The water tank was suitably full, but his suspicions proved correct when he found the filter to be blocked with silt. He washed it, replaced it, and was about to head back in when he spotted the chimney flues.
He might as well check those too whilst he was up here.
A little voice nagged at him the whole time he faffed about up there, clearing the flues of any debris, before givingthe roof a quick once-over for potential weaknesses or water ingress. When was the last time he’d concerned himself with the drudgery of a stranger’s life, let alone helped them with it? Had he ever?
He didn’t want to answer that, because the question that followed would be even worse. It flittered to the forefront of his mind anyway. When was the last time he’d opted to save a stranger’s life rather than take out one of his targets?
Last night had been awful, not the worst thing he’d ever witnessed, not by a long shot, but certainly in the top ten. Maybe top fifteen. But chilling as the whole experience had been, it was undeniably the best cover-up for the murder he’d come here to commit.
Morbeck had been in the clearing, pandemonium erupting around them, bodies piling up by the dozens. All Keeran had had to do was brush past him, slip a blade into one of his kidneys as he’d passed by, and no one would have questioned just one more body leaking blood onto the forest floor.
But he’d been halfway to Morbeck when he’d heard Aelia scream, the sound turning his blood cold in a way none of the violence of the evening had been able to. When he’d seen her lying on the floor, eyes riveted on the body of the human woman he’d seen her spend so much time with, he’d frozen. Torn between going to her and taking out Morbeck.
It was a no-brainer. Logically, he shouldn’t have wasted the opportunity, he should have turned his back on her and killed the traitorous son of a bitch right then and there. Minimal risk, in and out, job done.
But when he’d seen one of those black clad arseholes kick her right in the face, he’d lost it. He was by her side more quickly than he ought to have been, more quickly than any normal artemian, baring his teeth at Beserkir in a reckless display of menace.
He was lucky his actions had gone unnoticed in the mayhem. If anyone had seen him move so fast, he would have had to have left right then and there. Fortunately, Beserkir wasn’t interested in losing any more of his men and, having taken one look at Keeran, had decided it wasn’t worth the fight.
He’d risked everything to save her and he had no idea why. Just like he couldn’t explain why he’d been unable to stop stalking her all day yesterday, hating himself every second he watched her from the shadows, yet utterly unable to stop.
Keeran sat back on his haunches, finally satisfied that the roof would see out the winter, and looked out over the treetops. It was beautiful up here, with the rays of the sun starting to break through the dense morning fog, the thousand noises of the forest starting to fracture the sombre hush that had befallen the village. He watched a squirrel leap into the air, unperturbed by something as inconvenient as gravity as it soared towards the next branch. It landed with an athletic scuttle of paws and skittered away.
Keeran sighed, sick of the same questions circling in his head. In the grand scheme of things, none of them mattered. He would wait until she was conscious, until he knew she was okay, and then he’d leave.
The Peregrinians would be leaving today anyway, though he hadn’t yet decided if he’d go with them. Beserkir was a nasty piece of work, and Keeran had a bone to pick with him. Or, if he was feeling particularly vicious, he could pick a bone out of him instead. He grinned at the idea.
He climbed back down, playing with the notion as he walked back into the treehouse, wondering if extracting an entire humerus from a living person was even possible, when a groan made him stop in his tracks.
She was waking up.
His heart flipped in his chest, and he clenched and unclenched his fists, psyching himself up before he pushed into the lounge.
Aelia was sitting on the sofa, her head in her hands, looking for all the world like she did indeed feel like she’d got on the wrong side of a horse, and an ill-tempered one at that. She obviously hadn’t heard him come in, and he stood awkwardly in the doorway, not wanting to scare her but equally unsure how not to.
He settled for clearing his throat.
Aelia’s head whipped to face him, and she moved more quickly than he’d have thought possible, grabbing a mug from the nearby table and launching it at his head. He ducked, narrowly avoiding the ceramic missile as it smashed into the wall behind him.
“Urgh.” Aelia dropped back onto the sofa, her head in her hands again, having gone a ghastly shade of white.
He was next to her in an instant, kneeling by her side as he tried to assess what little of her he could see through her fingers.
“Are you okay?” he asked, wondering if it would be weird to ask to look at her pupils. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“What are you doing here?” she mumbled, weakly.
“I carried you back.” Keeran wished she’d drop her hands. He could see so little of her it was hard to ascertain what might be wrong, though her perfect aim with the mug had proved her motor skills to be unaffected by the head injury, and she seemed to be forming coherent sentences. All good signs.
Aelia went still, then her breathing quickened. When she lowered her hands, he almost regretted wishing she would. He could do nothing as a barrage of emotions played out over her face in quick succession, the memories of the night before coming flooding back. Grief, despair, hopelessness, anger and, finally, hatred.
Hatred stuck, easier to bear than the others. He knew from experience.
What he wasn’t expecting, however, was for it to be directed at him. When her eyes met his, the loathing that seethed in them had him sitting back on his heels.
“You stopped me,” Aelia said, voice low and terrifying. “You stopped me from going to him.”
“Beserkir would have killed you then and there, he’d have made an example of you both,” Keeran tried to reason, a part of him noting that at least the colour was returning to her cheeks.
