I'm not sure what it is about nightfall that makes one feel the weight of their conscience more heavily than they did only hours before. Maybe it's the quiet of night that does it or a trick of a mind too busy to let sleep conquer it. Before Magni, I rarely dwelled on the wrong things I'd done or felt remorse. Even when I did, it was such a minuscule amount that I could ignore it.
Whatever the cause, I felt it that night, the pressure building on my chest with every sin I remembered committing. I had a long list and the weight of it was only increasing with every breath that I took. Rikard's killing pressed more heavily on me than all the rest. Not what had been done to him, but Cat's reaction to it...to me...to us, like she'd never realized what we were until that moment when she watched the creatures she'd grown up with tear a child to shreds.
As we'd returned to the brooding chamber that night, carrying our sleepy children, Cat had stormed ahead of us and escaped into her own bedroom, slamming the door behind her so loudly the sound bellowed through the goblin tunnels. Odd stirred from his dozing, growling unhappily against my shoulder.
Knut's brows pinched together with worry. He went after her and knocked on her door. "Cat, don't be this way. We only did what had to be done."
"You didn't have to kill him! You didn't have to hurt anyone!" She screamed from inside. "Go away! I don't want to talk to you! You're as much a monster as she is!" I felt the sharpness of those hate-filled words slice against my cheek like she'd slashed me with a knife.
Knut blinked at the door. "But I've always been one. Why would I have such sharp teeth and claws if they were not meant to be used? Why are you so surprised?"
"Go away!" She screamed again. Something heavy struck the door, startling Knut back from it.
"She has your temper if nothing else." Knut's ears drooped ever so slightly. "It was was my idea to make you watch. Not your aunt's. It was meant to teach you a valuable lesson. If you think I killed Rikard just to kill him then you've missed that lesson entirely. This isn't a sparring match. This is war."
Another heavy thing hit the door in response, rattling it in its frame. "Liar! That witch told you to kill him!" She echoed the blow with a snarl. "I hate you! I hate all of you!" I swallowed hard, pushing back the lump growing in my throat. There was so much truth in those declarations. She'd meant every single syllable.
"Just leave her be, Knut. She isn't in the mood to listen." I sighed. "We'll try to talk to her again in the morning."
He turned and looked at me. "It hurts you, doesn't it?" When he asked me that, that very small, simple question, I couldn't help but think that he could see more with one eye than he ever did with two.
Yes, it hurt me. I cared about her. I wanted good things for her and to give her what her snake of a father never would have, but I couldn't say that I loved her. I don't think that I did. I was too afraid to. However, my time away had put things in perspective for me. I didn't love her now, but I wanted to. I wanted to try to love her, not as a mother, but maybe as an aunt, as kin. I was ready to open myself up ever so slightly and hesitantly to my oldest brother's daughter, I just didn't know if she'd ever open herself up to me...especially once I told her who her father actually was and what I had done with him.
We were settled into our bed just like the night before with all our children cradled between us. Knut tossed and turned for a while before he finally got to sleep. Meanwhile, I lay there with my eyes closed, exhausted but afraid to let myself relax into sleep. I could already feel the nightmares clawing at my mind, daring me to let them pull me in. Their claws felt distinctly like Lysander's fingers. Eventually, my body lost the fight and the nightmares got their way. They didn't star who I thought they would, but they did not disappoint.
I stood on an island, my bare feet damp and cold in the sand. It was nighttime and a storm was starting to roll in. The thick clouds blotted out the stars and moon. The only light glowed from within Jasper's little cottage standing before me, its door painted red with lamb's blood. Behind it, looming over the small house was a tree that hadn't been there to my memory. A tree with black bark and twisted, crooked branches. A pungent odor wafted off of it. The smell so eerily like my father's corpse after he'd been left on the gallows for a week. Dead and rotting. Five ropes dangled from one lower branch, from four of them shadowy bodies hung, swinging from side to side in the wind, while the last one's end had been cut raggedly as if the body it had once held has already been taken down. It swayed in the storm's strong winds, the rope weathered and blackened with age and the stains of old blood.
As I stood there, crooked, frightening shadows crept along the side of the house and slipped one by one through the window. A shout suddenly came from inside and I jumped in fright with a cry of my own. I froze there, clamping my hands over my ears. The voice screaming inside the house was my own. The one that had come up my throat was that of a child's. A little girl's. My hands shook as I lifted them up to the bonnet covering my hair. I pulled it away and black curls came tumbling out. I screamed.
