A/N: Sorry this one took a little longer than I anticipated - the stress of the election got to me, work got busy, and I ended up deleting and rewriting this chapter multiple times. I finally decided to cut it here so you get this part sooner and I'm now wrestling with the next part, ha! Thank you for reading, for those of you who review or PM, and I'm sorry I can't reply to guest reviews personally but I'm grateful for them all!
The Gift
Pairing: Maeve/Sinbad
Rating: M
Setting: Just after Season 1
All standard disclaimers apply
"Doubar!" Dread fills Sinbad as he drops into the galley, ignoring the steep stairs. He should have stopped work immediately when he heard the first waftings of an argument, should have slithered down the bare mast as fast as his arms would allow. He waited, knowing how much Maeve hates his protective instinct, how she prefers handling Doubar herself. Not until he saw Rongar and Talia break for the door did he follow, trusting whatever they heard that he could not. Those wasted moments are a decision he'll never, ever forgive himself for.
He's an instant too late as he lands in the galley, and in this case too late is a line drawn not in sand but in blood. His heart's erratic, frantic beat freezes when he sees her, a pile of white linen and red hair struggling to rise, blood on her lip, her chin, so dark against the cream of her skin, dripping softly on the floor.
You could have stopped this, a voice whispers in his head, smooth and mocking. Should have stopped it. And of course he should have. He should have come to her immediately despite her disdain for his so-called overprotectiveness. That's his job, the only job that ever mattered, and as his eyes swiftly take in the scene before him he knows he failed.
Doubar's bulk shifts over her as he pulls roughly from Rongar's restraining grasp. A rising tide of panic surges in Sinbad's blood, roars in his ears, and he can't comprehend the words his brother speaks but he understands Doubar's body language perfectly well. Sinbad lunges—to stop his brother, to get between him and the dazed woman on the floor—but not in time. A heavy boot connects with her body just as she attempts to draw her legs under her and she curls instantly, a tight ball protecting her softest, most vulnerable parts, the instinctual position of any creature unable to flee or fight back.
"No!" He throws off the paralysis borne of shock, desperate to reach her as she huddles on the floor, attempting to protect her body and the child within it. No. No. He was on guard against Scratch. Rumina. Not this.
He drops to his knees at her side, hands reaching for her balled, shaking body as Rongar and Talia fight to restrain his brother. A small noise escapes her as his shadow falls over her, the terrified whine of a wounded prey animal, something he's never heard from her before. Pain makes her angry, not afraid. He's seen her fight; he knows this. But he knows that sound, too, and to hear his sorceress make it breaks him. His hands move to touch her shoulder, pull her tangled hair away from her face. He's here. She needs to know he's here.
In a blaze of warm, flame-colored light, she vanishes.
His head reels. The scent of magic hangs strong in the air, thick as the hum of energy before a lightning strike. His hands, outstretched to touch her, protect her, meet only the scuffed wood of his ship. Several bright drops of blood glimmer on the floor, the only proof he has, as the crystalline moment shatters, that she was ever there at all.
The world disintegrates. He feels the floorboards buck like a belligerent horse, rising toward him as if borne on a heaving wave. Darkness takes him.
"That witch bespelled him! Cursed him! I know she did!"
"I'm sorry, Doubar, but I see no evidence of magic here." Firouz's tense but practical voice emerges from the dark fuzziness clouding his brain.
"She disappeared and he collapsed! What more evidence do you need?"
"Aye, she disappeared. But there's no reason to think the two are necessarily linked. Maybe he hit his head coming down the stairs. There could be any number of reasons for his fainting, and dark magic from Maeve isn't one of them. What in the world possessed you to go at her like that?"
"At least let's take him topside and get him some air," Doubar growls, ignoring the scientist's question.
No. No, Sinbad's not going anywhere. He fights for clarity, for his cloudy mind to remember why he feels so shaky, why he's having trouble opening his eyes and making his body obey. Something's wrong. With him, maybe, but more than that. He can feel the change, a shift on his ship like a change in the wind. Something is very, very wrong, and he has to fix it. Concentrating hard, he manages to move his arm. A dizzy wash of exhaustion threatens to take him again, but he refuses to succumb. He has to get up. He has to remember, has to fix everything.
