She wanted to grab the words back as soon as she’d said them. It was the type of thing she would have said before the wishes, always trying to get Gavran to confess some feeling for her beyond a brotherly affection and giving him opportunities he never took. Hadn’t she just told herself they were past that?
She smoothed the strands of her hair whipped loose by the wind and their run through the woods. “What I mean is that if we don’t defeat the nuckalevee, Lady MacDonald can’t help us find a cure for the wishes. I’m the one who stands the most to gain, so I should be the one to lose something in return.”
“Haven’t you lost enough?” The lines in Gavran’s forehead deepened. “Let me give something up for you.”
Her breath suddenly seemed thick in her lungs, like trying to breathe pudding. “You’ve given up plenty. You just don’t remember most of it.”
Gavran clasped her upper arms and stared down into her eyes. “Do you have to argue with everything I say?”
For a second, she allowed herself to pretend none of this had ever happened. That they were standing in the woods near home, arguing over whether Gavran would chop wood for them or she’d continue collecting sticks. She stamped down on the flutters in her belly, crushing the life from them. Treacherous body.
She ducked away from his touch. He insisted he be the one to sever a part of his flesh, and she refused to take it. They’d reached an impasse.
She kicked at a nearby rock, missed, and smashed her toe into the ground. Pain shot up her foot, and she cried out.
Gavran frowned. “What did you do?”
“Stubbed my toe again. You’d think I’d have learned not to kick at rocks by now with all my battered toes.” She jerked her head up. That was it. “A toe. We could cut off a toe.”
Gavran had his lips pressed into a firm martyr’s line. “We don’t know that will be enough.”
“But if it’s not, I’ve only lost a toe, the littlest one.”
“It’ll be my toe.” His eyes turned vulnerable, almost pleading. “I want to do this for you. I might not have anything to prove to you, but I still have something to prove to myself.”
Gavran couldn’t have known it was the same look he’d worn the day Davina shattered her knee, when he came for her in the middle of the afternoon and begged her to help them.
The day she’d abandoned her work repairing their fishing nets and went with Gavran, even with her dadaidh, too drunk to walk, screaming after her that she took better care of strangers than of her own kin and it’d be her fault when they had nothing to sell at market.
The day she’d spent the night caring for Davina and returned home at dawn to have her dadaidh take a rod to her back for being a whore and swear that he’d never let Gavran Anderson have her even if he begged and offered their whole herd in exchange.
If Gavran had given her that look and asked her to run away with him, she would have stolen her brother in the night and gone. But he never asked.
Instead, he asked that she allow him to be the one to cut off his toe.
And, even now, when he gave her that look, she couldn’t tell him no.
Chapter 26
The guard door slammed in their faces.
Ceana planted her hands on her hips. With the day part gone, the guards at the gate were the ones who’d been there when Hugh evicted them the day before. They might have had a chance had they been able to make it back to Duntulm Castle before the night guards retired. The current guards refused to even deliver a message to Salome.
Salome must have noticed her disappearance by now, but without knowing Hugh had barred them from the castle, she wouldn’t be aware of their situation or even certain that they hadn’t simply abandoned the quest and run off.
“Should we wait for nightfall and hope they don’t pass on Hugh’s orders to their replacements?”
Gavran rubbed his palms around the back of his neck and stretched out his back. His eyes were bloodshot. “Aye, makes sense. But we’ll need food and water soon enough. And sleep, too.”
Sleep they could nab anywhere. The other two were less likely. Ceana considered kicking a rock by the side of the road but thought better of it.
“Down.” Gavran grabbed her wrist and yanked her off the road. “Someone’s coming.”
She ducked behind the trees and peeked out. The dust cloud took shape into a mounted figure.
Gavran leaned his head against the tree trunk beside her. “Only one. It’s not my dadaidh and Tavish.”
Ceana squinted. It wasn’t Allan or Tavish, but she recognized the figure. “It’s Eachann.”
