Icefall (45 page)

And suddenly I understood them, all of them. I understood Leonie, and my mother. I even understood Eili. The grief would cut out your heart and your mind.

‘Don't follow,' he said. ‘Please.'

‘How can I stay? Switch off my heart?'

‘Oh gods,' he said. His lips touched my face. ‘I've done such a terrible thing.'

‘No.'

‘Not wrong. Never wrong. But it was a terrible thing, Finn.'

‘There. You've said it. Be satisfied. I don't want you to say it again.'

‘All right,' he said after a pause. ‘If you promise to live.'

I touched his face with the back of my hand, watching his eye through my fingers. ‘I don't want to stay.'

‘You've got to.'

I stared, felt my heart beat slowly. ‘I'll try.'

‘Promise.'

‘I will not promise forever,' I hissed. ‘Nobody gets forever.'

He hesitated, then said sadly, ‘All right.'

‘I'll live. I promise, for now. But I'm giving you no promise beyond that.'

His breath came out in a great sigh. ‘Oh Finn.' He curled into me. ‘I want to stay. I don't want to leave you. I want to get old.'

‘So do I. Now. With you. And die.'

‘It's stopped being about what we want.'

‘When was it ever?' I said bitterly.

He didn't scold me. His arms tightened round me. I felt his breath on my skin. I kissed him, to taste him.

‘I've heard,' he mumbled. ‘Well, they say it's a good way to go. The Selkyr hold you. You're not alone. They stop you panicking, make it easy, help you—breathe. You know? Just breathe in. And then it's over. And it doesn't hurt any more.'

I raised my head, but he had averted his eye.

‘How do they know?' I whispered.

‘I don't suppose they do, really.' His gaze on the dawn machair was desolate.

Just for a moment, I hated him for the promise he'd forced from me. ‘You'd better say goodbye, you bastard.'

‘I'll say goodbye.' He pulled my tear-sodden face into his shoulder and stroked my hair. ‘But not yet.'

*   *   *

There was nothing defined about our last weeks. Every day, every night melted into the next. I didn't ride my own new horse. If we rode out together it was both of us on the blue roan: me at his back, my face pressed between his shoulder blades to feel his heartbeat, or him behind me, one arm round my waist, clutching me tightly against him as if he could hang on to life that way.

We sat up on the battlement as we always had, his arms round me, staring out at the flowers on the machair, happy not to speak. And we made love: fiercely, desperately, clinging onto each other, as if we could imprint a memory on one another's skin and flesh. Our gazes locked, our minds tangled, our bodies so entwined we must have hoped it might be impossible ever to separate them; as if in one body we could live forever.

‘Please stay,' I begged again. ‘I don't care if you get old.'

‘I'll get old,' he said bitterly. ‘For a month? Two? I'll wither in days and hours, and you may not care but I do. Be raddled and rotten and mad in a month, and then die anyway? Merrydale's nothing on a Sithe death. You don't know what it's like, Finn, you've never seen it. I've seen someone refuse the Selkyr.' He shuddered. ‘I want to go, Finn. I want to go while I can still run.'

I didn't know what he meant by that. Not then. After all, wasn't he drumming it into me day after day?

There wasn't any running from it.

*   *   *

He woke me in the early hours, maybe two weeks later. I hadn't been counting. I'd been desperately not-counting. He took my hand and we dressed in silence and went barefoot to the stables, and the roan hooked its head over his shoulder and whickered. I'd never heard it make such a mournful, human sound. When we rode out of the dun gate, only the guard saw us go.

The machair was dappled with starlight, but no moon. He'd seen his last moon. The roan cantered easily, and just for a moment I took one arm from around Seth's waist and laid my hand against its warm flank, felt the muscles moving. A memory jolted through me of the first time I'd laid eyes on it, when it tried to eat me. I knew after tonight I'd never see it again.

