I kicked open the door, the fire flaring inside me when I saw how close the two of them stood to one another. “Now, now, brother. You know better than to meddle in my affairs.” He’d shirked his duty, and I’d stepped in to cover his arse, as I always did. Aveen sidled closer tohim, as if he could protect her from me if I decided to end them both. “Andyou. Was it not enough for you to question my authority and make me look like a fool? Now you run off to my feckin’ brother and beg him to undermine me?”
Tadhg draped his arm around Aveen’s shoulder as if she were a rack for his feckin’ coat. “You may have played leader today, but Aveen knows who’s really in charge.”
My darkness dragged me under, and I did nothing to fight it. With a flick of my wrist, the weak, pathetic, man in front of me vanished, sent straight to the cliffs and shoved right off.
Aveen stumbled back. “I’m sorry,” she sputtered, “but you gave me no choice.”
“Do not say you had no choice when you did. You had a choice, Aveen.” I was the one without control. I was the one who didn’t have a feckin’ choice. Not Tadhg. Not Aveen. And not Anwen. They had their hearts. They were the masters of their fate. “And so did that witch,” I ground out. “She knew what she was doing was illegal. She knew and did it anyway.”
“She deserves another chance.”
“Does she, now? And how many chances should I give her? Two? Three? No, wait. Four. Or should I give her five? I know! Six. Six strikes and then she’s beheaded. No exceptions, though, I mean it.”
“This isn’t a joke, Rían.”
“I’m not feckin’ joking! That is what I hear when you say I should make exceptions. Who do I make these exceptions for? Just certain people?” That wasn’t fair, now, was it? “The ones with the most tragic backstories? Only the mothers? What about the fathers? Should the law be eradicated, and everyone be allowed to do whatever they please?”
She blinked up at me, eyes glittering with unshed tears and jaw working as if she were chewing on the bitter truth of my words.
I inhaled a slow, intentional breath in a useless attempt to shove the darkness back down where it belonged. “Months ago, my brother offered Anwen some of the castle’s rations if she could not afford to sustain her family. And yet her pride kept her from asking for help. She deserves to suffer the consequences of her actions.”
Aveen looked me right in the eyes and told me I was wrong. “Anwen doesn’t deserve consequences,” she said. “That woman deserves mercy.” And then she turned her back on me and walked away.
Mercy.
A word I’d heard repeated time and again at the foot of the dais, in a crowded courtroom, at the end of a noose.
Something I’d begged for once as well.
Before I realized that, in my world, mercy didn’t exist.
25
Anwen deserves her fate.
That thought followed me down the sodden path toward a row of cottages. The Forest rose in the distance, an ominous black smudge against a periwinkle sky.
That woman deserves mercy.
Aveen’s words had haunted me all feckin’ day, making me question everything I knew to be true. That’s how I ended up stomping toward a tiny cottage with children darting around the yard, weeping and wailing like a bunch of wet cats. From the window, I could see Anwen inside the house, holding her eldest daughter by the shoulders, telling her how to carry on without her.
What would this punishment create? More orphans unable to sustain themselves. More people breaking the law in order to survive.
That woman deserves mercy.
Why? Why didshedeserve mercy over anyone else? Had Leesha not deserved mercy? And what about me? I traced a finger over the scar hidden beneath my shirt. Where wasmymercy?
Anwen answered the door with tears in her eyes. When she saw me, her face paled. “‘Tisn’t sundown, yer highness,” she blurted, scrubbing her cheeks with the sleeves of her simple dress.
One of the children toddled over, clinging to his mother’s skirts. He smelled like mushy peas and powder. Did she not bathe them?
“Send them away,” I told her, pointing to mushy-peas.
She looked like she wanted to protest. Hell, part of me wanted her to defy me so I’d have further reason to enact this punishment. Although her chin lifted, she turned to her eldest daughter and asked her to take the little ones outside. The baby started wailing. I created a tost to keep the screeching from rattling my brain.
“My brother offered castle rations. Why didn’t you take them?” I asked. There was no sense messing about with inane chat. I needed answers. And if she knew what was good for her, she’d give them to me.
She planted her hands on her hips and scowled. “Aye, he did. But fer how long? One month? Two? What good’s that with winter comin’? This was enough to get me back on my feet. One haul to set my little ones up fer life. Wouldn’t buy us nothin’ fine but would keep my Josie outta the bawdy house until she could find a man of her own.”