Prologue
Blood, richer in color than the locks that fall whimsically from her skull, paints the grout.
Labored breathing punctuates the passing seconds as she stands back to appraise her work.
The love of another was never something she’d yearned for. Still, it was something she’d been forced into and it fed her in a way nothing else in life had ever come close to.
How could a woman fall in love with a man sent straight from Hell?
First, she fell in love with the rage.
Then the freedom.
Then the blood.
And then, him.
But love for herself is what got her here, with thick blood stickying her shaking hands.
It’s someone else’s life she’s taken, if only to save her own.
Moira is struck by the fragility of her own existence as she stares at the dead man before her.
No one was born to die like this, she thinks to herself. But if they were going to, let it have been for such a noble cause.
And when she turns on her heel, she leaves her guilt to lie beside him, keeping him company as they both eventually disintegrate into nothing.
1
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
If ever there were a truer phrase, Moira MacQuarrie would be hard-pressed to find it.
As she runs, the sound of her feet meeting the ground only rivaled by the steady thump of her heart, everything plays on loop in her head.
The table had been set, everyone ready to eat a proper supper while her mother, the lady of the house, plotted to break the news.
And her younger brothers, the wicked triplets, were none the wiser as they gorged.
But something told Moira to take light steps. Not to slurp. To sit up straight. To speak clearly.
None of that mattered.
She stops at the top of the hill, bent at the waist, aiming to catch her breath, even as her dress’s skirt blows in the wind.
And when she does, she screams at the sky, her fingers spread, her arms outstretched. As if every limb wishes to meet a god that won’t take pity on her.
Her screams rage on, as if they’ll shatter the standing stones that witness her fury. Incoherent sounds that make her head ache almost as badly as her heart does.
When she’s through, she lies on the ground, ripping up the grass from its roots and begging this earth to swallow her whole. Begging for hell to burn her body to ash and for the breeze to scatter her remains.
“Are ye quite through?” an impatient voice asks from behind her.
No one will save me.
Knowing there’s no sense in running, no such thing as hiding, Moira lifts herself from the ground, wincing at the sight of her mother.
The woman would dare brave the winds to find her?
She would find you anywhere, Moira hears in her head.
The thought should be comforting, but it’s even more constricting than the form-fitting bodice of her dress. It reminds her that she was born and bred to act as a decorative bartering chip. To be sold to the highest bidder in an effort to keep the family empire afloat. Nothing more.
“Quite,” Moira says on an exhale.
When she moves to walk past her mother, she’s yanked back and held still by the older woman’s grip on her upper arm.
She dares not pull away, certain she’d wear the imprint of the woman’s palm on her already pink cheek, should she choose to.
“Ye will behave, child,” her mother demands, her brogue thicker than Moira cared to adopt.
Thin lips press into a quaking line, the only thing giving away her age. Her sternness is losing its sturdiness. Age makes her nerves jump and her muscles spasm.
Moira imagines sinking her teeth into this woman’s flesh. Imagines pulling her hand off her arm and pushing her to the ground. Imagines the ground swallowing her whole instead.
“I will,” Moira answers, knowing that although she wasn’t asked a question, a response was required.
“Good.” Her mother lets her go, only to lift her hands and smooth away the stray tendrils whipping around Moira’s face, tucking them behind her daughter’s ears.
An act any other person would take as endearing, Moira recognizes as polishing. As policing.
“Clean yourself up. Ye need to be rested for tomorrow.”
And so, the duty begins.
The woods surrounding the hill aren’t as empty as they seem.
It reminds Sol that often, what people fear, they cannot put a face to.
Most people fear death. They think there is no face to that beast.
He smiles as he slinks away into the darkness, still hearing the echoes of a long-forgotten scream.
If you ever see his face, you’ll know what is sure to follow.
2
“Moira, time for your archery lessons.”
Her head snaps up to attention at the sound of her father addressing her. She eyes her mother, who seems to have missed her momentary lapse of attentiveness.
She nods and reaches for her unfinished plate of food, only to hear her mother call for the maid. With her hands clasped on her lap, she awaits her mother’s scolding.
The woman of the house sees to an efficient staff, not to dirtying her hands herself.
“Shall I run the switch over those palms of yours again, lass?”
Moira fidgets at the memory. Now that she’s older, she knows her mother was smart enough to whip her where she wouldn’t scar. Especially when men of a certain caliber would desire her as a wife.
A further damaged tapestry wouldn’t earn her as much.
“No, Mother,” Moira says, bowing her head before ducking out of the great dining room, happy to be through with breakfast.
Archery lessons were hardly “lessons” anymore. She spent the time walking aimlessly around the property, the instructor happy to do nothing for the two hours he was being paid.
But today, Moira doesn’t want to explore. No, today, she’d like to wallow.
Over the misfortune of her future. Over the fact that she was born she in a world where a man she’s far better than is being paid to “teach” her archery. Where her brothers are allowed to be children, even at the age of seventeen, while she, at twenty, is expected to want a husband.
All her life, she’d been locked away, kept from the opposite sex, hidden from any real interaction. Her life had always been a duty.
Moira doesn’t bother to grab her archery equipment, taking off without a backward glance.
The dewy grass kisses her leather boots with each step she takes, finding purchase on the lush earth.
She huffs as she treks up the hill, toward her favorite place, where her little portion of the horizon attempts to kiss the sun.
Tonight, Moira could potentially meet her future husband. The thought sickens her, so she runs, relishing in the feeling of the wind flirting with her hair.
Her mother will likely run a brush through her curls later, rough enough for tears to form, but the sensation of the breeze is worth the punishment she’ll face later.
Something about the misty morning has her wanting to sink to the soil, to will a change that would never come. To ease the sensation of a darkness tainting her blood, turning it inky.
She wonders if her eyes would betray her, if she’d hiss one morning, fight and scratch and run from this place forever.
But how could she?