And none of it would help Alva.
Niamh sighed. Dallan had said he might be able to help, so that was something. And she’d promised him she would get some rest. She should probably go lie down before he commented on her fretting. Leaving the infirmary only a few short hours after arriving, Niamh crossed the courtyard toward the room she shared with her mother and Máire.
So few had survived, that between the hall and the empty rooms of the keep and its outbuildings, everyone had a pallet for themselves—some more private than others. How she longed to be back in her little cottage, with her warm quilted blanket and a crackling fire. It wasn’t for lack of solitude, though.
Niamh had been sharing a room with her mother for much of her adult life, ever since her father had left shortly after they moved away from Nás. He’d always been so happy, so warm, so talkative. Niamh had no idea anything was wrong until one morn she woke and he was gone. He hadn’t even waited to say goodbye to her. According to her mother, he hadn’t wanted to explain to Niamh why he was leaving.
The irony of that had stung almost as much as his absence.
Lost in her thoughts, Brona and Catrin, the queen’s youngest daughter, surprised her when they appeared in her path.
“Niamh!” Brona greeted her cheerily. “How are you, my dear? How are you faring after all this disruption?”
“As well as can be expected, I suppose.”
“How are the injured doing? Do you have everything you need to care for them?”
Niamh perked up at that. “Well, actually, I’ve run out of quite a few supplies. I was permitted to forage a few days ago, but—”
“Well, it seems today is your lucky day,” Brona interrupted. Catrin and I were just headed down into the village to take stock of the situation. Why don’t you join us? We can see if any of your stockpile survived the fire.”
A weight that Niamh hadn’t realized she’d carried lifted from her shoulders. “Really?”
“Of course. It’d be no trouble at all. Not even out of the way.”
“But my cottage is—was—on the edge of the village.”
Brona took Niamh’s arm, leading her toward the gate. “We need to inspect the entire village, including the area around your cottage.”
Niamh’s sudden surge of hope overtook her good sense for only a moment. As they approached the guard tower at the front gate, Niamh remembered that no one was to leave the village unguarded. Cormac had made that quite clear.
“Brona,” Niamh ventured hesitantly. One did not often question a queen. “What about Cormac’s orders? Shouldn’t we have a guard come with us? I could probably—”
“No need to worry over that,” she interrupted. “He’s already agreed to it.”
Niamh looked from Brona to Catrin, who glared at her mother reproachfully. Something told Niamh that Cormac had no idea that Brona planned to leave the keep today.
She should excuse herself. Claim exhaustion and promise to accompany them another time. Thank the queen for her generous offer.
In any other situation, she would have done precisely that. But this was different.
Because inside her cottage, she had stores of cinnamon and orange.
The village beforethem lay in shambles, a charcoal wasteland of indistinguishable remnants of lives now lost. Three buildings had been mercifully spared, easily spotted against the razed horizon. Her cottage wasn’t one of them.
The three women stood side by side, surrounded by destruction. Brona clicked her tongue in disapproval, as though Aodh were a lad who’d misbehaved and not a grown man who’d burned their village to the ground.
“I can’t believe he’d do such a thing,” Brona proclaimed sadly.
Catrin glared at her mother. “Don’t.”
“Catrin.” The warning tone in Brona’s voice set Niamh on edge.
Catrin opened her mouth to reply, but when her eyes met Niamh’s she closed it again, fury writ on her face.
“Let’s have a look around, shall we? See what damage Aodh has wrought.” Brona eyed Catrin as she spoke.
Niamh found the entire exchange unsettling. “I’m going to head down to my cottage. It will take some time to go through the rubble.” As she stepped down the blackened path, she heard Catrin mumble behind her.
