“You’re shivering,” said Hetty, lifting the light to Kaetha’s face. “Don’t always bother with a fire at night in summer but I’ll light one for you.” She fetched a tinderbox and a basket of kindling.
“I can do it,” said Kaetha.
Stone snapped – spitting sparks. She felt her anger breath as she struck the flint against the firesteel. Who killed Morwena, if she was actually dead? Why had all this happened? Why hadn’t she been brought up as Morwena’s daughter? Was there something wrong with her? Why was she sad that Aedan left when he was all but a stranger? With each question she asked herself, she struck the firesteel harder, ignoring the flames that had already begun to grow.
“I think that’s enough,” said Hetty. She fed sticks to the flames. “I think you’d better try to sleep now, lass.”
“I can’t.”
They sat together, staring into the fire.
“You look a little like him, you know,” said Hetty. “Your father.”
Kaetha stared at her. “What?”
“Brown eyes, freckles, red hair, though yours is a shade darker. The way you both frown when you’re troubled – it’s uncanny. You even have a mole at the side of your face, in the same place as his. You’re such a wee thing though, I expect you get your build from your mother, am I right?”
“Hmm.” Kaetha tried to contain her feelings, though she felt as though they might burst from her. Her mind churned with incomprehension as she stared at the fire, unconsciously twisting the cuff of her sleeve. “I think I will rest a while.” She hoped that Hetty would take the hint and go back upstairs but she just sat there.
What did all this mean? She’d had a mother and father all these years. Why had Aedan never been mentioned? Why had she been denied a normal life that ought to have been hers? Her chest tightened as her sense of self floated away like driftwood on a wave. She lay down, turning away from Hetty, holding tight to Morwena’s heron clasp, knowing she wouldn’t sleep. She remembered how Aedan had looked at her, recalled the moment he held back from telling her something important. He knows, she realised. He knows I’m his daughter, yet he left.
As the minutes lengthened, she realised the path before her split in two. She could go back to Gwyn or she could follow her father, though she knew the longer she took to make up her mind, the harder the second option would be.
She got up. “I’m going with him,” she declared.
“What about your aunt?” said Hetty.
“Could you get a message to her, please?”
“Who is she?”
“Lady Gwyn Trylenn,” said Kaetha. “She lives at F—”
“Feodail Hall.” Hetty was staring at her, her expression hard to decipher. “Aye, I know.”
“Don’t look at me like that,” Kaetha snapped.
Hetty blinked. “I meant no offence, lass. Some of the best people I know are bastards. It’s only, whilst it’s less surprising on Aedan’s part, I wouldn’t have expected a lady . . .”
Kaetha’s jaw was clenched as she stared at the fire. “Can you tell Gwyn that I’m alright,” she said. There was a sharp edge to her words as she tried to hold back her anger. “Say there’s too much danger for me here and I have a chance for a new life with my father. Though I will be back someday. There are questions I need answers to.”
Hetty nodded humbly, chastened at Kaetha’s tone. “I’ll make sure she hears that.” Hetty rummaged around gathering a bag of things for Kaetha too and walked her to the front door. “I’m sorry if I—”
“Forget about it,” said Kaetha.
“You’ll be alright lass.”
Kaetha smiled. “If I can get to the North Road without getting caught.”
In the stable, she jumped as something brushed against her ankle. “Oh, it’s you.” The small cat looked up at her and she rooted around in her bag until she found a scrap of meat from a pie Hetty had packed. “That’s to say thank you. Poor thing. You don’t understand that they don’t want you. That they’d drown you without a thought.”
Slipping through the hidden door out of the city, she headed to the North Road, patting and whispering to Lossie to calm her. She wondered if Lossie’s agitation was triggered by her own emotions. This is madness, she thought. Perhaps I should have done as he’d said. But if she had, she knew she would never have seen him again. And she couldn’t bring herself to face Gwyn. Not yet. Her anger swelled at the mere thought of her, despite the sympathy she also felt. She gripped the reins in her fists, as if they were the lies Gwyn had told her all her life, as if she could crush them.
To the right of the road, the darkness was turning to grey. White rabbit tails flashed as they hopped by. The world was waking up and the mist that slunk in the hollows would soon be eaten by the sun.
Her heart fluttered when hooves thudded behind her. However, whether it was a guard or an ordinary traveller, she didn’t know as they were hidden by the bend in the road. She steered Lossie left off the road, the horse picking her way past prickly gorse before negotiating a way through the rough, hilly ground.
A rosy stain stretching across the eastern sky cast a ruddy light on a herd of red deer as they turned their heads in the direction of Ciadrath, ears pricked to the sound on the air. Kaetha had heard it too – a snatch of melody – a piper’s mournful tune. It made her shiver.
“Kaetha, what are you doing?”
She turned to see her father ahead. “Hello.” She felt more nervous than she’d imagined.
“I told you to wait with Hetty, then