She stepped back out onto the road and waved her arms. Gavran joined her.
Eachann’s mount broke into a trot and stopped next to them. He glared at Gavran. “Where’ve you been? Lady MacDonald said I should fetch you from your dadaidh’s camp, and when I got there, they’d not seen you. I’ve been searching all night.”
Eachann’s horse snuffled Ceana’s hair. She ran a hand down the animal’s sweaty forehead. “Plans changed.”
“Well, his dadaidh and his companion are out hunting all round Duntulm for him now. They’re a feared something terrible happened.”
Kicking that rock looked more appealing all the time. With Allan and Tavish actively seeking Gavran, it made it that much more likely that they’d stumble across them before they were able to kill the nuckalevee and make it back to Duntulm Castle.
Eachann nodded towards the gate. “Come along inside. Our lady is probably worried enough herself by now.”
If they went in, the guards were sure to report to Hugh, forcing a confrontation between Hugh, Salome, and Lord MacDonald and causing more delays. Aside from that, they didn’t need attention drawn to what they were doing at Duntulm. Hugh was the last person they wanted knowing about the nuckalevee or suspecting Salome’s true nature. He hated her enough already.
Ceana took hold of his mount’s reins. “Hugh MacDonald’s forbidden us entry to the castle.”
“He’s been angling for that since you stood up to him about the girl I’d imagine.” Eachann spit on the ground. “No matter. I’ll bring you in myself. He’s no right to toss out people given sanctuary by the lord and lady.”
How much to tell him? Salome said she trusted Eachann, and yet her true nature and the existence of the nuckalevee seemed to be secrets she kept from even her most trusted. Her secrets weren’t theirs to share.
But they still needed aid. “We can’t go back in now without causing trouble for Lord and Lady MacDonald, and we’ve been given a task by Lady MacDonald. We need your help to complete it.”
Eachann’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of help?”
He didn’t know them. He had no reason to trust them, either. “Supplies only.” She glanced at Gavran, and her stomach dipped. She didn’t know if she were strong enough—physically or emotionally—to cut off his toe herself. “And perhaps help with a small task.”
Eachann gaze moved between them. He stiffened and sat back in his saddle.
Gavran’s lips twitched in that struggling-between-a-smile-and-a-frown way, as if he wasn’t sure whether to be amused by the pun of small or annoyed that she referred to cutting off his little toe as a small task. “Take our request to Lady MacDonald, tell her where we are and why. That way you can be sure you’re fulfilling your oath.”
Eachann loosened his horse’s reins. “Fair enough. Tell me what you need, and I’ll return before the sun sets.” He shooed a fly away from his face. “And get some rest while I’m gone. You both look like death.”
Chapter 27
Gavran limped beside her, his face still gray as cold ash.
Ceana laid a hand over the tiny lump in her pocket where his smallest toe lay wrapped in a piece of cloth torn from Eachann’s tunic. Sickly tasting saliva flooded her mouth, and she wrenched her hand away.
She’d stayed by Gavran’s side, let him crush her hand while Eachann sliced off the toe. The leather belt Eachann gave him to bite down on had barel
y muffled his scream. Gavran hadn’t even had a drink to dull the agony for fear it’d dull his mind when it came time to face the nuckalevee.
Her vision spun slightly. She needed to focus on what came next. If she kept thinking about Gavran’s toe, she wouldn’t make it to the grove, let alone have the balance and strength to help fight the nuckalevee.
She peeked at Gavran from the corner of her eye and tried to think of happier thoughts, but everything she could come up with was tinted with sorrow.
Gavran held back the branches along the edge of the grove, and she stepped into the deadened clearing again.
She edged to the center, sliding sideways to keep Gavran in sight, and shoved her hand into her pocket. She closed her fingers around the cloth bundle, pulled it out, opened her hand. It was like someone else was doing it all and she watched from a distance.
A small red stain on the cloth marked where his toe continued to bleed after they wrapped it up. At least it was only the smallest toe. She had to keep repeating that to herself.
