Focusing on the words, he tried to decipher them.
“Bear with me. They are tough with the ink being smeared from water.”
They didn’t mind.
Not.
At.
All.
Getting the gist of the first sentence, Graham read it to them so they could keep working while they waited for the call to go to the village.
‘The betrayer was left in the lake to rot and never be seen again. May the devil himself hold those bones in his hands. For it is done. My retribution is done, and now, Ciarán shall have his peace.’
When Graham looked up they were all thinking the same thing.
“Well, it’s definitely not his lover. It would be nice if he told us who is in the lake,” Gabby admitted.
There was more to read, so she might get what she asked for yet.
“There’s more.”
They let Graham keep going.
“I think this is a few days later, but I can’t tell since where the date was is decimated.
That was fine.
They just wanted information. The dates didn’t matter to them. They had a basic timeline.
He continued.
‘It is done. I have found out who has betrayed me, and on this day they have been punished for taking the one thing from me that mattered.
Love.
I took no pleasure in killing but it needed to be done.’
When he looked up, he clarified.
“The next line is smudged and destroyed. I’ll continue from where I can read again.”
They let him do just that.
‘After destroying the person who instigated this witch hunt on me and my one and only true love, they have been vanquished.’
He glanced up.
“It looks like a name, but again, time and water were not our friend, and we know it’s the body in the lake.”
No one spoke.
‘I wish I knew of their cold heart earlier, for it might have saved my true love, Ciarán. Now, I am forced to walk alone without him. In all honesty, I wish for the Gods to smite me down, and end me from my misery. For I hurt every day without Ciarán.’
Graham was silently reading, trying to decipher the mess that was the final page of Duncan’s journal.
That’s when he gasped.