"Look, he's moving. I think he's coming around. I don't want to move him until I know he's unhurt."
Yes. Listen to Firouz. He hurts—good gods, he hurts—but that's not the problem. He groans as his senses slowly return to him, telling him one by one the same thing he knew when he woke: something is very wrong. He's so tired, and his entire body aches as if a herd of centaurs trampled him. He can smell magic, sharp and heady, taste it on his tongue. Panic seizes him, a jittery, painful sort of fear he doesn't understand because he can't recall the cause. He's beyond fatigued, more tired than he's been after any storm, any battle, and his body wants desperately to sleep, just sleep, but he can't. He's the captain. Whatever's wrong, he has to fix it.
"How could he be unhurt? He just collapsed!" Doubar barks. "Look at him! He looks like he's had the life sucked out of him!"
"He doesn't look so hot," Talia agrees, her voice cautious, something Sinbad isn't used to hearing from her. "But you might want to scram for a while, big guy. He saw what you did. He won't be happy when he wakes up."
"I'm not going anywhere. He's looked terrible since Rumina cast that blasted spell on us and he looks twice as bad now. She did it, the she-devil! She did something to him."
"Rumina? I doubt that. She wasn't even here." Skepticism laces Firouz's tone. Sinbad feels the man's hand on his forehead and he wants to shove it away.
"Not Rumina! Maeve! He collapsed when that traitor disappeared. She cursed him somehow!" Doubar barks.
Maeve.
Maeve.
He fights to rise, fights the lethargy holding his body captive. She disappeared. She's gone. That's the disquiet he feels, the panic, the sense that something on his ship isn't right. She's not here. His memory of the last few moments before his collapse rushes back to him with sickening clarity. She's not able to just disappear at will like that. She's told him so—that's advanced work beyond her current ability. And she's weak, sapped of strength by Rumina's spell. She can't do it. But she did.
He groans as he levers himself upright with his arms, one stiff movement at a time, the pain in his head surging. His vision greys and he almost loses consciousness again, but no. No. He needs to find her.
"Sinbad!" Firouz is at his side when he opens his eyes. "Easy. Here, lean against the bench. Take a deep breath. Do you want some water?"
No, he doesn't want any fucking water. He wants his family. "Maeve." His voice croaks out of him as he digs impatient fingers in his eyes, steadying his vision.
"See?" Doubar demands. "She's bewitched him! She's gone but he's still under her spell!"
"No spell," Sinbad insists. He clears his throat and raises his hand, appalled when he finds a smear of blood on his palm—her blood, now smeared across the floor and his hand. "Please tell me she was wearing her bracelet." It's the only hope he has to cling to. If she was wearing her opal, there's a chance she could have triggered the traveling spell without overtaxing herself. There's a chance she could have made it north. No matter how angry Antoine is, it's the best option Sinbad can conceive.
His crew glance blankly at each other.
"Ah…" Talia steps forward and pushes up her sleeve. "You mean this bracelet?"
And yes, there on her arm he spies the delicate silver wraps housing the magical opal, the stone dull white in the dim light, its brilliance muted.
"You stole that from her again?" He surges to his feet, fist clenching tight, anger rising as swiftly as it did when he saw her fall, saw Doubar's boot connect with her body.
"I took it from her trunk before you hauled it away!" Talia protests, squaring herself with his bigger body as she defends herself stoutly. "It would have gone with the silks to the harbormaster if I hadn't. I figured she'd remember and demand it back eventually. This is not the time to argue about that!"
She's right, and doubly so that this is not the time to yell about it. Sinbad sways on his feet, struggling to think through his crushing headache. Maeve wasn't wearing her bracelet, which means whatever she did, she did on her own, and he's not stupid. She has neither the training nor the power for that to end well.
"No." His fist clenches tighter. No. No, he refuses to think like that. Maeve is strong. The strongest woman he's ever known.
She isn't, a voice in his head cackles gleefully. Not now.
Yes, she is. Maybe not in body at the moment, but in spirit, and that's something Rumina can't steal.
How touching, the voice in his head whispers back. And how very useless, considering.
