I finally glanced back over my shoulder, but of course I couldn’t see Ankou and his death hound. I wasn’t the one about to die.
Caom sucked in a choked breath from within the tiny dressing room. When I looked at him, his wide copper eyes were fixed on the empty space behind me, in the same place as his cousin. They could both see the death fae.
Because I still hadn’t decided if I was going to kill them both yet.
“Look at me, gancanagh,” I said softly, still gripping the shirt of the whimpering shop owner as Caom’s terrified gaze slowly swung back to my face.
I didn’t look away as I tugged his cousin up higher. I didn’t look away as I jerked my arm down and slashed through the dark-haired fae’s neck in a quick, fluid swipe. I didn’t look away as hot blood pumped from the wound, coating my hand in seconds.
The angry buzzing inside me eased, lessening as the blood pumping out of the dying fae’s slashed throat. The closer he got to death, the calmer I felt as the Carlin’s order was slowly fulfilled. The sensation was horrible—the relief that soothed the discord inside me like a balm, mingling with self-loathing for what I’d just done. The two were too tangled together, impossible to pick apart.
Murdering the Folk my mother ordered me to was the only way to make the angry swarm inside me go away, and it was also the thing that made me loathe myself. I’d long since grown to accept it. In some ways, I’d grown to relish it.
I was the cold, unfeeling killer of the unseelie Folk. I was my mother’s puppet, more so than any of my brothers. I couldn’t change that.
Caom was close to hyperventilating as I finally uncurled my fingers from his dying cousin’s shirt. His copper eyes were fixed on the blood gushing all over the dressmaker’s shop floor. His cousin gurgled weakly, bleeding out too fast to do more than curl shaking fingers around the bottom of the dressing room curtain.
As the fae went still, I took a step closer to Caom. He jerked back, snot dripping from his nose as he shook his head and started sobbing, pleading with me. Crouching on my haunches, I reached out, ignoring him when he flinched back and screamed.
Yanking him closer by his shirt, I used the clean white fabric to wipe his cousin’s blood off my blade, keeping my eyes locked to his the entire time. Then I sheathed my sword and redrew my dagger.
“The Carlin only told me to kill your cousin,” I told him as I pressed the pad of my thumb to the tip of the dagger’s blade. “Do you think I will listen to her?”
“Please,” he blubbered, shaking wildly as he tucked himself into a tiny ball. “Please! I have done nothing to you!”
I clenched my teeth hard to stop myself snarling about everything he had done to Ash. He knew nothing of mine and Ash’s relationship—our former relationship. I didn’t think it would be wise to tell this sneaky little fuck anything.
“Do you think that matters to me?” I said instead. “Do you really think I won’t kill you just because I want to?”
“B-but—why would you want to?” He sobbed, sniffing to try and prevent snot dripping onto his trembling lips. It didn’t work. “I have done nothing to you or your family. I swear.”
Moving impossibly fast, at a speed only years of training achieved, I pressed the tip of my dagger to the soft underside of his chin. Caom choked on a breath, shaking so hard it looked like he was having a fit.
“Again,” I said softly, “do you think that matters to me?”
“P-please.” He sobbed again.
I stared at him for a long, silent minute, my lip curling into a sneer. Slowly, I stood up and kicked at his ankles, forcing his legs to jerk out and away from his body. When I saw the big wet patch staining the front of his pale green linen trousers, I huffed a derisive sound.
“I think I’ll kill you another day,” I told him, letting my mouth curl into a cold smile when wide, terrified eyes met mine. “But you can be certain of one thing, gancanagh. Iwillkill you one day. Purely because I want to.”
At that, I turned and stepped over his cousin’s cooling body to leave the shop, tracking bloody boot prints over the wooden floor.
The village was still deserted when I stepped outside, closing the door quietly behind me. I felt the weight of my mother’s order lift from my shoulders now that it had been fulfilled. But it was only a matter of time until she gave me a new one. Until she used my true name again to control me completely.
I didn’t know how to feel as I calmly walked back to the palace. The cold acceptance of killing for my mother had temporarily numbed the aching hollowness I felt constantly. Was that better, or worse? Was I going to become even more of an unfeeling killer just to run from the pain of losing Ash?
He wouldn’t want that—if he could still remember me. He wouldn’t have wanted me to become the monster my mother had tried to shape me into, so I couldn’t. I wouldn’t let myself.
Because if I did, the Carlin would win completely.