Chapter eighteen
Green at the Gates of Home
Cillian
Rougeleftwithheronly thirty minutes ago. Half an hour. Half an eternity.
And I’m pacing the length of the stable house like a man waiting on a verdict. Back and forth across the old wooden floorboards, hands in my hair, stitches in my arm pulling, heart beating like a bodhrán in my ribs.
Every two minutes I check the clock. Every three I check my phone. Every breath hurts.
I should’ve gone with her. I know that. I should’ve been the one to bring her back to that manor, to the ghosts of everything she lost. But she asked me to stay. Said she needed to see it alone first, needed to face the ruins of the life she had before mine swallowed hers whole.
So I stayed. And now I’m goingmad.
I move to the window, stare out at the frost settling over the fields. The horses are sleeping in their stalls, slow breaths turning to mist. The world is quiet—peaceful—in a way I don’t feel inside.
I step outside just to breathe. Cold air burns my lungs. The sun is sinking, painting the horizon gold and green, the colors of home and war. I run a hand over my face.Christ, I want her back. I want her safe. I want her to choose me. Choosethislife. Choosehome.
I walk farther than I mean to. Past the frost-bitten hedges. Past the stone fence we carved our initials into when we were twelve. Past the ghost of a life that could’ve been simple, if men like my father hadn’t poisoned the soil generations before I was even born.
My boots crunch over frozen earth. Each step feels like a confession. The wind is sharp—clean—cutting straight through my coat. It feels deserved.
Ahead of me, my family manor rises like a mausoleum. Dark stone. Dark history. Darkness in the bones of the place, sunk deep enough that even God wouldn’t touch it.
That’s where it happened. Where blood stained the carpet. Where I put a bullet in the man who raised me. Where I gutted the legacy that made me. All to give her a chance at a life without monsters nipping at her heels.
I stop at the tree line, staring at the windows gone cold and dim. They used to glow at Christmas—gold, warm, proud. Now they look like empty eyes. Watching me. Judging me.
You’re the head of the Red Hand now,the silence whispers.Are you any better than the man you killed?
I drag in a breath until it burns. I’ll be better or I’ll die trying. I’ll end the pointless violence. I’ll build something new from the rot. For her. Always for her.
She deserves a home that doesn’t choke her with ghosts. She deserves a family that doesn’t bleed her dry. She deserves peace—God, she deservespeace.
And all I can do is pray she comes back to me so I can give it to her. My vision blurs. Whether from cold or fear, I can’t tell.
I close my eyes and let the weight of everything settle. The crown of the Red Hand. The love I’ve never been able to shake. The future hanging in the balance of her choice. Christ, she’s the only thing in this world that’s ever made me want to be a good man.
The wind shifts. Just a small thing—barely more than a breath across the frozen grass—but something in me goes still. A prickle down my spine. The kind you get right before a gunshot or a miracle.
Then I hear it. Footsteps. Fast. Uneven. Kicking up frost and gravel. My heart lurches so violently I swear it knocks the air from my chest.
I turn—AndGod. God. It’s her. Siobhán. Running. Not walking. Not approaching.Runningat me like her soul’s on fire, like the earth itself is cracking behind her and I’m the only safe thing left in the world. Her coat flies behind her like wings. Her hair’s loose, wild, golden against the dying green light. Her eyes—Christ above—her eyes are already shining.
I don’t even feel myself move. One second I’m standing there, praying to saints I don’t believe in, and the next she’s colliding with me. Arms around my neck. Fingers fisting in my coat. Her whole body shaking against mine. Her breath breaks on a sob, and it goes straight through me, clean and cruel.
“I—Cillian—” she gasps, the words catching like she’s choking on them. “I can’t—I can’t leave you.”
Her voice cracks open, splintering something deep inside me. She presses her forehead to mine, crying, trembling, trying to speak around the storm in her chest.
“It’s always been you,” she whispers, like a confession, like a prayer. “Always you. Even when I tried to run. Even when I hated you. Even when everything hurt—I still—” Her voice collapses. She sobs again. “I still loved you.”
And Christ, I’m ruined.Absolutely ruined. I pull her tighter, bury my face in her hair, breathing her in like a dying man and she’s the first lungful of air I’ve had in years. Her tears hit my collar. Mine hit her temple. My hands cup her jaw so gently I think they might break from the effort of it.
“Mo chroí,” I breathe. My heart. My life. “Don’t cry,a rún. Don’t cry, I’ve got you.”
But she shakes her head, gripping me tighter, like she’s afraid if she loosens a single finger I’ll vanish into the frost. “I thought I could,” she whispers. “Thought I could leave and build something new. But it’s here. It’s you. You’re my home. You always have been.”