Even as he refuses that sneering voice the panic in his gut expands and a sick feeling creeps into his belly, a slithery sort of queasiness, as if he swallowed a nest of writhing, mucus-covered worms. It feels cold and heavy as lead, and threatens to choke him, gag him. No. She's alive. She has to be. He just has to find her before anything worse happens. She's hurt, he saw it for himself. Her blood is drying on his skin. She needs Firouz, the best physician he's ever known. He slams open the door of his cabin, staring at the empty space. She's not there, as he knew she would not be, but he had to look anyway.
"Search the ship," he commands, letting the door bang shut behind him as he crosses to her tiny cabin. Empty. She's not here. His gut knows it, but he has to check. He has to find her.
"Why bother?" Doubar sits heavily on the bench. He looks shaken despite his tone.
Sinbad launches his fist into the wall to stop himself from launching it into his brother's fat face. Something in his hand crunches; he welcomes the pain. It doesn't lessen the jagged hole ripped through him by Maeve's absence, but it distracts from it. A little. Maybe. "To find her! What were you thinking?" he demands. "She disappeared to escape from you! What possessed you to put your hands on her? To kick her when she was already down?"
Red-faced, Doubar lurches to his feet, his own anger not yet spent. He throws back his shoulders in an act of defiance. "I was thinking that bitch needed a little takedown! She was in your cabin, traipsing around as if she owned the place. Any other captain would flog a crewmember bloody for acting as she does!"
Sinbad's stomach sickens still further at the thought. He's never been a captain like that and he never wants to be. "You attacked a woman as sick as she clearly is just for being in my cabin?" he demands. "Search the ship!" he repeats, rounding on the rest of his crew, who swiftly move to obey him though they know as well as he does that they won't find her. "I won't say it again!"
"You're angry at me?" Doubar looks baffled. "I was defending you! Protecting you!"
"She had my permission for all of it—for being in my cabin, for eating when she needs to—all of the ridiculous, petty things you've been angry about. You should have just asked me!" Sinbad's fist tightens and whatever he hurt inside it crackles like crinkled paper. It doesn't matter. Maybe it even feels good, in a sick sort of way. "You used to be friends! No brother of mine would speak to a woman like that, hurt a woman like that, let alone a friend." He moves to stride away, to search the ship himself. He can't deal with Doubar right now. He needs to calm down first, which he can't do until he finds Maeve. He needs her back with him where she belongs, under Firouz's care, needs to see for himself the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. His mind trips and races, spinning out of control with conjecture, fears and worries and far too much panic. He's a level-headed guy; he never panics. But Doubar hurt his sorceress, she disappeared, and he needs to find her. She's so very important, both her and the child she carries.
"How can you stand there and call her a friend?" The color in Doubar's red face deepens as Sinbad attempts to walk away. "She won't help you! Acted like you were asking for the world instead of a few nights and a big belly. I tried to tell her you didn't want her for life, but no, as if that mattered to her! I warned you ages ago about that bitch, but you wouldn't listen!"
And that's it. "You fucking idiot!" Sinbad whirls, a smooth motion very like a dance, and his fist connects with his brother's face. Something breaks under his knuckles with a satisfying crunch, but whatever he hurt in his hand cracks further, too. "How could you? How could you say that to her? Put your hands on her? Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Got rid of a damned distraction!" Doubar grunts, covering the side of his mouth where his brother's fist landed amid the bushy hairs. Blood drips from his mouth, from Sinbad's hand where his knuckles met teeth. Sinbad doesn't feel it. "Now maybe without all her spells and guile you'll finally pay attention to Talia. We have no time left to waste, brother! Rumina took that! You have to face reality. Talia is ten times the woman that barbarian witch ever was, and I'm glad she's gone."
Sinbad pulls at his hair, ignoring his bleeding hand. His head swims, dipping and racing, and it's difficult to latch onto any concrete thought. Only Maeve, his Maeve. Her name pulses in his head, beats in his blood. Not a spell. Not a witch. She's his light in the darkness, the purest flame burning away all uncertainty. He needs her back. She ran away, retreated from danger the only way she could. But to where? Her kin are no longer her kin, and too far for her to reach without her opal besides. So where?
"She's not here, Sinbad," Firouz says softly as his crew returns to the galley.
