding in here like our savior and fighting alongside us when you were lying to us the entire time? How about you apologize for any of that? That’s what I’m upset about, not how hard my goddamned mattress is.”

Brighid stares at me for a long minute, and with every tick I expect her to give the signal for them to execute me. I could have died a number of times during the uprising but skirted around it at each pass. At least this way it will be quick and painless.

She raises her hand. I close my eyes.

“She’s just upset,” Brighid says to the soldiers. “Understandably so.”

I inhale through my nose, breathe out my lips.

“Lower your weapons,” she says.

I open my eyes and no longer have a target on my chest.

“Leave us a minute.” She says it without looking at them.

“Ma’am,” one of the soldiers starts.

“I said leave.”

“Ma’am, she’s armed.”

Still Brighid won’t break eye contact with me.

“She won’t use it,” she says to them, then to me, “will she?”

I don’t give any response, which I guess is a response in itself. The soldiers don’t like it, but after a moment they relent and leave us. Brighid steps forward. My fingers curl behind my back, like they’re seeking out the knife. It’s tempting, but before I could grab it, she would likely jump me and gut me with my own knife or call for the soldiers.

“I do apologize for those things too,” Brighid says. “Just so you know.”

“You’ll understand if your word means shit to me, right? You sold us out. You betrayed us.”

“I can see why you feel that way. But you have to understand where I’m coming from.”

“Hell?”

She smirks. “It really was a privilege fighting with you. I wasn’t lying about that.”

“I guess that’s the only thing,” I spit. “Where is Henraek? Is he alive? Is he safe?”

“He’s very alive and very safe. Donael and Cobb are with him.”

“Where are they? I need to see them.”

“Henraek was needed for important business in Vårgmannskjør.”

“In Vårgmannskjør? What business?”

She cocks her head. “The important kind.”

“You should’ve come to Eitan earlier,” I tell her. “You were born to be a politician.”

“No, I was born to be a savior, to save Eitan from Daghda,” she says, her voice dead serious. “There are so many things you don’t understand about my father. I spent years following him, moving from small villages to enormous cities. I’ve traveled across every continent, through more countries than I can remember. I’ve seen palaces with rooms people have never even entered, and I’ve crept through slums where children skewer rats and roast them over the smoldering rubble of a bombed house.”

“Why are you telling me this? You think you know tragedy better than we do?”

“Our destinies rode on the wind and took us to whatever political leader, businessman, warlord, or gangster would pay my father the most money to kill someone. If you asked me how many heads I’ve seen explode from one of his bullets, I couldn’t even tell you. I’ve lost count. And you know what I learned through all that?” She takes a step toward me. “There are only two people my father thinks about.”

“Who, you and him?”

“No,” she says. “Himself. And Fannae Morrigan.”

I’m surprised by the name.

“He never forgave her. After all he did to save Eitan from those vulture resource companies, she tossed him aside, discarded like garbage, the same thing the companies would do to the land once it had been fully harvested. He didn’t kill for money, he killed to salve his wounds. The only thing that let him wake up every morning was the possibility of revenge.”

“I’d want to kill her too if I was him.”

Brighid breathes out something like a laugh. “Not revenge on her. He wanted revenge on Eitan. For abandoning him. For not avenging him.” She pulls closer to me. “For forgetting him.”

I swallow hard and realize my hands are shaking.

“We were in the far east when he heard there was a defector from the Tathadann meeting with Ødven. We took three boats and traveled for a week to get to Vårgmannskjør so we could meet the defector in person.” She shakes her head. “He was creepy, only had one eye.”

That description sounds familiar but I can’t place it. I wonder if Henraek knows him.

“My father aligned himself with Ragjarøn because they had the firepower and the numbers to crush Eitan. His plan was to return, destroy Fannae and the Tathadann, then burn the city to the ground. Payback for what he saw as slighting him.” She throws her hands out to the side. “That was your savior. A weak and petty man.”

“So why didn’t he?”

“Because Ødven and I stopped him. Ødven’s more of a…” She gestures absently. “He’s a forward thinker. He sees possibilities where others see restrictions. The way we looked at it, we could draw on the resources and technology in Vårgmannskjør to get Eitan back on its feet. Before Ardu Oéann can be autonomous, we need to be stable. This region is volatile enough. We need a steady hand here, and Ødven’s providing that.”

“We’re supposed to venerate him now?”

“No, just thank him.” She gives a smile that could cut glass. “So yes, I am sorry for the condition of the cell. But no, I’m not the least bit sorry for the patricide.”

She turns to leave but I can’t help myself.

“I don’t care about your daddy issues. You betrayed us,” I say. “But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. All the Morrigans do is lie and steal.”

She whirls around and stomps toward me, then before I even see her hand move there’s a sharp crack and my face is on fire. She whips her hand again and backhands me across the other side of my face. I don’t press my hand against it, refusing to give her the satisfaction. I taste blood in my mouth and spit it on the ground.

“Let’s get something sorted right now because you will never make that mistake again. I will gut you before you blaspheme me with that name.” Her hand shoots out and grapples my throat, tight enough that I feel the blood pound in my temples but not so tight that I can’t breathe. “My mother was a Tobeigh. I am a Tobeigh. My father’s name is a mark of shame but one I will bear witness to. I am not a Morrigan. I am a Tobeigh.”

She pushes me to the back of my cell, the imprints of her fingers still throbbing on my neck.

“By the time we’re done with our work here, every nation will know the name Tobeigh. They will respect it. And that starts right here,” she says, pointing at the ground. “And right now.”