Another shout overcame my frightened screaming. "See me!" My disembodied voice screamed, full of hurt, full of denial, an echo of a night I'd tried very hard to forget. I'd just wanted Jasper to see me, to see what I'd become because of and in spite of him. Look at me. Look at my pretty dress. Look at the jewels on my fingers, the fine slippers on my feet, my chest rising and falling with steady breaths. I got it all without you, everything you promised me, everything you tried to rob me of! Look at me and know that you didn't get to ruin me!
Hesitantly, I moved forward, towards that hate and hurt filled house and the dead tree. My small hands, Cat's hands, pressed against the bloody door and pushed it open. It swung inward, revealing a familiar scene. I saw myself, dressed in a green gown standing over my brother's crumpled form. Her fist came down again and again into Jasper's face and each time her arm went back to ready another hard hit, it sent an arc of blood spraying across the room. The look on her face, her eyes wide and rimmed red, filling with tears she was too proud to shed, her lips peeled back so far from her bared teeth that it wrinkled her nose in an animal-like snarl. My ghost was as hideous and frightening as any goblin could ever hope to be. As her fist came down again, I followed it's movement, watched it knock teeth from Jasper's bloody face and for a moment, just that small moment, I saw my own father there instead. My heart ached with the pain of loss once again. Not just my own grief over everyone I'd lost, but Cat's as well.
Was this what real empathy was supposed to feel like?
I didn't jump awake as I had from the last nightmare I'd had. My eyes just popped open and the breath I was holding escaped my lungs. I blinked up at the ceiling. It wasn't morning yet. Everyone was still dead asleep and the room was nearly black even with my enhanced eyesight.
"Are you really going to do it?" I asked myself. "You might just make it all worse." I mulled it over, arguing with myself for about twenty minutes or so, alone with my thoughts as much as Jasper now was. I couldn't fool myself into believing that Cat could ever forgive me or that she'd even stop hating me the tiniest bit, but maybe she wouldn't spit on my grave after I died or kill me herself eventually...maybe. Finally, I smiled sadly into the dark. "At least it'll be behind me."
Carefully, I disentangled myself from the sleeping boys, moving Floki's leg off my hip and rolling him onto his side enough to slip my arm from beneath his head. I tiptoed to my wardrobe and quickly grabbed some old sparring clothes. A pair of worn leather breaches and a soft almost threadbare white shirt. I dressed behind my changing screen and sat at my vanity to slip some boots onto my feet.
"Where are you going dressed in your sparring clothes?"
I finished tugging on my last boot, then looked over towards Knut. His eye shined through the gloom of the dark room. "I'm going to talk to Cat," I whispered, using my soft steps as I approached his side of the bed.
"Ah, I see. You're having that conversation. Probably a wise choice then," Knut smirked. "Do you need to go right now?"
I sat down beside him, shaking my head. "I need to go now while I have the nerve or I'll just keep putting it off."
"I see." He nodded towards the wardrobe. "Look in the bottom drawer. I have a memory capsule Tova gave us. It might make things a little easier. Get it and bring it to me." Retrieving the small dark jewel from its hiding place, I sat beside him on the bed and held it out to him. "No, you hold it in your palms." I did as he said and covered my hands and the capsule with one large hand. He smiled wryly up at me. "I was filling this with my favorite memories of the children. I thought it would make a good present for later, but I think It's needed now. I can always refill it again afterward."
"What do I have to do?" I asked.
"Just hold it like that and remember the moments you want Cat to see. I'll help you transfer the memories into the capsule."
I felt my hands warm as magic pulsed from Knut's hand into mine, sparking in the jewel in my palms. It swelled and surged, tingling through my limbs, charging my very blood. I dragged my worse memories up from the dredges of my mind. I plucked out the moments that cut the deepest into me, including every betrayal and every faked kindness. Tears pricked at my eyes, stinging and clawing. I ground my teeth and bore it. Even after all this time, the wound Jasper had left in my tender self still hadn't healed. Each time I was reminded of him, it started to bleed all over again.
As I came to Jasper's death and The End's sinister laugh echoed through my skull, Knut pulled his hand away. "That should do it. I wouldn't show her this unless you absolutely have to, though. It is one thing to hear something and quite another to actually see it."