"I know." He knew before they searched. His body feels her loss, as she warned him it might. Wherever she went, she's not nearby. He sinks to a bench, head in his hands, trying desperately to think. Where would she have gone? Fear clogs his mind, exhaustion hampers his rationality. He prides himself on being clear-headed, but not today. If not to Breakwater, where would she go? He doesn't even know how magical transportation works. Does she have to have a specific target? Could she transport herself, say, somewhere in the city, without a clear aim?
Heedless of his bleeding hand, the blood he's smeared liberally across his face and in his hair, Sinbad lunges for the door.
"Wait!" Firouz protests, and Rongar steps firmly between him and the stairs.
"Get out of my way!" Sinbad tries to duck around his crewmembers but they stand firm. "You stay here in case she somehow returns. I'm going to search the city."
Firouz and Rongar share a glance as Talia steps up beside them. "She's not there, Sinbad," Firouz says. His voice is gentle. Rongar shakes his head.
"You don't know that! No one knows where she went. She could be anywhere."
"Or nowhere," Talia says. Her eyes are full of compassion. "I don't know magic too well, but I know what I saw. That girl couldn't lift a feather with her magic, Sinbad. Maybe before Rumina's spell, but not now. You know it. You saw the same thing I did."
"No," he insists, though even as he denies Talia's words his body remembers the terrible feeling that almost overcame him when he used Maeve's opal on his own. He was caught in a void between worlds, a horrible, freezing nowhere that sucked the breath from his lungs as he fought to reach the other side. It was a place and yet no place, and without the power of his rainbow bracelet he knows he would have been trapped there. "No. I'll find a sorcerer in the city and bring him here. Maybe he can track her somehow, figure out where she went." He has to find her. She's hurt, and she's carrying his daughter. He needs to find them both.
"No, Sinbad." Firouz's eyes are as gentle as Talia's. "No sorcerer could find what isn't there to find. No scientist, either."
Rongar places his hands on Sinbad's shoulders and squeezes hard. He shakes his head slowly.
"No. You're wrong." They have to be. There isn't any other option. He shakes Rongar off and wipes his bloody hand over his face. "Cairpra! She wanted Cairpra. Maybe she went to Basra."
"Maybe she tried," Firouz allows. "It's a reasonable hypothesis. As good as any blind conjecture. But the destination doesn't matter, Sinbad. There was no way she could have made it."
"You don't know that! Keep to science," Sinbad snarls.
"I do know it. I know magic operates under different rules, but some things are universal. Immutable. You can't make something out of nothing, can't create without energy behind it. A ship goes nowhere without the wind. A mill-wheel grinds nothing without something to turn it. She had nothing to give."
Except her life. Two lives.
Numbly, Sinbad staggers. He can feel the pain in his hand, can feel Rongar's body as the man tries to guide him toward the bench. He can't feel his own heartbeat. Is it still there? Or did it stop, his own hourglass stilling when hers did?
"She's with child." It's the first time he's admitted the truth out loud to his people. His voice doesn't sound like his voice; he sounds like a little boy.
"I know." Firouz's eyes flit away from his. "I ought to have sooner. I'm sorry, old friend."
The slithering, sick feeling in his gut intensifies. No. He needs her. Not for the salvation of his soul, but for everything she means, everything she is. This can't be how it ends, a petty argument turned sour, a flash of temper from his brother and...that's it. Just like that.
"No," he whispers once more. "She's strong."
"Very," Firouz agrees. He clears his throat. "But sick, as you said. And half-trained at best."
"I'm sorry, Sinbad." Talia slips the silver bracelet from her arm and hands it to him. "Truly." She crosses her arms over her chest and looks away.
There's a jagged hole ripped in his chest where Maeve belongs, an aching hollowness far worse than any physical pain he's ever experienced. She was right there, under his fingers. He would have touched her in another moment. But he was too slow. Too late. Now they're gone. He puts his hands to his head and squeezes hard, as if he wants to crush his own skull, mimicking the gesture Antoine made when he spoke of Nessa's disappearance. It doesn't help at all. Maeve. He's come close to losing her before—to Vincenzo, to the Norsemen, the Vorgon, Rumina multiple times. Together they've always come through largely unscathed, but not this time. Not today, and it's his fault.
But not only his.
He moves swiftly, vision swimming, and his fist connects with his brother's face, breaking the bulbous nose. His fist drops open, something in his hand too damaged to obey his command anymore, but he has another hand and the rest of his body, too. Fury wakes deep in his blood.