She knelt down, turning her back to Gavran and shielding the toe from his vision. She fought against a shudder and rolled the toe off the cloth onto the ground.
She focused her gaze on the tree line, stuffed the cloth back into her pocket, and went to the bushes where she’d last seen Gavran. A rustle told her where he was.
She waded in and settled beside him. “How long do you think it will take?”
Gavran shifted his Lochabar to the side, giving her more room. “It should be quick. It likes the”—he glanced at the foot that was one toe short—“flesh fresh.”
The skin on her arms broke out into goose pimples. So if it wasn’t here by the time the moon was near to its apex, they’d know a toe wasn’t enough.
Gavran gazed intently into the center of the clearing, a frown creasing his forehead. “I think we’re going about this wrong.”
She refused to look in that direction. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“I didn’t mean that.” He nodded his head towards where his toe lay. “I mean we shouldn’t both attack it from the front.”
It made sense, but to have to sit alone in the dark and wait for a monster… “I think we should stick together. What if I get too far away from you?”
“You won’t. This clearing’s nowhere near large enough. Just stay inside the tree line.”
With her luck, if she argued with him longer, she’d be caught in the open when the nuckalevee showed up. She picked up the second Lochabar, the one Eachann brought not knowing she needed a dorlochis and arrows instead. In their exhaustion, they hadn’t been clear enough about what weapons they needed. At least before he’d cut off Gavran’s toe, he’d sawed off the Lochabar’s shaft to make it a better height for her.
Even though it was a longer route, she skirted the edge of the clearing rather than going straight across past Gavran’s toe. She ducked behind a drooping scaly fern.
The foliage gave her the perfect amount of cover. She could see out, but wouldn’t be immediately obvious to a creature coming in. Lady MacDonald said it would be sudden. She’d blink with the clearing empty and, when her eyelids lifted again, the nuckalevee would be there.
Was it wrong of her to hope it faced Gavran and she could come at it from behind? Even with his injured shoulder, he was more skilled than she was with the Lochabar. It’d take months of training, not days, to change that.
She settled in and slowed her breathing. If she sounded like a panting dog on a summer day, she’d scare the nuckalevee away before she had a chance to strike the first blow.
Her hands felt like she’d dipped them in ice water. She rubbed them together, then wrapped them around the Lochabar’s staff. How long had it been? The moon hardly seemed to have shifted position in the sky. What if it didn’t come? The toe might not be enough to draw it.
She dug her nails into the wood of the staff. If the nuckalevee would just show itself, it’d be better than waiting here, unsure of when or if it was ever going to arrive.
The wind shifted and bore the stench of putrid flesh straight into her face.
Bile seared her throat. She clamped a hand over her mouth and gagged it back.
That wasn’t coming from Gavran’s toe, was it? The stink was even viler than the body they’d dug up. The only time she’d ever smelled anything like it was when she’d stumbled across a dead animal that must have been too sick for even the carrion animals to want it, its flesh melted in the sun and maggots spilling from its eyes.
Her eyes stung, and she blinked rapidly. Her vision cleared.
A creature twice the size of a normal horse pawed the earth in the center of the clearing. Black blood flowed through veins and arteries exposed to the air, and its bloodless muscles rippled and twitched like a fish when filleted freshly caught.
This was it. This was the nuckalevee.
It lowered its head and sniffed Gavran’s toe, inhaling so deeply the white bones of its ribs stretched. Again and again it breathed. Somehow she’d expected it to eat it. But this was worse. A lust for blood and pain was how Lady MacDonald described it. It seemed to feed on the pain and fear still clinging to the amputated digit.
She swallowed, but her mouth was parched, and her throat wouldn’t work. Why didn’t Gavran charge it already? She couldn’t kill it alone. She couldn’t kill a moth alone.
Gavran sprinted across the opening. She fumbled to get a firm grip on her Lochabar. It slid through her damp palms.
