The Falconer (Elizabeth May) (13 page)

I slam the palm of my hand into Kiaran’s nose with so much force that I hear bone crack. I have to escape that memory before it consumes me. Before I become that helpless girl who let it all happen.

I run. I dash past the nearby stand of trees and begin to round the base of the castle’s cliff. The once-distant clouds have gathered swiftly overhead and rain begins to mist around me. My feet ache with cold through my slippers but I ignore the pain.

I’ll never be weak like that again.
Never
. I can’t let myself.

Hands grab me from behind, pulling at my cloak. I stumble and nearly fall in my attempt to escape. My feet falter as Kiaran roughly turns me around. ‘Kam,’ he snaps, gripping my shoulders. Blood drips from his nose to his lips. He’s bleeding.

‘Your nose,’ I manage.

He touches his fingers to his face. His eyes meet mine and some emotion I can’t name flickers in their depths. Approval? ‘Don’t you understand?’ he says. ‘You’re the only one who could do this. No other human alive is capable of it.’

I twist out of his arms. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You do,’ he says. ‘Think back to—’

‘
I don’t want to!
’ My emotions are out of control and if I don’t rein them in, I might hurt someone. I might hurt
him
. I breathe deep. ‘I don’t want to remember. Don’t force me to do that.’ My voice is despicably thin, high-pitched. It sounds as if I’m begging him.

His depthless eyes search mine. ‘Kam, this is what you were born to be.
Seabhagair
,’ he says. ‘Falconer.’

I shake my head and swipe at my cheeks, now dampened by the mist. The word should have stayed a word. I can accept being made into a faery killer, but that I was born to do it? That it’s a gift I’ve had all along and never knew about? Believing I was weak that night last year is easier than knowing I might have had the strength to save my mother and didn’t know it. That I let her die.

Kiaran sighs. With exasperation or pity, or perhaps a combination of the two. ‘You sense fae power. You fight almost as fast as I do. You’re stronger than other humans, and you heal more rapidly.’ He touches his nose. ‘You did this. With more training, you could again. And when you kill a faery,’ he continues, relentlessly, ‘its power goes through you.’

‘How do you know that?’ I whisper.

‘You’re not the first Falconer I’ve met.’

His gaze softens and for the first time since I met him, I see sorrow there. Who has Kiaran lost, that he should feel so strongly? He drops his eyes and the sadness is gone. ‘But you are the last.’

‘The last?’

‘There were only a certain number of humans born with the ability to kill the
sìthichean
. Always women, always passed from mother to daughter,’ he says. ‘Your line is the only one left.’

‘Don’t you think that if my mother were a Falconer, she would have known about it?’ With both hands, I try to shove him, but he doesn’t even budge. ‘Don’t you think I would have?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Your line’s power became latent. Generations of women would not have known. That ignorance saved your family from being killed but made your abilities more difficult to trigger. That’s why I’m not naturally visible to you.’

‘I see.’ I say the words faintly, because I don’t know how else to respond.

‘Do you?’ He pins me with a hard stare, one that I swear sees right through me. ‘Kam, the Falconers have been tracked and slaughtered for centuries, even with their powers inactive. When you began to hunt alone, your kill signature became obvious to any
sìthichean
who knew what to look for.’

My spine prickles with dread, raising the hair along my skin as if I were brushed by cold fingertips.
Generations of women. Generations. Tracked and slaughtered
. My mind repeats his words, over and over.

‘Are you listening to me? Now they know you’re the last of your line, the only one left who can reactivate the seal. If you go out again, you have to take the pixie with you, so they can’t find—’

‘Stop,’ I breathe.

Kiaran frowns. ‘What?’

My fingernails dig so hard into my leather gloves I feel them against my palm. ‘I told you my Mother was murdered by a
baobhan sìth
,’ I say tightly. ‘This is why. Isn’t it?’

Kiaran stiffens. ‘Aye.’

I straighten, pull my shoulders back and yield to the anger again. It steals my grief. It absolves my guilt. I put the memories where they belong, in the empty place inside my heart. Just like that.

‘I need to leave.’
Time to go and plan a slaughter of my own
.