"You monster!" He's yelling and weeping and knows his words make no sense but they bubble out of him anyway and he does nothing to stop them. "You killed them! You fucking monster! She was with child!"
Over the ruined mess of his lower face, Doubar's bloodshot eyes open wide.
Rongar places a firm, restraining hand on Sinbad's chest, pushing him back gently from his brother. His eyes are compassionate but his body is solid.
"Get out of my way!" Sinbad lunges for Doubar again.
Rongar shakes his head and stands implacably between them.
"What good will that do now?" Firouz places a hand on Sinbad's arm. "It won't bring her back. Calm down first. Justice can never be dealt in anger."
Sinbad shakes him off. Hurting Doubar won't bring Maeve back, no, but it's all he's capable of in the moment and fuck, it doesn't make him feel better but he craves it.
He took what was yours, the whisper in his head says gleefully. Two lives that belonged to you, and your chance at salvation with them. Let him pay in kind.
"She was helping me from the beginning!" He tries to shove Rongar out of the way, but the Moor is bigger than him and solid as granite. The tears don't stop and his eyes sting as water mixes with blood on his face. "How could you ever believe she wouldn't, you idiot? You were friends!"
Nothing will ever ease this wound. It feels as if his brother has thrust a saber in his gut and twisted, pulling everything from him, leaving him empty and raw. A sick gladness fills him that soon he'll lose his soul—living like this is too painful. He can't bear it. Let Scratch have what's left of him.
Gladly, the whisper says. But kill the oaf first.
His saber hangs on the rack with the others; it would be at Doubar's throat otherwise. He tenses his non-dominant fist and prepares to lunge.
Darkness surrounds her.
She wakes on black ground she cannot feel, neither rough with stones nor soft with grass. She sees nothing, hears nothing. Just darkness. No wind stirs her hair.
Is this death? Just the aching cold, the dark, hovering silence? She never gave credence to any particular afterlife, believing only that human beings were not meant to know what comes after. But somehow she didn't quite expect this.
She huddles tight, a small ball of sorrow as the darkness presses close. The cold. Icy shivers take her.
Sinbad. She bleats softly as his face enters her mind, just a memory now. She knows she'll never see him again. She's not sad for herself, for her death, her only grief for the things she's left undone, the people she's let down. Her captain. Her brother. Her daughter most of all.
She moves, somewhat surprised that she still has form, a corporeal body, and winds her arms around herself, hugging her torso tightly. Yet as she tightens her grip, a crushing realization takes her. Her belly lies hollow and concave, exactly as it would in her emaciated state if she carried no child. Her Fin is gone.
She whimpers, her body unable to form any other sound as this awareness crashes down. Thick, freezing darkness swallows the noise. She feels like she's shouting into a winding sheet, a shroud of layers and layers of velvet. She's truly alone now. No Dermott. No Sinbad. Not even her baby, the child she fought so hard to keep. The cold seeps past her skin, dripping into her veins as swiftly as this loss. It's not fair. It's just not fair. She and her daughter died together. Surely that means they ought to stay together?
It might, a voice whispers in her head. If this were heaven. If such a place existed.
So.
This is either punishment for her many misdeeds, or just the reality of death—nothingness. A cold void. She hugs herself tightly, her frozen body beginning to shiver. She hates this, but she hates even more the thought of her baby likewise alone in the void. Or do unborn souls go somewhere else, somewhere other than this pit of frigid black? She hopes so. Her daughter never had the chance to do anything wrong, make any mistakes. She doesn't deserve this. No unborn soul does.
Maeve huddles in the darkness, dropping her head, breathing in the tasteless dust of the frozen ground. She aches, throbbing with pain not of the body, but still so very physical. It happened so quickly, everything she fought for, strove for, now lying in ruins. Her world came to pieces so fast, her final moments a blur of frenzied emotion, the danger realized too late to guard against. She was too confident in herself, her ability to handle Doubar's anger. She wasted too much energy guarding against Rumina and Scratch, and failed to see the danger much closer to her heart. Did Doubar even kill her, though? She's unsure. Her dazed mind can't remember. She remembers being struck, remembers falling. Remembers his kick as she attempted to rise, his boot landing with vicious precision where her womb now lies empty. She remembers fear, though she no longer feels it. Remembers desperately wishing for escape, for safety. Remembers fleeting thoughts of her family at Breakwater, of Dim-Dim on the Isle of Dawn, of Cairpra's warm little rooms in Basra. Now she's here.
