“It was a dream,” he said carefully. “Only a dream. Lilith can’t touch you in dreams.”
“It wasn’t Lilith. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You’re shaking. Here.” He pulled up a blanket, tossed it over her shoulders. “I’ll get the fire going again.”
“No need. Don’t trouble,” she said even as he got up. “I should go. It must be nearing dawn.”
He simply crouched down, placed the turf in the hearth. “You won’t trust me with this.”
“It’s not that. It’s not.” She should have gotten up quickly, she realized. Left straight on waking. For now she couldn’t seem to move. “It wasn’t Lilith, it was just a bad dream. Just…”
But her breath began to hitch and heave.
Rather than go to her, he lit the turf, then moved around the room to light candles.
“I can’t speak of it. I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Maybe not to me, but to Glenna. I’ll go wake her.”
“No. No. No.” She covered her face with her hands.
“So.” Since he was up, and unlikely to sleep again for now, he poured himself a cup of blood. “Geallian women aren’t weak.”
She dropped her hands, and the eyes she’d hidden with them went hot with insult. “You bloody bastard.”
“Exactly so. Run back to your room if you can’t handle it. But if you stay, you’ll pull out whatever’s knotted up your guts. Your choice.” He took a chair. “You’re big on choices, so make one.”
“You want to hear my pain, my grief? Why not to you then, who it would mean so little to? I dreamed, as I do over and over, of my mother’s murder. Every time, it’s clearer than it was before. At first, it was so muddled and pale—like I saw it through a smear of mud. It was easier then.”
“And now?”
“I could see it.”
“What did you see?”
“I was sleeping.” Her eyes were huge on his face, and full of pain. “We’d had supper, and my uncle, Larkin, the family had come. A little family party. My mother enjoyed having them every few months. We had music after, and dancing. She loved to dance, my mother. It was late when we went to bed, and I fell asleep so quickly. I heard her scream.”
“No one else heard?”
Moira shook her head. “No. She didn’t scream, you see. Not out loud. I don’t think she screamed out loud. In her head, she did, and I heard it in mine. Just once. Only once. I thought I imagined it, must have imagined it. But I got up, and went down to her room. Just to ease my mind.”
She could see it even now. She hadn’t bothered with a candle because her heart was beating so fast and hard. She’d simply run from her room and down to her mother’s door.
“I didn’t knock. I was saying to myself, no, you’ll wake her. Just ease inside and see for yourself that she’s sleeping.
“But when I opened the door, she wasn’t in her bed, she wasn’t sleeping. I heard such sounds, such horrible sounds. Like animals, like wolves, but worse. Oh, worse.”
She paused, tried to swallow through her dry throat. “The doors to her balcony were open, and the curtains moving with the breeze. I called out for her. I wanted to run to the doors, but I couldn’t. My legs felt as if they’d turned to lead. I could barely make one step in front of the other. I can’t say it.”
“You can. You walked to the door, to the balcony door.”
“I saw…Oh God, oh God, oh God. I saw her, on the stones. And the blood, so much blood. Those things were…I’ll be sick.”
“You won’t.” He got up now, crossed to her. “You won’t be sick.”
“They were ripping at her.” And the words tore out of her now. “Ripping at her body. Demons, things of nightmares, tearing at my mother. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t scream. I wanted to run out and beat them off. One, one looked at me. His eyes red, my mother’s blood all over his face. My mother’s blood. He charged at the door, and I stumbled back. Back, away from her when I should have gone to her.”
“She was dead, Moira, you knew it. You’d be dead if you’d stepped out that door.”