The Gift
Pairing: Maeve/Sinbad
Rating: M
Setting: Just after Season 1
All standard disclaimers apply
Numb.
Light shines through the chinks in the decking above her. It retreats, returns. Retreats. Returns. Day follows night follows day. Sailors call to each other. The ship shifts, pressing eastward, southward, further and further from her people, from a home that might as well not exist anymore. Inexorably the Nomad moves, drawn by a sharp, hot wind. All without her. Life continues whether she participates or not and this may be the worst blow of all.
But it doesn't matter. Very little matters now.
Scratch taunted Sinbad with a game of chess, urged him to arrange his men and prepare to fight. Maeve ignored the demon's talk at the time, more concerned with the terrified boy crying in her arms. Now she understands. She should have listened. He's playing for keeps, his queen taking Maeve's people one by one, tearing them from her. And just as in a game of chess, it's her own fault. She let them be taken. She failed to protect them, despite what they mean to her. Dermott. Doubar. Keely. Now Nessa and Antoine, too, which means the entirety of Breakwater—Niall and Wren will not act against the rest. How much longer, she's forced to wonder? How long until she's left alone?
Not long, a voice whispers in her head. Her own voice, spoken with her own lilt. Yes, she's sure of it now. Trying to fight the arch-demon and her greatest enemy in tandem was the most foolhardy thing she's ever done and now she's paying the price for her stupidity. Physically she feels awful, but concentrating on that pain and the reasons for it proves too difficult. The growing emptiness inside her consumes her far more.
The people she cleaved to throughout childhood, the people who loved her, kept her safe, taught her to survive, are all gone. She pushed them away with her own hands, her selfish wish to keep Sinbad with her. She can couch it in altruistic terms, claim she was trying to save the soul of a hero, but she knows how hero stories work. If that were the truth, if she were truly fighting for a noble cause, her people wouldn't have deserted her. They'd be lined up with her, ready to fight, too. They're not, which means she must have chosen wrong.
You chose very wrong, the whisper taunts as it sounds again. Not that it matters now. Dermott left her moons ago and she all but packed Nessa's bags for her when she told her unprepared sister that her céile was gone. She didn't mean to. She didn't know the others had kept this from Nessa, and didn't know how badly her sister would take it. But Antoine was right; it's her fault anyway. If she loosed an arrow in a forest and accidentally killed a fellow hunter, his blood would be on her hands, his death on her soul, no matter the circumstance. So too is Nessa's, for she has to face the likelihood that her sister is dead.
Nessa has never been on her own in her life. She's always had Antoine, parents when she was small, and later Keely and Maeve herself. Dermott was hers the second he laid eyes on her. She knows how to take care of herself in the wilderness—how to find food, how to make shelter—but she's no fighter. A female sìthiche alone is as good as dead, a tempting target for the pope's hate-fueled men, for the southern slavers who prowl her island's shores. If she's looking for Dermott she'll no doubt head south and east, just as Maeve did years ago, the danger growing with every league she puts between herself and Breakwater.
Maeve breathes the hot, still air below deck. She hurts everywhere, and yet she doesn't. Like the time she spent nursing a broken ankle through the heart of an Irish winter, she knows she's not well, but she feels numb. The loss overwhelms any physical pain, dulling it, pushing it aside. But the numbing brings no relief. Nessa is the sister who pulled Maeve firmly out of breeches and put her back in skirts. She taught her to walk tall, with pride. She patiently combed through the ruined snarls of her hair with fire-melted fat they should have eaten, picking at the knots with her fingernails until the red mess lay smooth once more. Nessa was the one who taught her to be a woman—taught her and Keely both, for neither had a clue. Dermott was a fine, strong, well-meaning older brother, but this was something he could not do.
Nessa comforted her after her first teas, which she had not meant to join, but puberty struck and, never having felt the pull, the fire, of the teas before, she was powerless to stop it. Nessa held her after, helped her wash gently, agreeing that it was not the ideal way for any girl to lose her maidenhead. And Nessa is the one she held, and who held her, cried with her, when Dermott was cursed. Keely and Antoine preferred to fuck away their riotous emotions, a practice Maeve generally approves of but was too young to understand at the time. It probably got them Mia, a niece Maeve doesn't know if she'll ever see again. Because you didn't think before you opened your big mouth, that whisper taunts. She didn't protect her people as she's always sworn she would. She knew how fragile Ness is where Dermott's concerned, below the surface of that elegant veneer. She knew and she hurt her anyway.
And now she's gone. Three moons, Rumina said. Nessa has been on her own for three moons already. In all likelihood she's dead. Logically, Maeve understands that. The pope's men are ruthless, and fear and mistrust of the sìthichean grows rampant even among Celts as his god gains ground. Maeve has seen the mutilated bodies with her own eyes, burned or hanged or hacked to pieces, left to rot in the rain. She thought her family was protected from that, thought she bought their safety when she accepted the library at Breakwater on their behalf: a sanctuary she purchased unknowingly as a child, bought with her own blood and terror, her strength and will. She survived the massacre at Brí Leith, survived the years of privation afterward, and peace for her family was supposed to be her reward.
They're not your family anymore, the whisper says, telling her what she already knows. They're not her family, and that's not her home. Antoine was very clear.
And if Breakwater isn't her home, if her people are no longer her people, where does she belong?
Nowhere, of course.
The question, and its obvious answer, bring a rising wave of panic, refusing to leave her in peace. Over and over they reappear, like waves on the shore. She's never felt so alone in her life, and it terrifies her. Even when she was on her own before Dim-Dim found her she still had Dermott, and Breakwater was always open to her though she visited rarely, too intent on her quest to take time away. She had her brother, albeit in his transformed shape. She had the backing of her people, her chosen kin, though they could not quest with her. Now all of that is gone.
And the Nomad isn't home anymore. It hasn't felt like home for a long time. This loss is as sharp and gutting as the loss of Breakwater. But it's your own fault, the whisper in her head says, and of course it's her own fucking fault. The Isle of Dreams was Dim-Dim's home, not hers. Before that she was a wanderer, a vagabond, tossed here and there by wind and tide as she sought an antidote for Rumina's curse. She had no roof but the sky, no home but the soft sound of her brother's wings. Then Dim-Dim brought this man into her life, a sailor as rough as she, as windswept, as wandering. His ship is even called the Nomad, an apt name for a craft which rarely rests. And here among a group of truly good men, she found herself an unlikely home.