And everything she tried so hard to prevent either has come to pass or will soon. Her daughter died before she ever lived. Sinbad's soul is now doomed to Scratch unless he's willing to start over with Talia or another girl. Dermott and Nessa are both lost in a very big world, possibly themselves dead, never to be avenged, Rumina's curse never to be broken. She'll never get the chance to apologize to any of them. To thank Rongar for his unending loyalty and kindness. To explain to Doubar.
A wave of anger tries to take her, but she's just too numb, inside and out. She's shivering hard now, shaking as she hugs her knees to her chest, the unrelenting cold of this place sinking into her bones. She wants very much to be angry at Doubar, but she just can't. The immensity of her loss is too consuming, too much for her injured body to bear. She has no room for anything else, just the hollow, stunned ache that will not fade. Dermott. Sinbad. Her little Fin. All gone now, doomed because she wasn't strong enough.
The loss of this newest love hits her deep, freezing her deep inside, where her daughter used to lie. Unborn babies die as often as they live and she knew this, but despite the risk she fell in love anyway. She knew better. And she never intended to be a mother in the first place, never particularly wanted to take up this role. She wanted to do something bigger with her life, and once Dermott was cursed it almost became a moot point. She inherited the quest to free him just as Dermott inherited her when their mother died.
Something changed during the moons she spent harboring her little stowaway inside her body, feeding her, sharing her magic, her strength. She gave her a name even though she knew better, gave her an identity, something Keely warns all the women she cares for never to do. Not until they survive the birth. The pain isn't quite so consuming, she says, without that marker of identity. But Maeve did it anyway. She ignored the voice of reason, as she so often does, and now she's paying the price. Doubar may have put her here, in this place that isn't a place, but in this respect she wounded herself.
And Sinbad. The man she refused to admit she wanted from the first. She aches, arms shuddering as she hugs herself tightly, as tightly as her withered muscles will squeeze. She wants his arms instead, the warmth of his body, how he holds her so hard against his chest that it feels like nothing else in the world exists. Just him. Just them, together. She wants to hear him tell her, just one more time, that everything will turn out all right. That everything happens for a reason. He's always had greater faith in their lost mentor's adage than she.
But he's gone. Everyone is gone. She doesn't quite understand exactly how it happened, but she understands this place, understands what it means. She's dead. She failed. And she left so much undone.
"We're not so different in that, my girl."
Maeve's eyes snap open.
She can see. The light is faint, thin and cold, like the first touch of false dawn on old snow. Grey on grey, a figure settles beside her. The light doesn't come from her, exactly, but it illuminates her without giving any further hint to the nature of this place. Maeve still can't see the ground as she lifts her tired cheek from the dust, but she can see the woman next to her. She's dim and faint, long curly hair falling in front of her face until she pushes it back, revealing features Maeve almost recognizes. Like the memory of a dream, she feels a faint tug but no corresponding answers in her head: no reference points, no name.
"Who are you?" She watches the figure warily. Her voice drips with suspicion and she makes no attempt to rise. She's too tired, too consumed with her grief. If she can't have her sailor, her baby, she wants to be alone.
The woman's full mouth quakes, the corners slanting upward but the gesture laced with sorrow. "You don't remember me."
"Should I?" Maeve blinks. There's dust in her eyes, but it causes no further pain. Is it even possible to hurt the dead? Or has her body simply gone numb to any additional distress? She stares at the woman in the cold grey light. She isn't old, but she looks careworn, the years aging her faster than they ought. Maeve can't determine the color of her hair, her eyes. She has the face of a Celt, but not one Maeve knows.
"I suppose not. You were so young when I left you. But I know you. I knew the moment you arrived. Dermott, too."
Maeve's heart can fall no further. She nods swiftly, a tight jerk of her chin. So her brother really is dead. He beat her here. She thought she'd know if anything truly awful befell him, their bond speaking in her blood, her bones. Apparently she was wrong about that, too, as she has been about so many things.
