Ruairi’s eyes expanded. “All of them?”
With a flick of Tadhg’s wrist, the sounds around us faded to nothing. “Until we come up with a better solution, we have no other choice. I brought these people from their homes in Airren, promised them a fresh start and safety, and they haven’t even gotten through one feckin’ night.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “The ones who don’t fit can camp in the courtyard behind the wards.”
“We cannot continue to keep them in one place. They’re too clear a target for the Queen.”We may not have known for certain my mother had been the one to send thesethings, but I didn’t know anyone else in Tearmann with this sort of power.
“We don’t have a choice tonight. Gather what you can salvage.” With another wrist flick, the tost evaporated, and the stench of death and smoke flooded around us anew. I stood by while Tadhg announced to those gathered that they would be moving to the castle.
“We’ve been told the wards won’t let us through,” a woman near the front said, her voice devoid of emotion as she rocked back and forth, clutching a tiny bundle in her too-thin arms.
Having all these unknown people near Aveen left my insides in knots, but since it couldn’t be helped, I promised to open the wards. I shifted a cart from the stables, and Ruairi traded forms, shapeshifting into a horse to pull the cart laden with crying babies, screaming toddlers, and terrified young ones. Their mothers followed closely behind, their eyes as dead as those bodies left in the field.
Tomorrow, we’d return to bury the dead. Tonight, we needed to think of the living.
As those remaining shuffled toward the castle in the distance, Tadhg turned to me. “Did any of yours bleed?” he whispered under his breath.
I shook my head. We both looked down at one of the bodies lying on the ground near us. Humans and Danú both bled. Meaning these things weren’t either. “What are they?”
Tadhg squatted next to the cloaked form. “There’s only one way to find out.” Before he could throw back the hood, the body vanished, just like at the fire in Gaul. “You’ve got to be feckin’ kidding me.” He shot to his feet and dashed his fingers through his matted brown hair. “Not again.”
My poor brother. Always two steps behind.
He glanced up at me, his brow furrowing. “Why aren’t you cursing as well?”
“Because unlike you, I plan ahead.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re taking a trip to the dungeons.”
A ghost of a smile found its way to his lips. “You saved a body, didn’t you?”
“I saved a body.”
* * *
Hours passed before we had time to head to the dungeons where I’d shifted one of the attackers’ bodies. By the time we returned to the castle, Keelynn and Aveen were already in the courtyard assigning rooms for families with the smallest children and sorting a midnight meal with Eava. The humans would be eating breakfast in two shifts, with the women and children first and the men to follow afterward.
Tadhg had moved Hagan into his room, and Aveen had given up her space for four children left orphaned by the night. Eava and Keelynn were with them now, while Aveen accompanied Tadhg and me to the dungeons.
Whimpers and broken sobs echoed off the damp stone walls. I didn’t bother glancing toward the cells farther down the hallway, where only two of my captives remained chained to the wall. I still had yet to discuss my displeasure with the dear princess over releasing prisoners.
“Do I want to know what’s going on down there?” Tadhg murmured with a tilt of his head toward the noises.
“Probably not.” Whatever he saw would likely turn his stomach, and with food in short supply, he shouldn’t be wasting it by vomiting all over the floor.
Luckily, I’d shifted the attacker’s body into the cell closest to the door, so we didn’t need to pass any other guests.
Aveen peered into the gloom. “Who else is down here?”
Only two bastards I’d caught trying to break through the castle wards intending to assassinate our dearest Princess Keelynn.
“You promised if I let you accompany us, that you wouldn’t ask questions,” I reminded her, withdrawing a key from my pocket and unlocking the door. I stepped inside and knelt beside the body chained in iron. Time to find out once and for all what sort of monster hid beneath these hoods. I gripped the rough wool and tugged.
Long, strawberry-blond hair spilled out.
The attacker didn’t look like a monster at all, but a young woman with freckles sprinkling the bridge of her nose, set in a face I knew.
Aveen gasped. “She looks human.”