No more. No, no more.
Doubar hates you. Of course Doubar hates her. It's only a matter of time before the others follow. The first mate is held in high esteem; no one will side with her over Doubar when a line is finally drawn and remaining neutral becomes impossible.
And Sinbad? Her heart constricts painfully when she thinks his name.
He wants you gone. He's said so.
He has. He tried to order her off his ship multiple times. She's bringing more danger on him and his family by remaining aboard, she knows that now. She was too stupid to get it before, but now she does. Rumina will keep hurting him, hurting his brother, his crew, until she leaves. Each day she lingers brings more danger. Each day the threat that Rumina or Scratch will act again grows. She's the cause. They've all lost three moons' worth of life now as a consequence.
No more. She can't let it continue. Sinbad loves her, she knows he does, but he loves his brother more. Forcing him to choose will tear him apart, and she can't abide that. So she needs to act first. She needs to leave. He loves her, but his brother will always, always come first, which is probably as it should be. Doubar helped raise him, as Dermott raised her. She'll never give up on her brother. Sinbad will never leave his. That wasn't a problem before, but now it is, and she does not share Sinbad's faith that her child will fix this rift. She's doing all she can to save Sinbad's soul, but she's carrying a daughter, not a son, in a world where daughters have no worth. That isn't something she can change.
You need to go.
She knows she does. But she's so tired. Everything hurts so much. Even the smallest tasks, like sitting up, putting a cup to her lips, feel like scaling mountains. She does them numbly when prompted, without feeling, because it's expected of her. Because Firouz or Sinbad is there, telling her to. But this hollowness, this empty terror, is at the same time a lack of feeling and the deepest pain she's ever suffered. Asleep, she dreams it. Coming awake, returning to this reality where everyone she loves is either dead, lost, or about to turn on her, is a perpetual torture that leaves her continually drained. She breathes. Her heart beats. Nothing else exists and yet everything does, the whole world moving on without her.
Talia moved into the repaired cabin as soon as she was able, so Maeve has all the privacy she wants now. She misses the soft heat of her nephews' little bodies with a very physical, aching pain. She misses the hard bands of Sinbad's arms even more. She yearns for the touch of him, the smell, all of it very, very forbidden. When the urge to seek him out grows strongest, almost a panic running through her blood, she wraps herself tight in her blanket, so stiflingly hot that she's made herself sick more than once, but the constriction of the fabric pressing tight along her body is sometimes the only thing that keeps her from dropping further into this abyss she can't climb out of.
Firouz and Sinbad and Rongar come at intervals to hold minty water or thin gruel to her lips. Sometimes she swallows, if she rouses herself enough to care. Sometimes she thinks she hears them talking, but the words slip from her memory the moment they're spoken. She can't hold clearly to anything except this gnawing, empty pain, and the conviction that she needs to leave.
No one will ever stay. You know that. You can't force them to, so you're better off alone.
No, no one ever stays. Her life, when she looks at it now, is a continual quest to keep from being alone, a quest she will always, always fail. And since she doesn't get to keep anyone, she's better off alone.
When she sleeps, she dreams of the coming battle with Scratch. She never wins—sleep retreats but the dreams don't, interrupted mid-war, the battle never won nor lost. She dreams of holding Sinbad in her arms, holding him so tightly that no one, not even Scratch, can take him from her, but suddenly as she holds him he's not Sinbad anymore. She lifts her head from his shoulder and finds herself staring into Scratch's laughing, malevolent eyes. Or Turok's ice-cold glare. That con artist, Vincenzo. A hundred other men, some she's battled, some she's fucked, none she's loved. Faces she thought she'd forgotten until they resurface in her dreams, discordant and fallacious, men she'd never fight for, men she'd never bear for. She'll gladly surrender her life for a noble cause or for the handful of men she loves as brothers, but she'll only ever give herself wholly to this man. No matter what happens, she'll never regret doing so. She only regrets what that choice has cost her. Cost them both.
How long she remains in her bunk, unmoving as the world spins around her, she doesn't know. Days certainly. Weeks maybe. Maybe longer. Time matters, it matters more than maybe anything else in the world right now as Sinbad's remaining days pass away, sand through the hourglass as Rumina said. The witch's threats are very real but Maeve ceases to feel time's passing, numb to the sensation as she's numbed to the light, the heat and stuffy darkness. The smells of food no longer bother her. Her body hurts, but she feels divorced from the pain, floating beside it perhaps, unable to snap back into the moment, the truth, the magnitude of all she's lost.
Then one night, the dark thick and stifling, her eyes open, returning from a nightmare she almost remembers to one she recalls too well. And she feels it, though the sensation takes some time to reach her fuzzy, benumbed brain: they've stopped. The ship bobs with the waves, but the relentless tug of the wind in their sails has ceased. They've dropped anchor.
Now.
The whisper in her head echoes with urgency. Is that her voice? She doesn't even recognize it anymore.
She needs to go. She'll fight for Sinbad on Samhain—will always fight for him, whenever he has need of her—but she can't have him. She can't stay. Doubar doesn't want her, and it's too dangerous anyway. If she leaves the ship she can lose herself in the crowd, become just another face among faces. She can cover her head and veil herself like a southern woman. No one will know her. No one will care. Rumina watches Sinbad, not her. With Maeve gone, she won't have any reason to attack the crew anymore.
You can be safe, the whisper in her head promises. He can be safe. But you have to leave him now.
She sits upright. A wave of dizziness washes over her. Her vision dissolves into black sparkles and darkness rushes like the tide into her mind, threatening to pull her back under. Sleep beckons, soft and welcoming. She's so tired, and while her dreams are full of pain, the sweet lure of sleep is not. But she can't. She needs to go.