The woman's hand reaches out, small and short-fingered, to touch Maeve's cheek.
Maeve ducks away. "Don't touch me. Who are you?" She doesn't want this strange woman.
"I think you already know that, though you don't want to admit it. You always were a stubborn one."
Maeve's eyes frantically search the woman's face, seeking a hint, just a hint, anything she might recognize. She finds nothing. "No," she says, scowling as she slowly draws herself upright, hugging her knees to her chest as she sits. Her head spins. Fuck, she's so cold. Why does she still hurt so much even after death? "No. You can't be." She remembers her mother. She does. But she doesn't know the face sitting before her.
"Don't tell me you're afraid of ghosts? You never were when you were small." The woman tilts her head to the side, her sorrowful smile growing sweeter. "Dermott would tell you the most horrible stories. Ghosts and ghouls, every kind of monster imaginable. You never had nightmares, not once. Never clung to my skirts or cried. You always wanted more. To be where he was, hear what he said. His little fiery shadow. Made me wonder sometimes if you were really mine at all."
And Maeve can no longer deny it, though her heart does not remember this face, her eyes see nothing in it of Dermott, of herself. "Mother."
"Aye." The woman nods, just once, a soft dip of her chin. "I hoped it would be much longer before I met my children again, but you take after your father. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you're here so young. You have his temper. His aggression. Even his hair." She twists a red curl between her fingers. "He was stronger than me in every respect. Even his blood, it seems."
Maeve shies from the touch. The woman looks hurt, but swiftly smooths over her frown. "Did I upset you? I'm sorry. It's just the truth. You look just like him. It's no curse—he's a beautiful man."
"How can you say that?" Maeve whispers, staring at the woman before her. Máire, she remembers abruptly. Her mother's name was Máire. It's been so long she nearly forgot. "He's a monster."
"Monsters often hide behind fair faces. You're young, my girl, but old enough to know that by now."
She is. She's known it almost all her life. But the woman sitting before her, claiming to be her mother, just compared her so casually to him—not just in looks, which she has no control over, but in temperament too, and that's the part that horrifies her. She's not like him. She isn't. She's also just not ready for this. She doesn't know the face hovering so near, and she's too full of her own fresh grief to have any room for old ones.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm tired. Please. I just want…" Her voice trails off. She doesn't actually want to be alone. But she doesn't want this stranger, either.
"Shh. I know. Dermott was unhappy at first, too. And furiously angry at you. But since his beloved came, he's been better." She tilts her head to the side. "She's a lovely thing. And having her here has certainly been a relief to him, though it isn't how he would have chosen to be reunited."
So Nessa's dead, too. Maeve tried to brace herself for this possibility, but she was never able to quite lose hope that her sister might somehow defy the odds. Now she knows better. She did this to them. Failed them. They'll never have a chance at a happy ending now, their lives cut short before Rumina's curse could be lifted.
"You are so beautiful," the woman says softly, staring at Maeve. "Not quite what a mother would want for her little girl, but so very, very beautiful." Her fingertips trace Maeve's cheek, hovering close to her chin. They're the same temperature as the icy air. "I almost don't believe I ever made something so pretty."
Maeve drops her head, avoiding the woman's searching gaze. She can't help it. She doesn't want this stranger, no matter the past they share. The only mother-daughter bond she feels, the only one she wants, is with her own baby, now taken from her.
Not taken. You killed her yourself. You failed to protect her, the mocking voice in her head whispers. She flinches.
"Don't pay him any mind. That's just Scratch playing his tricks. Didn't you realize? I thought you were smarter than that."
Maeve blinks. She thought she was, too. She knew Scratch likes to whisper in people's minds, even before he lured Rory into locking her in the hold.
The voice in her head laughs, dark and low, full of her own sweet lilt but also a jagged, biting cruelty she herself does not possess.
Her breath freezes for a long moment, her eyes widening as the laugh bleeds from her head, turning from something heard only by herself into a true sound, dancing in the heavy blackness. She stares at the nothingness around her, the frigid dark surrounding her and her mother as the velvet black seems to vibrate with the mocking laughter.
And she prides herself on being so intelligent.
"Enough, demon," Maeve's mother says mildly. "Your games sent her here. Isn't that enough?"