I brushed my fingers along my lower eyelids, making sure that not a single tear more was shed for Jasper. "I have a feeling I'm going to need it." I tucked the capsule into my pocket.
Knut touched my arm. His thumb brushed along my skin soothingly. "Do you want me to come with you?" He asked.
"No, I need to do it myself." I reached over and moved his hair out of his face, letting it fall to his pillow. His eyelashes fluttered at the feeling of my fingers lightly brushing his skin. "You stay here and keep the boys warm. I'll be back in time for our date." I bent down and kissed him on his forehead.
"You'd better. I'm looking forward to it." He said. His hand slid down my arm and squeezed my hand one more time before I finally parted from him and escaped out into the hall.
A pair of leather boots laid just inside Cat's room as I entered. I guessed that they were the heaviest things near her she could find to hurl at the poor scuffed door. I picked them up as I walked quietly into the room. She always kept her room very neat. She preferred darker colors. Deep indigo, emerald, and midnight blue were particular favorites. A taste that she seemed to share with the Unseelie, who's tapestries, art and fabrics decorated her room. On her vanity, by her hairbrush was the box of chocolates she'd been hoarding. I opened it up, being very careful not to rustle the little papers inside that kept the chocolates from sticking to each other. Most of them were gone, but the ones with pistachio filling still remained. I suppressed a sigh as I closed it up again. I was so tempted to steal one, but I behaved myself and moved on towards the bed. Cat slept peacefully, nearly curled into a ball beneath her blankets, very much like a cat. Her perpetually angry eyebrows were no more. Her face was relaxed, her mouth slightly open as she softly snored. She looked as peaceful as a baby now, but I noticed the tell-tale red flush to her cheeks and around her eyes and nose. She'd been crying.
"Wake up!" I tossed the boots onto the bed so that they fell right on her hip.
She jumped with a gasp and stared at me with wide eyes half hidden by a nest of knotted black hair. "W-what do you want?" She asked. She picked up one of the boots and looked at it like she'd never seen it before. "Why are you throwing my shoes at me?"
"Stop throwing them at my door if you don't like it," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "Who are you saving those chocolates for?" I asked. "I thought you hated pistachio."
She scowled at me, then looked away, her face flushing even more. "Bran...mentioned that he liked them."
"Bran's gone."
"But he might still come back. We don't know that he's not."
I wanted to scream at her, but I bit my tongue and reminded her as gently as I was able. "Cat, I hope you remembered what I told you about him. You don't need to be getting involved with someone like him."
"It's not like that. He's my friend!" She huffed. "Am I not allowed to have friends?"
"Just get up and get dressed." I grabbed her blankets and threw them off her legs. She hissed in absolute displeasure when the cool air in the room touched her bare legs. "We're going to The Hollow for a sparring match."
"Sparring?" She looked over at the clock ticking away on her bedside table. "Now? But it's the middle of the night! Frit and Floki have already had their sparring lesson today. I don't see why-"
"We're not sparring with Frit and Floki. This time, it's just you and me." I said, leaning over her so that my face was closer to hers. I smiled a thin smile at her. "You've been waiting for your chance to try your skills against mine, haven't you? Here it is."
Cat clenched her jaw and darkness flooded her gaze. Her fingers dug their nails into the thick leather of her boot.
My smile grew at the sight. "Hurry up now. I'll explain the rest once we're there."
"You've never taken an interest in my lessons before, why now?" Cat asked as we entered The Hollow's Empty arena. At the center of it, two practice swords were left laying side by side in the dirt as if they'd been put there specifically for our use. I heard a soft whistle and glanced up to see Llinos grinning down at me from one of the higher mushrooms. His eyes glinted green in the low light. He gave me a nod and crawled away, climbing higher and higher into The Hollow's innards. Thank you, Knut.
"I want to clear the air between us," I said, picking up both swords. I tossed her one. With the blunt weapon in her hand, she shifted her stance into the one Llinos had taught her, the one she used with her rapier sword.
"Clear the air?" She growled. "We didn't just get into some petty argument! After everything you've put me through, do you really think that you can ever fix my opinion of you?"
A bitter huff of a chuckle escaped my mouth unbidden. "What is your opinion of me, Cat?" I asked in a small voice. I traced swirls into the dirt at my feet with one sword, afraid to lift my eyes to her face, to see the absolute hatred I heard in her voice reflected there in that face that looked too much like my favorite brother's.