Maeve fights her way upright and fumbles her feet into her boots for the first time in...a while. Time is vitally important, but it also has no meaning. From her bunk she can see the notches she made in the wall, counting down each day to Samhain. Useless now. She still feels nearly as weak as she did the day Rumina took three moons of her life. Trickles of her magic have returned, but not much. Enough that she knows it's there. Enough that she can light one small candle. In the light of the sputtering flame she finds a blank scrap of paper and a quill. Her handwriting is usually immaculate, but not today. Her hand shakes, and the ink shows, as if she needed the proof, just how little control she has over the body she can barely feel. It doesn't matter. It's legible. She keeps her note to Sinbad short: her books are really Dim-Dim's, so she directs him to give them into Cairpra's keeping. Talia can have the clothes in her chest; she has no use for them. She promises that, barring death, she will remain his champion against Scratch. She won't have him needlessly worrying. She vowed she would fight for him and this is one vow she will not break. She's failed her family, but she won't fail him.
She sets the note on her bunk, where the next person who comes to check on her will surely see it, and drops to her knees by her chest. Levering the lid open shouldn't require both arms, but it does. Neither should her heart pound so painfully against her ribs, either. But it doesn't matter. The pain is meaningless. Her hand shakes as she reaches in, seeking the little leather pouch that holds her small stash of coins. Her fingers brush the cold metal of her opal bracelet and she hesitates, quaking.
Leave it. That's not your home anymore.
Okay. For all she knows they've added another magical shield to block her, too, so it may not work anyway. She tightens the laces on her leather cincher, pulling as hard as her shaking fingers will allow, then wraps herself in her brown cloak. It's not as comforting as her red blanket, but she's not taking that with her. She needs to travel light, to get away as quickly and cleanly as possible.
Her feet don't want to carry her, knees don't want to hold her weight. Whether that's bodily weakness or weakness of the heart, she doesn't know. But it doesn't matter. She has no choice. She needs to leave to keep Sinbad safe, and to prevent the breaking of her own heart when he inevitably chooses his brother over her. She takes one more breath of this place, warm wood and salt brine, fixes her scabbard to her belt, and opens the door.
The galley is black and silent. She extinguishes her candle, disallowing her eyes any last glance of the place that has been more of a home than any she's ever had. Looking back does no good. She learned that as a child, when Dermott dragged her from their mother's still body. Again when he took her from the wreckage of Brí Leith. The present moment feels hazy and indistinct, like staring through the shimmer and smoke that hovers over a campfire, but these memories are sharp as knives. Doors close. Homes burn. But this time she dropped the latch and lit the fire herself.
On still nights, Maeve can hear Doubar snore from her bunk. She hears nothing now. Maybe he sleeps as poorly as she does these days, or maybe her hearing has dulled along with her other senses. She blinks, puts a hand to her cheek. Her skin is cold, she thinks. Or maybe that's just the numbness. She says a silent apology to Doubar, to Rongar and Firouz. To Sinbad most of all. And climbs the galley stairs for the last time.
She almost doesn't make it. Her head swims and her knees shake like twigs in a cold northern wind, but she orders her lungs to expand and they obey, taking in air. This is familiar, and yet not. She's never had to concentrate so much, work so hard, to do so little. Inhale. Exhale. Stand upright. Remain strong. The air is better out here, she tells herself, though she can't smell it. It should be fresher, cooler. Not cold—never cold. Not here. She can't go home, so she doubts she'll ever feel cold again.
Thinking about home—what used to be home—threatens to plunge her deeper into the darkness she can't climb out of. She has no energy for this pain; all she has is consumed by the struggle to remain upright, to step slowly away from the door and toward the railing of the ship. So she pushes it down, deep down, adding it to the gnawing numbness eating away at her. She stares for a long time off the side of the ship, trying to process with her sluggish mind what her eyes see.
It's a city—a big one. Even so late at night the harbor is not completely silent, sailors here and there heading for taverns or back to their beds. She can hear the sounds of revelry somewhere in that mass of white clay walls and golden firelight, likely a night market. She feels like she should know where they are, where they were bound, but her blank mind is as numb as the rest of her. The location doesn't matter, she tells herself. All that matters is getting away before her body gives out or her heart quails, refusing to let her leave Sinbad. Slowly she wraps her hands around a coarse hemp line for the last time, lifts her legs one by one carefully over the railing, and prepares for a hard landing on the dock because she doubts her arms will hold her.
The day Rumina bespelled Sinbad's ship, stealing three moons from everyone aboard, his world came to pieces. Not because of the loss of time. Not because of Doubar's redoubled fury at everyone even tangentially involved in this mess. Not even because of all the questions from his crew about Maeve's people, questions he doesn't have the right to answer. His world collapsed because Maeve did, and she has not recovered.
He left her alone that day because she told him to, left her in her bunk after that gods-be-damned spell because he thought she wanted some peace in which to rest. Now he knows that was the exact wrong thing to do, but he doesn't know how to fix it. How to fix her.
She's the strongest woman he's ever known, stronger both physically and in spirit than most men. If anyone could survive this mess and champion him against Scratch, he was sure she could. Now he doesn't know moment to moment whether she'll keep breathing. She's broken, and Rumina's only partially to blame. Rumina broke her body, forcing their child to grow far too swiftly within her, eating through her body's reserves and her magical energy alike. But Antoine broke her heart, and right now Sinbad suspects that's the more serious wound.
It's not anybody's fault, he tries to tell himself. Not really. Whatever Dermott thought when he left the Nomad, he couldn't have foreseen this. Nessa didn't act deliberately to wound Maeve or her other siblings, only to put right her own heart. He understands. If Maeve went missing, he'd seek her immediately, too. He wouldn't rest until he found her.
Antoine, though. Antoine he has a harder time forgiving. He watched it happen, watched the man break his Maeve with a few furious words, and the memory isn't easy to bear. He remembers how she looked at him afterward, looked at him without really seeing him, her beautiful dark eyes so glassy. She hasn't met his gaze since. She let Firouz guide her back to her bunk, stumbling badly, and hasn't risen from it. Sometimes when he checks on her she's asleep, eyes moving eerily below her closed lids, her frail body twitching with the force of her uneasy dreams, but she's never peaceful. And she never looks at him. Sometimes she'll swallow if he puts a mug or spoon to her lips, sometimes not. But she doesn't speak. She doesn't cry. She doesn't attempt to rise.
And he's having a very difficult time not hating Antoine for it.