Gavran drove toward the nuckalevee, but it slipped to the side like Gavran was moving in slow motion. It twisted around to face him.
Because she’d been too slow, they were now on the same side of the clearing again.
“Ceana!” Gavran yelled.
She plunged through the underbrush, running parallel to the nuckalevee, an arm up to protect her face. Branches slashed her chest and arm. Surely it could hear her, but she had to try to get behind it again. She burst from the bushes across from the nuckalevee’s right flank.
The nuckalevee kicked its front hoof out at Gavran in a way no natural horse ever could. He threw his Lochabar up in front of it, and the nuckalevee’s blow shattered the staff in half. Another blow like that and he’d have nothing to defend himself with.
She drove forward, aiming her Lochabar at what looked to be an organ at the back of its belly. The nuckalevee pivoted to face her.
Its eyes were haunted gold like a cat’s, not the red or brown she’d expected. Prepared herself for. She wasn’t prepared. They weren’t prepared. They could have never been prepared no matter how long they waited, how many questions they asked.
She rammed her Lochabar straight into the nuckalevee’s chest and bounced backward. The Lochabar flew from her grip, and she crashed into the ground. Hot pain raced up her spine, and her hands and feet went numb. Sensation came back in fragments.
The nuckalevee stayed planted in place. Her Lochabar hadn’t even nicked its flesh.
It lowered its head and weaved its neck like a snake, its mouth open. It exhaled, and a dirty gray mist curled around her. Her eyes felt filled with grit and her lungs burned.
She sipped in shallow breaths, but the ache in her chest spread. The ground seemed to shimmy around her, and the withered grass under her fingers crumbled and swirled away. The nuckalevee’s outline was blurry through the haze.
Then it spun away, and the mist evaporated. She collapsed flat to the ground, gasping. Gavran’s form pitched what she could only guess were rocks at the nuckalevee.
She scrubbed her eyes. They watered up from the pressure, and tears streamed down her cheeks, clearing out whatever poison it was the nuckalevee shot at her. Her Lochabar was gone, heaved into who knew what part of the undergrowth.
They were going to die.
The nuckalevee kicked out at Gavran again. He ducked and rolled, but the blow connected with his shoulder. He cried out. The nuckalevee struck again, barely missing his skull. Gavran came up holding his broken
Lochabar.
She crab-crawled backwards to the edge of the tree line. She had to find a branch or something she could use as a weapon. Gavran dodged to the side, moving closer and closer to where she lay.
She dragged herself to her feet, using the nearest tree for leverage. Another toppled tree wedged into the V of its branches. She leaped, hands in the air, reaching for one of the low-hanging limbs of the dead tree. Her fingers didn’t even brush the bark.
She scoured the nearby ground cover. All the fallen wood was no bigger than firewood kindling. Everything bigger was either out of her reach or too large for her to break from the tree.
“You need to run.”
She whirled around. Gavran crouched an arm’s length from her. He swung at the nuckalevee, and it danced a step backwards.
“I’ll find my Lochabar or something else I can use. I’m not abandoning you.”
Gavran panted, his face red and sweat streaming from his forehead. “I’m not asking you to. You have to get far enough away so the wishes and curses don’t cancel each other out anymore.”
Of course. Once she was far enough away, he’d be able to defeat the nuckalevee thanks to the power of the wishes. “But I won’t be able to find you after.”
“Head in the direction of Duntulm Castle. I’ll find you. Go.”
The nuckalevee swung towards her, its golden eye staring unblinkingly at her.
“Go, Ceana. Trust me.” Gavran shoved her in the direction of the bushes. “It’s our only chance.”
Chapter 28
Ceana sprinted into the underbrush. The thick branches grabbed and clutched at her clothing and hair like they served the nuckalevee, trying to hold her in place. A branch sliced her cheek, and warm blood slipped down her face. She dashed it away and plowed forward.
Cursed Wishes (Three Wishes Book 1) Page 18