"You're a heinous, vindictive bitch." She hissed at me with feeling.
I nodded to myself. "So, do you think I deserved what I've gotten?" I smirked. "I bet you do. I bet you wanted to jump for joy, knowing that I had to watch Magni die in my arms."
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again all the hissing and growling was gone from her voice. Her voice was small, meek, almost sad. "No." With a hard swallow, I finally lifted my gaze to her face. She frowned at me, but her eyebrows were not so sharply angled as before. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with a somewhat panicked breathing even though we hadn't even begun to spar yet. "You took away my parents, my home,...you didn't even let me keep my name. I hate you with all of my soul, but unlike you, I have no desire for revenge. I never wanted you to suffer, least of all like that."
"I saved you," I muttered, unable to help myself.
Cat let out a shriek as she leaped forward, slamming her sword into my own. I had just enough time to bring it up to block her with my faster reflexes, but the blow was hard and she kept pushing forward, snarling into my face. My feet slid in the loose earth. "Saved me?! What the hell did you save me from! You ruined my life!" She slid her sword up off of mine and brought it around to my left, smacking me in the ribs with the edge.
I yelped at the blow and jumped backward to put space between us. I held my hand against my side where the pain radiated through my chest. She wasn't blessed by The Hollow as I was. Her strength, speed, everything was still very human, but she'd used every bit of power she possessed. She'd put it all behind that swing to make sure it would hurt. "Ruined your life..." I laughed sadly, wanting to just scream everything out, but even now, I couldn't make myself form the right words. "By taking you into my home? Feeding you? Clothing you? Giving you the same education as my sons? I did what was best for you."
"By making sure that I could never live a normal human life?" She thrust her weapon at me in a series of swift jabs, trying to strike at my chest and belly. Her footwork and quick and natural. She'd caught on much more swiftly than I had to Llinos' teachings. She caught on quickly to most things. She'd be a force to be reckoned with if she ever shed her human weaknesses.
"Would you have preferred that I kill you or leave you there to starve?" I blocked each one, my movements much faster than her own.
"I would have liked to have had the choice rather than have you make it for me!" She cried. I knocked her sword out of her hands and brought my leg around into the side of her knees, sending her feet out from under her. She fell onto her side where she'd stood, panting from the effort of trying to keep up with me. I hadn't fought her at my fullest. I just wanted to let her try to hit me, hit me as hard she wanted to. That was the whole reason I'd brought her here. "Why?" She whimpered, her fingers clawing through the dark earth. "Why did you have to come back?" She lifted her head and glared at me. There were tears in her eyes. "What did they do to you? What did they do that was so awful that you couldn't forgive them?"
"He sold me." I breathed raggedly "My own brother sold me to a stranger to pay his debts." A groan followed it. I swayed on my feet and slipped down to my knees, letting the sword fall from my hand. "Do you understand what that means, Cat?" I asked her, staring into those wide, horrified eyes, searching for any kind of understanding, sympathy or pity I could find. I continued on, telling her everything that happened. I told her how Knut had saved me, how her father had abandoned me when I was arrested, and how he'd turned in the twins for the bounties on their heads. She listened in stunned silence, barely blinking. Tears slowly dripped down her cheeks while I shook with rage and hurt. "He pocketed all that gold and fled with your mother. It was that money that built that pretty little house you were born in. He threw us all away to make his own dreams come true and then had the gall to name his child after my mother."
"I-I don't believe you." She shook her head. "You're lying. My father would never do something like that."
I felt my hopes dash against the stones of reality. Of course, she wouldn't believe me. I was the devil and he her innocent, Jesus-like father. "Then I'll have to show you." I retrieved the elvish memory capsule from my pocket and held it out towards her. "I'll show you every disgusting bit of it!"
"No," she pushed against my hand, turning her face away. "I don't want to!"
"Don't want to what? See the truth?" I grabbed her face and forcibly turned it, to make her look. "Look! Please, look!"
She continued to resist me, she pushed against my body, clawed at my arm, but as the images within the jewel started to flicker by, I felt her relax and she turned her eyes to it on her own accord, drawn by her father's familiar face.
I'd wanted her to see the truth of me. Now she had, all from my own perspective. She saw Jasper with my eyes. A charming, brilliant hero that transformed into a grotesque mockery of who I had loved.