In one swift moment, the man shattered the foundation of her world. He took her family—what's left of it—and her second home, the home that's actually hers by right, though Sinbad knows better than to argue this point. She never wanted that house for herself, but for the sake of her people, particularly the vulnerable little children who arrive regularly and wouldn't stand a chance growing up as Maeve did, homeless wanderers in a land increasingly hostile to both sìthichean and Celts who follow the old ways.
Sinbad is fairly sure Antoine didn't mean to hurt her. His love for his blood-sister, his oldest surviving bond, fueled angry words he'll hopefully take back on consideration. But he couldn't have dreamed up a more painful blow if he tried. Maeve is strong, but her fatal flaw, her biggest weakness, is the crushing self-doubt she lives with moment by moment. Sinbad has seen it many times for himself, though she hides it well. She let him in a little at a time, let him see not only the tenderness at her core, the sweetness she reveals to so few, but also her intense doubt in herself, how easily she believes that all her efforts will ultimately come to nothing. Antoine has known her since she was young, so he must know that doubt is there. He knew it and he struck at it anyway, accusing her of either not caring or deliberately harming their sister. Maeve may know that she didn't harm Nessa out of spite, but she believes her brother. She believes that everything that has happened since Scratch laid claim to Sinbad's soul is her fault. She told him so. She blames it all on herself, on her decision to bear his child and save his soul from the devil.
Her mislaid guilt wouldn't be such a crisis except, coming swift on the heels of her body's decimation by Rumina, her heart couldn't take it and she broke. At least, that's what he assumes. She hasn't spoken since, and he doubts she hears him when he speaks to her. He's taken to sitting on a stool by her bedside at night, afraid to touch that fragile, wasted body more than necessary for fear of harming her or the child he hopes is still alive inside her. He talks to her, strokes her hair lightly when nightmares seize her, hoping his voice helps a little. It doesn't, from what he sees, but he doesn't know what else he can do. She needs deep, healing sleep and plenty of food for her body to recover, but her soul has to heal first and he doesn't know how to even begin that process.
In desperation and gut-wrenching fear, out of other ideas, he finally drew Rongar aside and asked him, in as low a voice as possible, to find a reputable midwife once they dock in Attalia. He knows Rumina might be watching, but he needs to know whether his daughter still lives, what her chances are, and whether there's anything more he can do for her and her mother. Maeve has protected her this long, even from a magical spell that probably should have killed both of them. Now she can't, and he needs to step up. This isn't a fight merely for his soul any longer. It's a fight for her, for a life that wouldn't exist if not for him. He put that baby in Maeve. It's his job to protect them.
If he can. Rumina's spell took so much from Maeve physically, and she's not improving. She's so frail, she looks like a wasting sickness has taken her, even her proud, lovely face sunken and drawn. He thought she carried no extra weight before, but now he truly sees the difference between slender and starving, and he hates it. He wants her hale and healthy, standing proud on the deck of his ship once more, but he doesn't know if that will ever happen. He'd give her what she needs to heal, give her absolutely anything in the world, but he doesn't know how. He rails at his own helplessness, glad when they finally dock in Attalia late in the day that at least Rongar will be able to seek out a midwife in the morning. Assuming Maeve makes it to morning. This is never a guarantee these days.
He stares dully into the darkness of the harbor, remaining resolutely on watch as the rest of his crew goes ashore for a night. No one feels like revelry, not even Talia, but there's too much tension and dread aboard the little ship and they need their space. Rongar offered to stay with him but Sinbad refused, preferring solitude. Attalia is a friendly city not much known for crime. He can watch his silent ship and Maeve at the same time, moving from the deck to her bedside and back.
What Firouz thinks of all this, he hasn't yet said. He's grateful to have his hearing back, but hasn't chosen to share his theories about Maeve's condition. She wraps herself tightly in her heavy red blanket and he knows better than to try to examine her without her permission, but he must know by now that she's carrying, Sinbad assumes. He's a man of medicine, and well versed in the human body. Sinbad can see the swell of her belly through the folds of her blanket, the rest of her body so gaunt that the rise of her midsection clearly stands out now that she's not cinched down. He's scared to touch her, anything more than his fingertips lightly combing her hair, grazing the sharp line of her cheekbone, but he aches to press his hands to the curve of her belly once more. He has to have faith that his daughter's still alive in there, strong and indomitable as her mother. Not for the sake of his soul, but hers. Rumina didn't act with intent to harm the baby she knows nothing about, but she may have done so anyway. He'll see the evil sorceress die for it, he swears. No one harms Maeve, no one harms his daughter, and the witch has done both.
The impotent rage that swells in him has no outlet, which only infuriates him more. He has no target to attack, and he can't lavish care on Maeve as he so desperately wants to. He feels so utterly useless, and he hates it. The emotion jolts him back to childhood, when he stood on a rock and watched Leah disappear into the rush of the oncoming tide. He couldn't save her and couldn't attack the boy who pushed her, older and bigger as he was, ringed by a group of friends who would back him. He couldn't stop the needless death, the senseless destruction of a young life. He can't attack Scratch or Rumina any more than he could Leah's killer, and he doesn't know that he can save Maeve or his daughter, either. But he refuses to just stand by again, refuses to watch as two people so precious to him are taken. Not this time. He's going to find a way to fight.
The soft creak of the galley door alerts him to movement on deck and he tenses, snapping to attention, leaving the tiller instantly. Lately the appearance of cloaked figures on his ship mean visitors from the north, not danger, but he doubts any of Maeve's kin are lurking today. He moves silently, dropping down the aft steps, blending effortlessly into the shadows as he watches a hooded figure approach the railing. It's Maeve, he knows instantly. He'd know her anywhere, even cloaked, even shrouded in night. Her steps are slow and halting, and more than once on the short trek from the door to the rail she falters, her body shaking with the effort to keep upright, keep moving. She halts at the rail and stares out at the shadowed city of Attalia.
What is she doing? He frowns as he studies her in the darkness. She's not well. He didn't even know she had the strength to rise, but she's upright and it looks for all the world like she plans to leave the ship, which he never will allow. Not when she's so drained, and especially not without him. If she needs something he'll get it for her. He'll get her anything she wants, anything in the world, but she's not going ashore. She doesn't even realize she's being watched, which is so unlike Maeve that he knows she's still far too depleted. Whatever's going on in that head of hers, the answer is no.