I think I’ll take the
baobhan sìth
’s head when I find her. Make a trophy out of it, just like Derrick always encourages me to. After all, she must have taken my mother’s heart for the same reason. That’s why she never killed her other victims that way. None of them were Falconers.

I step away from him then, in the direction of my ornithopter. The sun is almost gone now and the storm clouds fill the sky, thick and dark. The soft mist has turned into a light rain. My clothes are damp already. By the time I return home, I’m certain they’ll be drenched.

‘Kam—’

‘Whatever you have to say can wait.’ I’m surprised by how calmly I speak. My voice doesn’t break, or betray my anger. ‘I have an appointment at fourhours with one of my suitors.’

‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘Don’t do this.’

‘Life of a lady, MacKay. Full of tea parties and dancing and husband hunting.’

He looks me up and down. ‘Do you think me so foolish that I can’t see what you intend to do?’

My cheeks burn. ‘You don’t want to get in my way, MacKay. If what you’ve said is true, that bloody nose is the least I’m capable of.’

I stride away from him then. I pause only when he calls my name, but I don’t turn around.

‘At least take the pixie with you if you go out again. A
sìthiche
powerful enough can track you if you don’t.’ And I think I hear him whisper, ‘Be careful.’

Chapter 14

‘
A
ileana, I was going to tell you,’ Derrick says. ‘Really I was.’ I pull my legs under me as I sit at my work table. Metal components of one sort or another are strewn all around me. I place the final screws into the valve for the fire-starter I began making yesterday. My mind is almost entirely focused on my tasks, on preparing to kill the
baobhan sìth
. As for when the seal breaks . . . one thing at a time. I have a lot to do before then.

Fourhours with Lord Linlithgow had been incredibly strained. I sipped tea and sat with the perfect poise I had been taught since childhood. Father nodded at me with approval, because I spoke only when necessary, like a good gentlewoman.

We discussed things that took little effort for me to lie about: watercolours and dancing and stitching. That I enjoyed reading – but of course not too much, because I mustn’t imply I’m a bluestocking. We discussed our plans for Hogmanay, which Lord Linlithgow said would be spent with his sister in the country so they could celebrate the New Year together.

Lord Linlithgow said all the appropriate things and listened politely. A perfect gentleman, the product of what must have been impeccable etiquette lessons. The Aileana of last year would have considered how he’d age, and if we married how we would get on, what our children would look like. She would have found him an attractive match, certainly worthy of a second visit.

The Aileana of last year was a complete and utter ninny.

When afternoon tea was over, Lord Linlithgow left with a smile. I left and screamed into my pillow.

‘Aileana?’ Derrick’s wings flutter once.

‘If you’d wanted to tell me that I’m a Falconer,’ I say, ‘you’ve had every opportunity to do so. Indeed, I asked you directly just the other night and you expertly evaded the question.’

Derrick flutters to my work table and sits on my bundled jacket. Behind him, the light from the fireplace casts him in a glow of orange flame. I can see his face, the guilt there.

‘I was keeping you safe.’

‘In what way could keeping me in ignorance be construed as
protection
?’ I straighten a piece of wire to add to the fire-starter. ‘God spare me from such protection, especially when it involves safeguarding my poor feminine sensibilities from life-saving information.’

I connect the wire to the valve and twist to lock it into place.

‘Aileana—’

‘Furthermore, I can’t believe I had to hear it from Kiaran rather than you. You live in my bloody dressing room.’

This time, he doesn’t spew his usual tirade of insults about Kiaran. He simply says, ‘I’m sorry.’

When Derrick says it like that, as if he’s rather ashamed of himself, I begin to soften. He changed me after my mother died. When I met him, it was the first time I realised that some faeries might be good. That some are worthy of friendship. I can’t stay mad at him for long.

I release a resigned breath. ‘I forgive you.’

He lands on my wrist, tiny feet warm against my skin. I brush my fingers over his wings once and he flashes a smile that’s gone so quickly. ‘I have more news.’ He speaks tentatively, as if gauging how I’ll respond.

My urge to fight rises, an impulse I’ve never been able to quell no matter how often he tells me that she’s killed again. The looming battle with the underground fae should be my priority – should scare the daylights out of me – but it’s difficult to suppress the instinctual urge to hunt for her and only her. Until now, nothing else mattered.