The wind was high, blustering my hair across my eyes. The roan was running with it, so when it plunged down the dunes and trotted to a halt, I felt the unbroken force of the breeze even stronger. Seth swung down from the horse, and caught me as I dismounted. I had a sense he was holding me to stop me looking at the water's edge, but it would be no more than his protective instinct. He can't have imagined I wouldn't turn. He can't have imagined I wouldn't watch the three Selkyr, patient, black-eyed, their sealskin coats glistening and whipping in the wind. The blue roan had gone already. Vanished.

Stupidly I wrapped my arms round Seth's neck and hugged him fiercely, refusing to let go. The sea looked so wild, so cold, and I didn't want him to go into it. Just the thought of it hurt my heart. I wished it could be me instead. I wished it could be me as well.

Then realisation broke over me like a wave. No vow I'd given him could trump the one I'd made all those years ago. I didn't have to lose him. He was the love of my heart and the other half of my soul. That was it. That was why this had felt so wrong. I let go of him, laughing.

He frowned, reached out to me, but I'd already turned and shouted to the Selkyr.

‘I'm coming too!'

The tallest of them—and that was saying something—examined me with mild interest. Seth seemed stunned. He couldn't do anything, though, because one of the Selkyr had come forward and grasped his arm with its wet clammy hand.

‘No,' he said. ‘No.'

Well, that confirmed it. He'd said it twice because he
wasn't
certain. Deep down he knew what I knew—well, of course he did—and he wanted this as much as I did. I'd never felt such certainty in my life, or such pure intense happiness.

‘I'm coming with you,' I said again.

His eye was bright with shock. Shock, and uncertainty, and ferocious love. Grief too, but too late.

Done deal, my lover.

Until, out of nowhere and nothing, the tallest Selkyr launched itself at me. Its eyes lit like black flame and it opened its mouth wide, screaming with rage, so that I could see nothing but black emptiness. I was so stunned by terror I stumbled back, almost falling, and I cringed as its death's-face screamed into mine.

I'd heard one of these things speak before, and I'd never forgotten its cold liquid voice. This one said the same words, but the sound was altogether different, mad with rage.

‘NOT YET!'

I shuffled backwards away from it, frantic. The thing was almost on top of me. Its breath was like cold sea already covering my face, suffocating me, so that I had an inkling of what waited for Seth, and the terror shrank every nerve and vein in my body. Its webbed fingers slapped onto my face, physically shoving me back and down.

‘Not while there's life in you!'

I was stunned. I was
lost
. I remembered the time the Selkyr lunged for Jed, just because he'd shown up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn't understand: dying, living, sick or well, I thought these things would never fail to take another. It was what they were
for.

Then Seth was tearing himself from the other Selkyr, flinging himself at me across the sand, dropping to his knees and pulling me up into his arms. His Selkyr grabbed for him but he flailed, batting it away as happiness lit his face.

I held him, hugged him, barely believing I'd been allowed to touch him once more. But didn't he always cheat death? He was famous for it. He was going to stay!

Then I thought:
no, that's impossible
, but he was going to
make them take me
.

I came back to myself and to grim sanity, and he was holding me like he was never going to see me again, and he was laughing and crying all at once.

‘Finn! There's life in you!'

For seconds there was only the thud and rush of the sea, the wild howl of the wind. And then I understood.

And then I knew
why.

‘No,' I whimpered. What did I think I was denying?

‘Two.' He pressed his scarred cheek to my belly, kissed it. ‘One boy.'

‘What will I do?' I cried. ‘What will I
do
?'

What time did he have to give me a guide for three lives? None.

‘Give them names of their own,' he whispered. ‘Don't be your mother. Live.'

‘Choose,' hissed the Selkyr. It didn't touch him. ‘Choose now or we won't wait. Come now or let your lover cut your throat.' It gave a lipless smile. ‘Or rot for her.'

Seth pulled away from me very suddenly, as if he had to do this quickly or not at all. He smiled, flipped his eyepatch by way of a wink, and then he'd turned and was running, running with death at his heels, and as the Selkyr howled and keened with anger he kept running towards the sea. They followed, but I knew they weren't hurrying, that they were exasperated more than anything.