Her shoulders rise as she takes a deep, hesitant breath. Her hands wind around a line and she steps over the railing, intent on the dock below. A dock she's going to crash into if he lets her swing, which he never will. He strides forward.
"What the ever-loving fuck do you think you're doing?" His voice grates out of him, harsher than he meant, but he feels like a desperate man caught in a whirlpool, about to go under, and he doesn't understand her, doesn't understand any of this. He's done so much wrong, he feels it, but he doesn't know how to put it right.
Her whole body seizes up. He feels it under his hands as he reaches for her, lifting her bare, spindly legs over the railing before letting her feet seek the deck again. Her brown cloak, the only piece from Queen Nadia she ever wears, is soft under his hands. But she fights him, as she's never fought his touch before. It stuns him for a moment, enough time for her to break free even in her weakened state. She stumbles, reaches again for the rope.
"No." He shakes off his surprise, frustration growing in his gut, tension in his limbs as he wraps his arms around her, drawing her back against his chest. "Whatever you're doing, whatever you're thinking, no." His hands seek the swell of her belly and find it, but she's cinched tight, which angers him as much now as it did the day Rumina cast her spell. She can't do that anymore. It's not safe. He's an idiot man, not a midwife, but everything in him tells him it's not safe. "Listen to me. Look at me." He tries to turn her around, urging her to face him, but she refuses, pushing against him. There's no strength in her arms, her body, but the fact that she tries chills him. She's never pushed him away. Never. She fights him all the time in other ways, but she's never protested his touch.
"I have to go." Her voice cracks, but beyond the exhaustion he can hear the desperation in her, wild and tense, like a feral horse fighting the touch of a rope. "Let me go!"
"You absolutely will not." Fear eclipses his frustration, drowning any anger that might have built. There's something in her voice, something screaming at him, if he could only understand. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Let go! It's not safe. I have to go."
She's not feverish. If anything, her skin is too cool against his hands. He holds her close, desperately trying not to hurt her but intent on keeping her close as the realization sinks into him. She's not leaving his ship because she needs something in the city. She's trying to leave permanently. His blood runs cold in his veins and his arms tighten around her sharp, emaciated frame. "You're not going anywhere. Why would you even try?"
"It's not safe. It's not safe," she repeats, almost sobbing the words, but her struggles are quickly dying as her burst of energy fades. He's relieved as she slumps against him, but also devastated. His sorceress is strong. He could probably best her in a scuffle like this, eventually, but it should have taken much more time and much more energy on his part, and he ought to be badly battered, if not outright bleeding. She's weak as a kitten when he's used to holding a lioness, and he doesn't like it at all.
"For you out there alone? It's not safe at all," he agrees. He still doesn't entirely understand, but he knows he's taken the wrong tack with her. He shouldn't have left her alone, no matter how much rest she needs. He shouldn't have quailed to touch her, no matter how afraid he is. "Come with me." There's so much he doesn't understand, but this much he does—he's her céile and she needs him. He shifts his grip, hooking an arm gently behind her knees, lifting her against his chest.
Her head spins. Her body spins. She feels like she's turning to stone again, except stone can't bleed and she's sure her heart is punctured, oozing, spilling pain down her insides. She has to leave before she loses the chance, before she's too tired to make the attempt. But he's so near, touching her sweetly, his body warm and firm, his voice rough-sweet as he struggles to comprehend what she struggles to convey. He's frustrated, she can tell, but she is, too. Why can't he understand? This isn't safe for either of them—his life, her heart. She closes her eyes and pulls against him, the most difficult thing she's ever done.
"Shh. Easy. There's no meat on you but you could still unbalance us." He plants his feet wide under them, a solid stance as he moves to stop her, to hold her, to keep her with him. But he shouldn't touch her. She forgets exactly why, the rising tide of panic rippling through her, but she knows he shouldn't. Her head spins as his warm chest presses against her, his arms firm but sweet, never painful, but no. No. He can't touch her. He can't, but he refuses to let go. His breath washes gently against her ear, her cheek. She wants to steel herself against the heat of his body, the smell of clean male skin, but she feels insubstantial as seafoam. Her energy is failing, fading quickly, and despair rises in its place. Her will to leave ebbs away with her strength, but not the belief that she needs to go. Yet even as she struggles one last time, willing her body to obey her, she knows she's lost. She was capable of walking away from his ship. She's not capable of walking away from him. Frustration wells in her, exhausted anger that can't manage to rise to fury, which only makes her hopelessly angrier, and hopelessly sad. Unable to run, unable to break free, unable to do anything else, she drops her head into the crook of his shoulder and cries.
Her angry, hopeless tears feel like a kick to his gut. He doesn't know what's wrong, doesn't know why her torpor suddenly broke or why she chose to use it to try to leave. But she can't go. He'll surrender her to the safety of Breakwater if that ever again becomes a possibility, but nowhere else. They belong together, he knows they do. Nowhere is safe so long as Scratch can reach her, Rumina can see her, and if nowhere is safe, at least he wants her unsafe with him.
"Hey. Come here," he says softly. "Come here." He's uncomfortable around crying women in general, and appalled as this one sobs into his shoulder. His Maeve doesn't cry. He doesn't know what he thought, maybe that she didn't know how. But the hopelessness of the sounds she's making fuel his desire to fix this, fix any small part of it he can. Part of him wants to hold her as if she's made of spun glass, infinitely fragile, but he knows her better than that even as his eyes and hands adjust to the new reality of a more physically frail sorceress. He knows her, knows what her body likes. He holds her firmly as he descends the stairs, bringing her swiftly to the darkness of his cabin. Yes, they need to be careful. Yes, Rumina might be watching. But Maeve's needs in this moment are more pressing than the need for secrecy. He lowers her to his bunk in the darkness, hands moving swiftly over her body.
"I'll bring you your blanket," he says, a whisper of her native language against her skin, finding the buckle of her belt by touch. He removes her sword and unlaces her cincher with only a little fumbling. "You've been nonresponsive for days. Do you know that?"