I stand and Derrick follows me to the wall, watching quietly as I press the button to reveal the map. ‘Where?’

‘Glasgow. Two this time.’

So close now. At the rate the
baobhan sìth
migrates, she’ll be here within a few days, before the midwinter eclipse. God, if I can kill her before then, I won’t have to choose which fight takes precedence. I could go up against all those fae with her defeat so fresh in my mind that I’d feel invulnerable.

I remove a pin from the leather pouch and stick it right beside the other already marking Glasgow. A pin from more than a year ago. She’s done nearly a full loop around the country, with only Edinburgh remaining.

I knot two ribbons around the pin. One hundred and eighty-six kills now. I can only hope these will be her last before I find her.

Returning to my work table, I resume my task of completing the fire-starter, more focused than ever. I attach one end of the valve to a metal plate and the other to the fuel reservoir. ‘Can you light a wee bit of fabric and bring it to me?’

Derrick stares at me a moment, wings fluttering. A golden halo has begun to spread around him again. He flies to the fireplace, pulls some ribbon from his bag and dips it towards the flame. I set the plate on the table and twist the small fuel reservoir’s control button a touch.

‘Hover it above the metal plate,’ I say.

He lowers the flaming fabric, and just before fire touches metal, a small flame ignites in the centre, where the gas escapes. Derrick tosses the ribbon onto the coals and flies back, to study my invention with fascination.

‘What is that?’ he asks.

I twist the button a bit more and the flame grows even higher. ‘My next weapon.’

‘Faeries don’t burn,’ Derrick points out. ‘What’s your plan?’

I remove a sprig of
seilgflùr
from the compartment beneath my desk. I’ll test a much smaller amount with this device than I used in the explosive watch fob. Another disaster of that nature would surely send the city into a panic.

Naturally, Derrick retreats from the thistle.

‘Let me ask you something,’ I say. ‘What do you think would happen if I mixed
seilgflùr
with whisky and set it on fire?’

Not just any whisky. My father’s
best
whisky. Several bottles of old Ferintosh that he only pulls out in exceptional circumstances.
Ah, sweet revenge
. . .

Derrick grins. ‘Clever.’

I twist the button again to extinguish the flame. Next I set to work constructing an arm-mount for the weapon. Whether a few minutes or an hour go by, I’m so deep in my work that I jump when Derrick says my name.

‘There was another reason I never told you.’ He glides to my shoulder and tangles himself in my hair. ‘I worried about you, when we met. I could never place such a burden on someone so young and anguished if I didn’t have to. I
still
worry about you.’

‘Worry about what?’

‘That you would do whatever it took to kill the
baobhan sìth
, no matter the cost.’

‘Why help me track her, then? Why not lie about that, too?’

‘Because you deserve vengeance,’ he says quietly. ‘I would never take that from you.’ He hesitates, wrapping strands of my hair around his hands. ‘Did I make the wrong choice? Does knowing what you are make your mother’s death any easier to bear?’

I wish it did. I’m supposed to be destined and naturally gifted to hunt the fae – a Falconer – and I couldn’t even kill one when it mattered most. Some gift. I almost tell him that knowing makes it worse.

I turn my head, close enough that his wings fan my cheek with a soft, comforting breeze. Instead of answering, I say, ‘Kiaran said to take you when I leave the house. Why is that?’

‘I can shield you,’ he says. ‘So the others won’t know where to find you.’

‘Then come with me to the ball tomorrow, and you can worry over me there.’

‘A ball?’ Derrick brightens. ‘I thought you’d never ask. I
love
dancing!’

I laugh and continue my work. I build through the night, determined to finish my project. The hours tick by and I’m so consumed that I don’t prepare for a nightly hunt. I don’t want to see Kiaran again yet, anyway. The repetition of building is so much easier than dealing with what he told me. I find comfort in placing the metal components, in watching the fire-starter take form with each piece I add. Even when the flame singes my fingers, I continue working, determined not to think of our conversation in the gardens.

As I grow more and more tired, my resolve fails. My eyelids begin to close. And Kiaran’s words play again in my mind, a painful reminder that I was always fated for this. To be a killer.
This is what you were born to be. Falconer
.