Heart of the Fae (The Otherworld #1)(111)

“How am I supposed to heal them?” Her eyes were so dry she couldn’t even blink. “He was the answer to finding a cure, and now he’s gone.”

“I’m certain you will find a way. You always have.”

“Is he really gone? Am I never going back to that wondrous isle full of faeries that I love dearly?”

“Do you think they’ll still be there?”

“I want them to be. I don’t want there to be a war and all that death. Bran, how can I stop it?”

The hands holding hers disappeared. Cold air rushed around her body, stealing the breath from her lungs. She glanced up and found that she was alone.

The sun rose into the sky far above her by the time she found the courage to stand. Her knees shook. Her body trembled. Her lungs gasped for air, and still she did not feel like a person.

Pain should ground her body. It should remind her that she was alive. It didn’t.

“Home,” she breathed. “I want to go home.”

She didn’t know where home was anymore.

The landscape became more recognizable the more she stared. These fields were ones she knew like the back of her hand. Sorcha stumbled as she moved, but at least she was moving.

Each step brought her closer and closer towards the haven she remembered in her mind. A small home, quaint, three stories of stone and wood and laughter.

Gods, how she needed the laughter.

Stones crunched beneath her feet, digging into the calloused flesh until she bled. She remembered vividly another time when her feet were aching. Sorcha had dragged herself throughout the known world, only to return to this place.

Chickens clucked. The air smelled sweet, like fresh baked bread and sticky honey. Sorcha stood on the rise of the hill beyond the brothel.

She inhaled again and trembled. The smell of bread turned stale, honey turned sickly sweet, and the scent of death made her vision blur.

There were boards over the windows of the brothel. Nailed crudely from the outside, locking her family within. The side door that lead to the chicken coop was also boarded shut, and the chickens were living out in the wild.

“No,” she moaned on a trembling wheeze. “No, please no more.”

The tears came like a wave crashing over her head. She fell onto her knees and crawled to her family home, unable to stand but needing to help them.

She knew the painted markers on the windows. A red beetle, haphazardly painted as if the artist wanted to flee the area as fast as he could. Smart man. The blood beetle plague was apt to spread if they took to the air.

Sorcha didn’t care. She didn’t want her family to die alone, and she would not allow them to die if she could.

Like an old woman, she pulled herself up onto the fencing and stared at the stone walls. Flashes of anger, old and buried deep, fueled her.

She stepped forward. Each simple movement so difficult that she seemed to have forgotten how to walk. Step by step, shift by shift, she lifted foot and flexed thigh until she pressed her hands against the boards covering the door.

The wood bit into her forehead as she leaned against it, but she did not feel the pain. They were in there. The beat of their hearts called out to her.

“Rosaleen,” she whispered. “Briana, Papa… Anyone.”

She didn’t know how long she stayed there, hovering between life and death, choice and silence. Heat spread over her body, wrapping around her waist. It almost felt like arms holding her against a solid chest and breathing life into her body.

Healing would take time. But courage, strength, honor, these were things that had always been deeply embedded in her soul.

Sorcha lifted her head and yanked hard at the boards.

“Briana!” she shouted. “Let me in!”

She threw her weight into releasing the nails. Each harsh jerk wrenched her shoulders but the first board tore free. She continued to screech and shout, banging against the barrier that kept her from her family.

Finally, a voice came from the other side. Weak, but wonderful to hear. “Sorcha?”

“Yes, yes, Rosaleen it’s me! I’m coming in.”

“Don’t come in!” Her sister coughed. “It’s not safe.”

“I’m coming in whether you want me to or not. What happened?”

“We got sick.”

“Is Papa alive?”

“Barely.”

“Is anyone dead?”

“No.”

Sorcha sobbed out a breath of relief. “Good. That’s very good, now I’m going to pull at this last board and then I’m going to come in.”

“You can’t. You’ll get sick too.”

“Are the beetles still flying?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t get sick. I won’t let you or anyone else die.”

She wrenched the last board free and grasped the door knob. It wouldn’t turn.

“Rosaleen,” she groaned. “Unlock the door.”

“I’m not letting you die for me.”

“I won’t die for anyone.”

“You left us.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I was trying to find a cure and failed.” Sorcha’s throat closed and her voice turned hoarse. “Let me help you. Please, give me a purpose again. I promise that I will do nothing other than heal you.”