She doesn't answer, lying still where he placed her, crying softly. If she won't respond, all he can do is hope he's chosen the right course this time. He draws the boots from her feet, tempted to hide them so she can't run again. His palms glide up her calves, the bony protrusions of her knees, slipping under her skirt and drawing all but her thin white chemise up and over her head.
"No," she protests through her tears, attempting to pull away from his hands.
"Shh. No sex. I know. You think I'd ask your body for anything more now?" He wraps his woolen blanket around her. "Don't move. I'm going to get your blanket and be right back."
He doubts she has the energy to dress and leave again, even were her heart truly in it, which he can feel it's not. He touches her cheek lightly, stroking her tear-streaked skin as she hides her face in his pillow and cries. He's given her space, and doing so didn't help. He knows they need to be careful, but he can't keep away now. He needs her. She needs something, too, and he can only pray it's him.
Leaving her alone wrenches, even for a moment, but he crosses the galley swiftly and finds her heavy, feather-filled blanket by touch. He's back in an instant, shucking his boots off and wrapping the soft cotton around them both. He draws her close to his chest, her body pliant now, limp and drained. She doesn't struggle, just tucks her head under his chin as he holds her tightly.
"Still fight for you," she says through her tears, her words hazy and indistinct but clear enough to him. She's speaking her native tongue; he wonders if she realizes or if she's just too tired to think in a foreign language. "Always fight for you."
"I know you will." He never doubted her. He's not capable of doubting her. "But why would you run? Help me understand, mo chailín."
"Sorry," she breathes, hot and damp against his throat. "For everything. The spell. Doubar. Need to go."
"No." He draws her closer, holding her tighter. "No." He's still afraid of hurting her, afraid he might break her, but he knows his sorceress. She likes to be held hard, likes to feel his arms down to her bones. Maybe this is what he should have done from the beginning instead of leaving her alone in her bunk. It's not safe to touch her in daylight, and she asked for solitude besides, but he can see that was the wrong thing to give her now. "Sweetling, I know you don't believe me right now, but none of it is your fault. Rumina will chase me with or without you, and please don't worry about Doubar. You don't need anything else to worry about. Everything will be put right after Samhain. You'll see."
"No." Her hands clutch his shoulders, seeking skin. He gladly sheds his shirt, letting her tuck herself against his bare chest. She can have as much of him as she wants—he's hers anyway, all of him. "He wants a boy. Can't give you that."
Is that what she's worried about? He kisses the crown of her head, the only part of her he can reach while she's buried in his shoulder. "He wants me safe. As long as that happens, he won't care. Hey. Will you look at me?"
She refuses, remaining obstinately pressed to his shoulder, tucked under his chin, and he can feel her skepticism, her doubt of his words. It's fine. He won't argue with her right now. She needs reassurance, not more strife. "I'm sorry, sweetling. I thought you were sick and needed sleep. I still think so. But I think I was wrong, too." If she wants the heat of his body, the pressure of his arms and her blanket wrapped tightly around her, she can have it. Whatever she needs. "I'm sorry," he says again, and he is, for so much. "I don't know how to do any of this. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know what you need. All I know is that my Maeve never cries. Even when you thought Dermott had died you didn't cry. Not really. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. I'll harness the moon for you if you want it. What were those impossible tasks in that awful story again? Turning swampland to fields? Dredging rivers overnight? I'll do it. Anything. But you have to tell me."
She doesn't, as he suspected she wouldn't, but it's okay. He folds her in his arms, holding her as tightly as he dares, hoping it's enough to soothe her. She likes to bury herself in him despite her height, her own strength. It doesn't solve anything; it doesn't need to. If it makes her feel even the slightest bit better, he'll gladly hold her like this until the sky falls.
"I know," he says, even though he doesn't. "I know. Everything's a mess right now. And I know you have no reason to believe it's going to get better, but you have to believe anyway. For all our sakes." He can feel the swell of her belly pressed against his own abdomen, firm and round, and it's so intimate, so overwhelming. He prays his daughter remains safe in there, alive despite Rumina's devastating spell. "Listen to me. Dermott shouldn't have left without talking to you, no matter how angry he was. And Antoine had no right to blame you. Can you understand that? Nessa's a grown woman and she made her own decision. That's not your fault. I don't know your family well enough to guess what will happen, but I hope he realizes how wrong he was and apologizes."
"Not my family," she says, and the flat, toneless quality of her whisper chills him. "Not anymore."
"Don't say that." He kisses the crown of her head again. "Families are forever."
"Real ones." She pulls her cheek from his shoulder, inhaling a deeper breath. "I don't have one of those."
"You don't have parents," he says, so careful as he chooses his words. He was right when he feared Antoine crushed the foundation of her world. She's a bundle of contradictions, his sorceress, but at her core she's the essence of loyalty, her life given over in service to the people she loves. To Dermott. To her chosen siblings and their offspring. To him. Without those bonds she's an unmanned craft, a ghost ship, facing a storm and in danger of going down. "That doesn't mean you don't have a family. Many people don't have parents. I don't."
"Doubar."
Touche. He breathes softly, struggling to find the words to soothe her. As a vessel needs a captain, she needs something to return her to an even keel, to steady her course. She needs a purpose. A little faith. Antoine took that from her. He needs to help her regain it, if he can. Her tears are calming but he's not sure that's a positive sign. She may simply have worn herself out. There's no hope in her voice, nor in her touch. But how to put back what's been taken from her? He's told her before that Dermott will eventually return and she never believes him. The same will happen if he tries to convince her Antoine will apologize. So what else can he possibly say?
"I love you. Mo grá thú, beautiful girl. You're my family, just as much as Doubar. And we're still here: me and Rongar and Firouz. Doubar will come to his senses. And this one here." He rubs her side, unable to reach the curve of her belly as it presses into him. "She needs you. We need you. I can't see the future, can't read your fortune in a deck of cards. But I know who I am, and I know who you are." His hand fumbles at the delicate sweep of her throat, finding her chin and gently tilting her head up. She doesn't resist him, and he drops his head in the darkness, seeking until he finds her mouth. Her poor lips are cracked, evidence of how badly her body needs more than she's giving it, as if he needed any more proof. He kisses her gently, just once, then lets her return to her hiding place in the crook of his shoulder. His palm smooths down her back and he's horrified by the feel of her ribs so stark under his hand, each individual knob of her spine jutting like stakes against her sweet skin. He dropped weight too, with Rumina's spell, but not like this. "I know how strong you are. I know what you're capable of. But I don't know if you remember your own strength. Your own power."