Everything went by exactly as I'd told her it had and I watched her expression fall and her cheeks pale as each scene played out. The memories didn't end with the my hanging though. I had poured every memory I could into that capsule, including what he'd done to Knut and what I'd done to him in return. "Stop, no more. Please." She begged, once my memories came to those last moments when I'd finally gotten my hands around his throat. She squeezed her eyes shut to block it out. I let her go and tucked the capsule back into my pocket.
The silence that followed was absolutely deafening. We sat there on our knees in the dirt, sobbing and gasping for breath between them. "I know what I did hurt you and that you'll never forgive me for it. I'm not asking you to. I just want you to understand that your father was dangerous. He raised me from the time I was seven. He was as much a father to me as a brother and he still...."
"You don't know what he was thinking." She argued, shaking her head in complete denial.
"You saw what he did."
"He was desperate. He was desperate and selfish and greedy. He made a bad choice. I'm sure that he regretted it later..."
"He and Mab tortured Knut!"
"After you tortured him and kidnapped me! He wanted me back! He wanted to save me and you killed him for it!" She shouted.
"He didn't care what happened to any of us! What makes you think you're so special?!" I screamed back, unable to hold it in. "He never loved any of us! He never loved your mother!" I hated to say it, but I needed to. She needed to know. "And he never loved you. The only person Jasper knew how to love was himself. He used me, Rolland and Rhys to build a new life then he used your mother until there nothing left of her. He would've done the same to you eventually. Even if he didn't sell you to every sailor coming into port, he would've traded you to some farmer in need of a second wife for a couple of goats and some ale. That's who your father was. He was desperate and selfish and greedy, true, but he never, not even once felt remorse for anything he did."
"Neither do you." She growled weakly, trying to make one final painful wound.
"He taught me well," I muttered, feeling the sting of her bite.
She flenched and bowed her head into her hands and wept. "Why didn't you just kill me with my mother? It's not like you love me at all."
An empty feeling hollowed out my chest. I reached for her with quivering fingers and laid them on her head. I ran them through her thick, curling hair, soft and smooth and as dark as I remembered Jasper's being. To my surprise and relief, she didn't pull away. A choking sob ripped up my throat as I tried in vain to hold it in. "Because I wanted to give you everything your father promised me." I dared to move closer to her. I laid my cheek against her head and held loosely in my arms. If she pulled away, I would let her go, but I wanted to challenge her, I wanted to see just how close she would let me get. It was the first time I could remember ever holding her. "I find it hard to look at you without thinking of Jasper...that's why I avoid you... because it's painful...but I still notice everything that you do. I know how smart you are, how capable you are with a sword and how diligently you try to look after your little cousins. I'm very proud of you. I want you to know that."
She moved her hands to my chest and pushed against me. Her glare was sharp even with tears glistening in them as she tried to hold onto all the resentment and hatred that had fueld her all these years. "What did you do to him?" She asked. "I don't want to see it, but I want to know...how did you kill him?" Her eyes darkened more and new tears fell. "Knut looked dead towards the end....I don't understand....how did you save him?"
How do you tell someone that you sacrificed their father to a devil?
"I-I-" I started, fumbling with my words. I felt the hollow feeling in my chest again. It came on more suddenly and intensely than before. It swelled and pressed against my ribs, forcing them outwards. The pain radiated from there up my spine into my head.
All her anger evaporated from Cat's expression, replaced by confusion and then concern. "Matilda?" She called to me. "Your nose is bleeding."
I touched my nose. My fingers came away bloody. "I-I feel strange." I muttered. everything seemed to tilt one way and then the other like I was on a rocking ship.
My body pitched forward and Cat grabbed onto me. "Are you okay?" The pitch of her voice sharpened with panic. She shook me by the arms. "Matilda? Matilda?" She kept saying my name, her voice growing fainter and fainter each time until I couldn't hear her at all. My vision dimmed around the edges but as it went, from over Cat's shoulder, I saw a figure enter The Hollow, his silhouette dark and framed with feathered wings. He drew closer and closer until he stood right behind her, outstretching his wings until they filled the space of the arena. He held out his hand to me, slender, pale fingers tipped in blue.
"Bran?"
"Don't you hear him calling you?" I heard him whisper just before I felt the fall.