Heart of the Fae (The Otherworld #1)(87)

“And you stayed true to the old ways?”

The kelpie snorted on her hand and turned to provide its back. She knew what it wanted and shook her head. “No, my friend. I have no wish to visit the land beneath the waves. Go back with the others.”

Sorcha patted the broad back and made her way towards the flat rocks Stone sat upon. The water had yet to splash them although it wouldn’t have mattered. Water already weighed her dress down.

Shivering, she tucked the edges of his cloak underneath her legs. “My mother followed the old ways. She taught me how important it was to leave milk on the windowsill, offerings at the hidden forest shrines, and to always respect the way of the Fae.”

“Smart woman,” Stone said. His eyes remained trained upon the kelpies rooting through the pool’s still waters. “Would that others listened to her wisdom.”

“They thought she was a witch because strange things happened around her. Faeries helped when they could. I don’t think they meant to make her seem suspicious or strange, they just wanted to help.”

“What happened to her?”

Sorcha shivered again, placed her chin onto her knees, and sighed. “They burned her at the stake for worshiping devils. It took her nearly an hour to burn because it was so misty that they had to keep lighting the pyre over and over again. I was lucky they didn’t feel like burning a child that day.”

His bright eyes locked upon hers. “They burned a favored of the Fae?”

“I don’t think she was favored. Just one who recognized that our world would never be the same if she gave up on her beliefs.”

“And for that, they burned her.” Stone shook his head. “Your people are barbarians.”

“There is kindness in even the darkest of places. My father plucked me from my village and brought me home. He took me as a daughter, told his children that I was their equal. People such as him exist, but it is so easy to focus on the bad.”

Stone grunted. “You have a unique way of looking at the world.”

“How so?”

“You twist even negative things into positives. You refuse to think ill of anyone, even those who have wronged you. I have never seen such a creature.”

Sorcha shifted, mist playing across her face in small ice cold pricks. “And you? How would you have dealt with a dead mother and a people who betrayed you?”

He reacted as if struck. His gaze snapped away from hers, fists clenching in sudden anger. The muscles of his jaw worked. “Revenge.”

“Revenge?” Sorcha shook her head. “What good would that do?”

“I find wiping out those who have wronged you tends to soothe the soul.”

“It cannot soothe the soul in the slightest and even suggesting so is cruel. The implications of revenge are that no mercy will be shown.”

“Would you show mercy to those who killed your mother?”

“You have experience with this,” she said. Her eyes searched his for the truth and found a lingering pain she recognized. “What happened to you?”

“The Fae are not kind creatures. We do not allow for weakness to show among our people.”

“The brownies accepted Boggart back into their family with arms open wide. Even after she fell from their ranks and returned with her tail, quite literally, between her legs. Tell me again, Stone, that your people do not allow for weakness.”

The ragged sigh that rocked his shoulders tugged at her heartstrings. “The Tuatha dé Danann do not allow for weakness. The lesser Fae are far more…” He paused, seeming to struggle for the words.

“Kind.”

“Kind,” he repeated with a nod. “Yes, they are capable of forgiveness, which is more than I can say of my people.”

“Can they really not forgive? Or do they choose not to?”

His hand touched the angry wound of crystals that wrapped around his neck. “I do not have an answer for that question, Sorcha.”

She couldn’t stop staring at his throat. The markings were too familiar, yet she couldn’t pinpoint what might have caused such a wound. She had seen a man nearly decapitated once, his family had brought him to her in hopes that she might help. There hadn’t been any possible way for her to bring him back. But these markings weren’t that.

A memory surfaced of bright red skin, bruises spread in spidery tendrils, and the vacant eyes of a thief who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sorcha had been too young to understand that the hanged man was dead. She ran through the crowd and tried to help him stand up. The gasps of the crowd would always haunt her, even more so than the dead eyes of the man.

She rose onto her knees, turning towards Stone with her gaze locked upon his neck. She gave him time to back away, to brush her hand aside, to tell her to stop.

He didn’t.

Her fingers settled upon the cool surface of the crystals. The ones here were smoother than the others, like the polished gems of a crown. She dipped her fingers into the crevice. Magic, so cold it burned, tingled underneath her nails as she followed the angry line to the back of his neck.

“This was among the first,” she whispered.

“How did you know?”

“The stones feel old.”

“Worn down by time and the elements.”

“They hanged you,” she observed. “I recognize these marks, although I didn’t piece it together until now. How did you survive?”