She presses close. She's hiding again, but he lets her. It's fine. Whatever she wants. She can hide from him all she likes as long as she gets better. So much depends on her, and he's not even talking about his own soul. His crew are counting on her whether they know it or not. His brother. His daughter. He presses a hand between their bodies, needing the confirmation of the sweet curve of her belly. "Is she okay? Do you know?"
"She's there." Maeve's voice is so tired. He'll hold her and let her sleep as long as she likes, he swears it, but he's not leaving her alone again. That didn't work. "Don't know anything more. She's there."
And that will have to be good enough for now. He holds her tight and makes himself shut up. She needs to rest, not to be pestered. He can do that. For her, he'll do anything.
Maeve wakes bleary and hurting—physically hurting, the pain in her body very real and very present. She sucks in a swift breath of warm air, and though her pain doesn't ease the scent of Sinbad, of his body wrapped tightly around her, calms her. She woke from deep sleep blessedly free of dreams, the sort of sleep she hasn't had in a long time. Too long. She leans into the hot hardness of Sinbad's chest, parts her chapped lips and lets her tongue touch his skin, the tiniest taste. It's beyond soothing. This is everything, everything she wants and everything her sleep-bleary mind knows she can't have though at the moment she struggles to remember why. He's forbidden, she knows that well enough. She loves him more than her own heartbeat, but he's forbidden.
Slowly her memories start to trickle back to her—those she retains. She remembers most of the past night well enough—the urge to run, her own voice whispering in her mind, pushing her to leave. Then Sinbad's arms lifting her, preventing her escape. He begged her to tell him what was wrong, what she needed from him, and she couldn't. She couldn't, because there's nothing he can do. She loves him desperately, but love isn't enough to stop the pain she knows will come. She presses close, awash in the peace of smooth skin, the little hairs on his chest tickling her cheek. In this moment, his skin is all she wants in the world. She knows she shouldn't, but she surrenders this fight. Being without him hurts too much. She wraps her arms around his hard body and holds tight. It won't solve anything, but she can't stop herself.
"Hey." His voice sounds above her, gentle and deep, not rough with sleep. How long he's been awake, holding her as she sleeps, she doesn't know. She doesn't even know what time it is in the perpetual murk below deck. She can see him in the shadows, daylight gleaming through chinks in the decking like stars in the night sky, but not well. "I expected you to sleep longer."
"Time?" Is that her voice? It sounds so rough. She tries to clear her throat, but it doesn't help. She's been divorced from her body for too long and it feels strange to be back in it, fully present. Also painful. Everything hurts. She aches badly from head to toe.
"Morning." He strokes her hair with reverent fingers. "If I bring you food, do you think you could eat?"
She considers the question. The mention of food makes her belly cramp oddly, a sensation she remembers from childhood, and the pain distinguishes itself from the other hurts of her body—desperate hunger. Why hadn't she noticed before? She knows this feeling well, though the urgent nature of her body's cry for food isn't one she's felt for a long time. She hasn't been literally starving since...well, a long time. Slowly she nods, seeking Sinbad's face in the shadows. She blinks. Is that just the lack of light playing tricks, or does he look skinnier, a faint gauntness to his cheeks?
"What's the matter?" He traces the curve of her lower lip lightly with his thumb, a warm caress.
So much. She shouldn't be here. He shouldn't touch her. He looks off. But she's so tired, and she's afraid if she thinks too hard the numbness will return. That can't happen. She has to fight it—he was right about that. For her daughter's sake. She lets her hand rest on her belly, her magic probing, searching for the little spark of life she's been able to feel for weeks now, even without Rumina disastrously hastening things along. And yes, she's there. Maeve's magic stores are still too depleted to feel any more than that, but she's there. The thought buoys her. Sinbad was right. No matter how much she's lost, she has to keep fighting. She'll lose everything else if she doesn't—lose the daughter she's sworn to protect, and the man who fathered her, too. For their sakes, she has to keep trying. So she swallows all the answers she wants to give but can't, all the reasons she has for pushing him away, and just shakes her head. Her mouth moues and she kisses the pad of his thumb where it rests against her lip.
"Mo chailín." He kisses her mouth softly, then rises from his bunk. "You stay. I'll be back. No more running."
No, no more. At least, not right now. She settles back against his pillow, burrowing under her blanket despite the warmth of the morning. With Breakwater closed to her, there's nowhere for her to run, nothing left for her in the north. She has to accept that, and move on. Her daughter will be born in the south, raised in the south, with a southern father and a southern uncle who hopefully tolerates her presence. It's not the sprawling family of cousins she envisioned for her girl, but there's nothing she can do about that now.
Leaving Sinbad would still be the wiser choice, but without the frantic, terrified burst of energy she felt last night, she doubts she can do it. Rumina wants Sinbad, not her, so presumably, so long as she doesn't know Maeve is carrying the child that will foil her plans, she'd leave her in peace if they parted. But Sinbad isn't going to let her leave, and now that she fully inhabits her body once again, Maeve isn't so sure of her chances alone. Rumina's spell took more from her than she realized. Until she recovers, however long that takes, she won't be much use to anyone.
That spell should have killed her, she suspects, or her daughter at the very least. Yet they both survive. She's weak and weary, only a glimmer of her former magic remaining, and she has no idea what shape her baby is in, but they're alive. At least she's been given that much, and she tries to be grateful for it despite what she's lost. She needs faith, Sinbad told her last night. Something to believe in. She's never been one for religion, but she doubts that's what he meant. Some people believe in gods. Others in kings or heroes. Firouz's faith lies in the natural world and his own brain, in science. Dim-Dim has faith that everything happens for a reason. Maeve has never been able to submit herself to that belief, and the last few moons have not made her any more willing to reconsider. But she understands what Sinbad meant. She used to have faith—in her own physical strength. In the triumph of good over evil. In the bonds of family, the power of love. She has faith in none of it anymore. Maybe it's not too much to ask of her, to believe in herself. But she can't do it. Not after so many failures.
