The Last Sídhe

7 - The Taste of Death

It didn't take me long to learn that death had a taste. A rotten, dark taste that poisoned the air. A taste that overwhelmed everything else, weighed upon the tongue, cut off the breath, stole away all semblance of joy or anger or fear. A taste that left nothing behind but silence and shadow. The memory of what once had been.

I thought I was used to it. That it couldn't affect me anymore.

I thought wrong.

The drop was too far for me to see what happened when Maeve's body struck the ground. But the moment it did, the taint of her death surrounded me. It curdled my heart. It choked me from within, a spreading disease, a sickening darkness. I smelled the metallic tang of blood. I felt its wet warmth, slick against my palms.

My throat felt dry. I could just barely see her broken figure, crumpled amongst the grass far below. There was no movement. I thought of her tawny eyes, lit with an eternal flame. They sparked when she used her fire, the softest golden glow enveloping them. I wondered if she'd known that.

I wondered what they looked like now, as her soul slipped back into the earth.

With a sharp inhale, I wrenched my gaze away, all too aware of the echoed warmth of her fingers around my wrist. I could still see red marks on my skin from where she'd clung to me. Biting my tongue, I violently shook myself. The sensation persisted.

An itch crawled through me. I rubbed the area as if it were a stain. Nothing. The itch grew hotter and hotter, scraping at my bones. This was something I would never be able to rid myself of. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and squeezed my eyes shut, tremors running through me.

Now, I realised, I really am the last Sídhe.

The thought carried a dark humour with it. I stumbled back, my legs collapsing beneath me, and fell onto my hands and knees. Laughter shook from somewhere deep inside, finally spilling out in broken bursts. I'd done it. I'd poisoned my soul with the murder of another. I had cast the stain of blood and betrayal upon myself.

The tears swum to the surface on their own, trailing down my cheeks. I clenched my teeth, my laughter ripped through with sobs, digging my fingers into the soft dirt. I must have looked like a madman. Not that I cared. Not that there was anybody left to notice.

I'm sorry, Mae. The words spiralled through my mind. I cast them aside, disgust welling within me. Maeve deserved more than a hollow apology. She'd needed an explanation: but I knew that if I had delivered one, my determination would have failed then and there.

Seconds stretched into minutes. Cool, numb logic finally gradually through my mind, edging my thoughts in clear ice. I had to focus. I remembered Shayne's voice, the hissed words that I'd been so lucky Maeve missed.

The Críoch wouldn't let you pass. Only those strong enough to have blood on their hands may enter. He'd shifted closer then, preparing to slit my throat. But you knew that, didn't you? Hiding from the truth again...

An empty sort of smile found its way to my lips. The fool. I'd spent countless hours as I hid from the Tremluí rifling through dusty old books, struggling with what little my father had taught me of reading. I'd learned of the Críoch, of the Tremluí's weaknesses. I'd seen the barrier that lay before the entrance with my own eyes, and I'd known I would have to get past it. But before Shayne told me, I hadn't figured out how.

It made sense, really. If the Tremluí craved blood so badly, it was natural that some would be required to enter their house.

So I'd done what I had to. While the taste of death choked me now, I knew that it would soon become my key. If a single death was the price for killing those monsters and saving Rienne, I was willing to pay it.

But it didn't have to be Maeve, a distant part of me whispered. Thorns spiked through my chest, and I felt more tears rush to my eyes. I could feel the rough cord of her necklace against my throat; the pendant seemed to burn in its place below my collar.

No. It did need to be her. She was coarse, sure, but she didn't have the heart of a killer—and I was only a passable actor. She would have found out, and she would have stopped me. And then there would have been no hope of destroying the Tremluí.

It was the same thought that had guided me when Maeve had fallen. The same thought that helped me gather the resolve to push her away. I clung to it now, trembling at the edge of that cliff, trying to forget that the body of my only friend laid beyond it.

Slowly, shakily, I got to my feet and lifted my head. I'd told Maeve that we had to stop the Tremluí at any cost. She'd known as well as I did that this wasn't a journey that either of us would return from.

She was just the first to fall.

I closed my eyes and forced myself to move, walking further up the narrow mountain path. There was no point in regret or grief or sadness. Right now, all I needed to focus on was reaching the Críoch. There were Tremluí that I needed to kill.