Beauty (A Faery Story 3)

“It was her or her little friends. Tell me where she is and I’ll make your death painless. I can have the healer brew a tea to ease the way. You won’t feel the fire. You won’t feel anything. All you have to do is tell me where Gillian is. Isolde, you don’t want more deaths, do you?”

She didn’t want them, but they would come. They would come whether she stood up or not. They would come if she escaped. They would come if she burned. She’d spent thirteen years believing that staying alive was all that was important. But weren’t some things worth dying over?

She thought about the note Gillian had sent through Niall. She knew exactly what Gillian would do. She would run. Bron wasn’t sure how she’d convinced the guard to help them, but Gillian would sacrifice anyone she had to in order to ensure Bron’s continued existence. Gillian would save her and move on to the next far-off province, hiding and concealing their identities.

And waiting for what? For her brothers to return? For Bron to grow up? She was twenty-seven. She wouldn’t get any more ready to become the focus of a revolution.

“I’m not telling you where she is. I won’t say a word. Not about my sister.”

A plan was ruminating, forming in her brain. A really bad plan, probably, but a plan. She’d waited long enough. It was time she gave to the cause. Gillian seemed to think that Bronwyn was the cause, but Bron knew differently.

Ove was the cause. Everyone who had been hurt by the pretender was the cause. Bronwyn was merely a pawn, and it was time to make her move. The pawn could take the king if it was played correctly.

“You’re stupid, Isolde.”

“I’m not Isolde.” She finally got up and walked to the door. Her feet felt a bit unsteady, but she caught her balance.

“What are you trying to say?”

She gave him a feral little grin. “Figure it out, Micha. Think for a minute, and it’ll come to you.”

He stared at her, his face a blank. “Isolde, just tell me where your sister is. The fire will make you scream.”

Would it? She was fire. It leapt from her fingertips. It sat in her womb. “I’ll take that chance.”

“Isolde…”

“Don’t call me that.” She couldn’t stand it. It wasn’t her damn name. It wasn’t her place. “Call me by my name. Call me Bronwyn.”

He took a quick step back, a gasp on his lips. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” She wouldn’t go down quietly. Whether Niall saved her or she died in the fire, it didn’t matter. She needed to have her name. There was power in her name. “Call me by name. Call me Bronwyn.”

His head shook. “You’ll burn then, dumb bitch. If you think for a second I’ll tell anyone what you’ve said, you’re wrong. I wouldn’t let anyone know I planned to marry someone who is utterly insane. You’re just a stupid girl. You’re not a princess. And if you think that this ploy will buy you time, you’re wrong. I stood up in front of a crowd and said I wanted to marry you. Too many people know. I won’t go down with you. No. You’ll burn before you can even open your mouth and spout such vicious lies.”

She walked to the door, staring at Micha through the window, its bars mocking her. She was in a cage, but then she’d been there for thirteen years.

What could she do? She’d been quiet for so long. She’d hidden her existence. It had kept her alive, but now she saw a distinct problem with it. No one would believe her. She’d been a child when she’d gone on the run. She was a woman now, and no one with the exception of Gillian had watched her grow. She looked like her father. Gillian said it, but did anyone remember? The knife. It had the Finn crest on it. Did it prove a damn thing? There were only two weapons made with that crest—the sun and the moon. Beck had the sword. She was sure of it. He wouldn’t have left without their father’s sword.

And the knife had been used on her. She’d pulled it from her body. Torin had to have taken it from her father’s body. He’d given it to his assassin to kill her. Her own father’s knife. It was her only proof beyond her face. It was still in its hiding place in the tower. “I am Bronwyn Finn. I was born in the White Palace and I died there. I was given a second life. I am my father’s daughter.”

A huffy laugh came through the window. “Those can be your last words, though no one will believe it. Good luck, Isolde. When you’re nothing but ashes, your sister will run. You’re nothing. Nothing at all.”

The window slammed shut. She was so much more. She was the revolution, but perhaps she’d waited too long. Leaning against the door, she felt her head swimming. Not enough sleep. Not enough food. Not enough life.

She’d spent too long in her dreams. She’d wanted to be somewhere else for so long she’d neglected the here and now. Shim and Lachlan were dreams. They were a way out of her destiny, and now that she was finally ready to face it, she would probably get her ass fried in a fire.

Her brothers wouldn’t know. They would always think she’d died. They wouldn’t know she’d been burned at the maypole—the stake. Half an hour passed, the minutes running by like molasses dripping off a spoon toward a well-cooked piece of bread. She drank more water. Ate the last of the bread. Slow. So slow. She was able to go over most of her life. She was shocked to realize how much of it she’d spent in dreams. When she looked back on her life, she saw the times Cian had played with her and her mother had rocked her, stroking her hair during thunderstorms. She remembered holding her da’s hand as they walked through the streets of the village. But mostly she saw Shim and Lach. She saw them as children, laughing and playing through fields of golden wheat and swimming on a pebbled beach, the ocean water foaming around them. There were mermaids in the waters, but they didn’t need to worry about it because mermaids only called to the unfaithful and the unwary. They played and played, telling secrets and stories. Stories she’d heard but could barely remember the next day. When she’d begun to gain her womanhood, the dreams had changed. Her Dark Ones had started to touch her. Little glancing strokes at first and then a kiss here and there. Her cheeks and her forehead and sweetly enough, her nose. Finally they had pressed a mouth to hers. A tongue had caressed and then…

Death.

So long was the darkness. The aloneness. It was worse, she thought, because for so long she’d been with them. And then the connection had been cut as though it hadn’t existed.

Years had passed. She’d run and run. So many provinces. So many new faces.

She’d been scared, reaching out every night for that connection she’d counted on all her life. Nothing, until one night, a little tendril had reached back, like a light in the darkness. She reached for it and finally she’d seen them. They hadn’t been solid at first, but she’d felt a touch, a caress that made her skin light up.

She’d been twenty. Six years had passed in loneliness and then another three in a frustrating reaching. She would grasp and then the dream would be gone, like a ghost that had never really existed. Every morning she’d awakened aware that she hadn’t gotten what she wanted and then…