But she can believe in Sinbad, and she can believe in her daughter. The little life she harbors holds so much promise: her father's strength, charisma, and optimism, and possibly some magic as well if that's something Maeve can hand down. She'll gladly give it all to her, everything she has—she'll give her life without regret if it means that her daughter will live. She wraps an arm under the swell of her belly, below the blanket, her skin stretched and tight. It's uncomfortable, and she's furious at Rumina's trick, but as long as her daughter emerges unharmed that's all that matters.
She doesn't specifically remember telling Sinbad she's carrying a daughter, but he knows, so clearly she did. He doesn't seem upset, which she guess makes sense. He almost lost both of them and his chance to free his soul along with them, so he probably doesn't feel much like complaining at the moment. But Doubar will, when he learns. And she knows all fathers would much prefer sons, no matter how tactful Sinbad is being about it. She strokes her thumb along her belly, runs her fingertip over her navel, a completely different shape than it used to be. Sinbad is right. As long as Scratch and Rumina don't know about her baby, they can't take her away. As long as she can keep her secret, she's free to love her as deeply as she can, lavish that little soul with all the love she can't give anyone else. Once she rises from this bed, everything has to go back to the way it was. She shouldn't even be here now, but she honestly doubts her ability to make it across the galley on her own. When she does, this soft interlude with Sinbad will end. She'll have to cinch down tightly at all times, have to play pretend with him once more. But she can love her daughter, feed her with her magic as it returns—if it returns—and nurture this bond, supporting her as she grows, even as she has to hide her.
To that end, though she knows how reckless it is, how much she's tempting fate, she gives her baby a gift: a name. A name borne of the north, a last parting gesture to and from her kin as she turns to face a life lived fully among Sinbad's people for the rest of her days. Finn mac Cumhaill was her people's mightiest hero, a warrior whose legends she most loved to hear Dermott tell as a child. She gifts her daughter the strength of his name, coupled with a feminine suffix, hoping that her Finleigh will be strong enough, with a hero for a father and a hero for a namesake, to withstand the next few moons and the fight that's coming.
Sinbad returns with oat gruel and a mug of Keely's minty herbal brew, the herbs somewhat musty but not rotten. "I'm sorry," he says as he helps her to sit, propping his pillow behind her back. "Nearly everything in our stores rotted because of Rumina's spell. The oats are fine, and Firouz said your herbs were, too. We restocked for everyone else in a village on the way to Attalia, but I wanted to save the oats for you, and the last of the honey, since I knew they were safe."
She shrugs; she's never cared what she eats, except the earlier moons when her nose constantly disrupted her belly. Her stomach feels sick with hunger now, but not because of the smell of starch rising from her bowl. She drinks Keely's herbs, refusing the wave of sorrow that threatens to take her. She'll never get the chance to make up with her sister now, and she deeply regrets not doing so earlier. But she made her choice. She has to live with it. She eats quickly, a wave of dizziness and heat washing over her, but no nausea.
As she finishes, Sinbad holds a torn piece of paper out to her. She doesn't remember writing him a note until she reads her own words, the handwriting so jagged and uneven, so unlike her.
"No more," he says softly, sitting on the hard wooden edge of his bunk, his eyes watching her intently. "For a hundred reasons, no more. Give Talia the clothes if it makes you happy, or sell them, do whatever you like. But no more running. You said it yourself, we don't work well apart anymore. If you can't go to Breakwater, where I know you'd be safe, then we're facing this together."
Can she promise? She watches him, considering. He thinks his job is to protect her, but he's wrong. In this case, she has to protect him. Save him. And if leaving him is the only way to do that, she will. She'd rather live with half a heart than the knowledge she caused his damnation.
"Promise me," he presses. "I don't know what would have happened if I wasn't on watch last night, and I can't keep living with that fear. What if you had hit your head when you tried to leave the ship, or fallen in the water? You were in no shape to pull yourself out. You still aren't."
She knows. One good cry, one night of peaceful sleep with her céile, and some musty herbs aren't enough to replace what Rumina took. But it's a start. "I promise," she says, knowing even as she vows that she may break it. She may not have a choice. But he needs reassurance now just as much as she did last night, and she'll give him all she can. He's part of her, enmeshed with her in a way impossible to ever extricate.
"Good." He exhales a deep breath. "I was going to send Rongar for a midwife today." He watches her quietly.
"No." She wraps a long, rail-thin arm around her belly. "She's there. I know she is. A midwife won't be able to tell you more than that, and the danger's too great. I shouldn't even be here."
"In my cabin? Probably not," he allows. "But anyone who looked at you would know you're not well, and this is the most comfortable place on the ship. It's reasonable that I'd bring an ailing crewmember in. Until you recover, I want you here."
He's reaching, justifying what he wants to himself, but Maeve knows better. Rumina won't like it, and if she thinks Maeve is showing signs of giving in to his advances, she won't hesitate to strike. "I want to be here. But it's not safe."
"That's what you told me last night." His hand rises, one finger gently brushing a stray lock of red-gold hair. "What got into you? Do you remember? You were so scared."
She shakes her head slowly. "I don't know. I just remember waking up, my own voice in my ears telling me to get out."
He frowns. "I've never heard such a thing. I've seen grief before—worse than yours, though not often. But never like that."
"Worse than mine?" Was she really that bad? She remembers the numbness that still somehow hurt worse than pain, living inside her body yet existing outside of it, divorced from her logical mind, her emotions. She has no idea what it looked like from his perspective.
"I've seen men tear themselves open because the blade hurt less than the loss of a brother, a wife. I've witnessed further east a practice where widowed women throw themselves on their husband's funeral pyre. Grief...does things to people."
She shudders softly and holds her belly under the blanket. "My people are gone, Sinbad." A soldier may mourn his fallen brother with blood, but he's never alone. Maeve is.
"No." He shakes his head. "Your people are right here. And we're not going anywhere."
A/N: Next chapter is the darkest point in the whole story, just so you're aware. And no, we're not going to get to Samhain by Samhain, though I really wanted to! Maybe by US Thanksgiving. Thanks for reading!