The blue roan came out of nowhere, faster even than the Selkyr, overtaking them and galloping abreast of Seth, and my heart almost exploded with the joy of it. He reached for its mane as the Selkyr screamed and raced for him, but he was on its back now and they were flying together into the sea. Great fans of spray went up around the roan's hooves, and the Selkyr burst through it, gaining on the roan at last as it breasted the crashing waves. Seth looked small and hopelessly brave against the fury of the water but at least he wasn't alone any more.

I ran to the water's edge in time to see first one Selkyr, then the other, dive through the water like dolphins and swarm up onto the roan's back and envelop him. And then the roan screamed once and submerged, and they were all gone, and I was alone on the beach as the sea closed over him and rolled on forever.

 

Finn

Seth had a tiny baby cradled in his arm. One hand held a bottle deftly to its mouth while the other played idle piggies with its toes. He was grinning into its big solemn eyes. I thought it was a twin, but it wasn't. It was me.

If I have a baby, he crooned, it'll look just like you. So I'll practice with you, okay? Is that okay, Fionnuuuuuuala? Can I look after you? I won't walk away, I promise. I won't let anybody treat you like they treated me. Okay?

Gods, I had no idea he could babble like a doting old woman. As if a baby could understand a word. But maybe he was talking more to himself than to the baby.

Anyway, he went on, I'm not going to have a kid for ages, if ever. But if I do? She'll look exactly like you. Exactly like you.

He turned and looked straight at me, at the grown-up Finn, and smiled a smile of breathtaking beauty and trust. My heart twisted achingly. And that was when

I woke up. The paperback was still in my hand but even as my eyes flickered leadenly open it clattered to the floor. I was facing the cot and I could see two small dark eyes staring at me. The other twin, whichever it was, was asleep, its face pressed to its sibling's arm. I had no idea which was which. The one that was awake went on gazing into my eyes. There was something beseeching in its gaze, but nothing judgmental. Fine, fine. I reached down for the paperback and turned away onto my side.

Please. Come. Back. To. Me.

Stupid, eh? He wasn't coming. Not ever.

I stayed for you!
I screamed inwardly.
Why couldn't you stay for me?

‘Finn?'

Oh, for God's sake, not again. Nagging time. I looked over the paperback at Grian.

‘Don't look at me like that, Grian. I fed them.'

He sat down on the bed beside me and took the paperback out of my hands to study the blurb on the back. ‘That's not all there is to it, Finn.'

‘I had them, didn't I? What more do you all want of me?'

‘It's not about what we want. And Finn?' He stroked my hair out of my eyes. ‘It's not even about what you want.'

I slapped his hand away. ‘Don't lecture me, Grian. There's been two men I've allowed to lecture me and they're both dead.'

He sighed. ‘What now, Finn? There's nothing physically wrong with you.'

‘No, there isn't, is there?' I rolled my head round to stare at the wall. ‘Actually, Grian, you'll have to bear with me. I didn't think this far ahead. I was kind of assuming I'd die in childbirth.'

‘Kind of assuming?' he said. ‘Or kind of hoping?'

I looked at him, expressionless.

Grian took a deep breath. ‘Finn, there's been no decision. You still have a right to the Captaincy.'

‘I don't want it.'

He rubbed his hand across his face. ‘You'll have to renounce it in front of witnesses.'

‘So arrange it. I never wanted the Captaincy, Grian.' I looked right into his kind eyes. ‘I would only ever get it with his death, so why would I want it? He made the mistake of wishing for it. I never did.'

‘You'd make a fine Captain, Finn.'

‘No, I wouldn't. Not alone. Let Rory take it, and that's my last word.'

He sighed and stood up. ‘Can Rory come and see the twins?'

‘That's a stupid question, Gri.' I managed to smile at him.

All I wanted to do was sleep. It was the closest I could get to death, after all, so I was asleep again when Rory came. He was there when I woke, a gurgling baby in his arms, and another gazing hopefully up at him from its cot, waiting its turn. He was talking nonsense to the one in his arms, a big stupid grin on his face. Strands of his unruly overlong hair fell forward into his grey eyes. Gods, he was so like his father it hurt. If his hair hadn't been the colour of Conal's, I might have mistaken him …