Is it ever? The voice is Maeve's, but isn't. It deepens, lowering and growing in darkness until she hears once more the voice she heard on the Nomad, the voice emanating from the apparition of Scratch in the water barrel. She's mine now. Once a soul is mine, I may do as I like. This is not the world of the living, remember. I am not constrained by anything here as I am there.
"What interest have you in my daughter? It's her sailor you want, her sailor you killed her to reach."
I? I killed no one. I played the game exactly as I told them I would. I warned them, even. Told them exactly what I would do. Is it my fault they listen to my whispers and not my explicit warnings? The disembodied voice howls with laughter. I didn't touch your girl. I merely spoke to her, to her ill-begotten captain, to his bumbling idiot of a brother. Of course the oaf listened better than the others. Why they keep such a fool around, a weak spot in their defenses, is beyond me. A stupid giant is worse than no giant at all, as he beautifully proved today. The cackles grow louder. An angry giant is a dangerous thing, and fools are so easily spurred to violence. A whisper here, a whisper there, and he did the killing for me. The pretty girl's blood is not on my hands. It would have been, had she listened better. I almost had her, you know, the night they docked. I convinced her to leave him, something I doubted she ever would do. Too loyal for that, I thought—everyone thought. But we were wrong. She didn't turn out so loyal once she realized how close she was to losing her own life. She ran when I told her to run. Would have died doing so if that blasted sailor of hers hadn't stopped her.
"No," Maeve whispers, huddled tight in the glacial darkness, her body shuddering both with cold and with this revelation. "No," she insists, dropping her chin to her knees, desperately seeking something—warmth, solace, some protection from the cold, from Scratch's words as they dance mockingly around her. "I wasn't trying to save myself. I was trying to save my daughter." She never would leave Sinbad for any other reason. But she swore a vow when she conceived a child, the same vow all mothers swear without perhaps consciously realizing it: to protect that life above all others. It's a vow she took very seriously, and a vow she utterly failed to keep.
It's the same thing when you wear the same skin, Scratch says indifferently. And, either way, you failed. Both of you rot in my world now, and your death has cleared the path to my ultimate goal. The sailor. He cackles. As I said before, I never did care overmuch for chess. War made bloodless. But when it translates to real lives, real souls, it becomes a much more entertaining game. Does it not, my pretty Celt? Removing you from play has cleared the last obstacle from my path to your sweet captain. Without you and the child I knew perfectly well you carried, his soul is mine.
"You don't know that!" she protests. "He still has time!"
Time, yes, but no inclination. No heart left to begin again with someone else. You did that to him, broke this part of him, and the most beautiful part is that you did it on your own. I said nothing, influenced no one. You bound him to you. You created this weakness.
No. She closes her eyes to the mocking darkness, tucking her head against her knees and holding on as tightly as she can manage. Even as part of her rebels against Scratch's dark words, another part of her can't stop the trickle of icy truth as it enters her. He's a loathsome demon, but that doesn't mean he can't speak the truth and right now he does. She didn't mean to weaken Sinbad, but she did. By loving him. By making him her céile, she changed this fundamental part of him. Bound him to her, as Scratch says. She did it without malice, without thinking what might happen to him if she died. She never meant to hurt him, but in trying the Tam Lin Protocol, trying to save him, she became the agent for his destruction.
"Leave her be, demon," Máire says, and Maeve feels a light hand in her hair. It's a touch her body does not recognize, and does not want. "Don't cry, child. I haven't seen you cry in a long, long time."
Funny. It's all she seems to do these days.
"What the demon says may be true, but there's no point in agonizing over it as he'd like you to. He may rule this realm, but death is not hell unless you choose it to be. Trust me, I've been here long enough to know."
Still she hides. From Scratch, though the demon is mercifully silent at the moment. From her mother's voice, the touch of a cold hand on her equally cold skin. She aches for warmth, the unrelenting southern sun. The heat of Sinbad's mouth, his skin. More than anything, she wants to hold her baby. Just once. Kiss the little face she made. Apologize to her. She can't be here, can she, lost in this neverending darkness? It's not fair. She never even had a chance.
"It's amusing, in a way, my girl. We didn't turn out so differently, you and I."
Maeve raises her aching head to regard the woman with one dark eye. They look nothing alike. They are nothing alike. She's a warrior, trained by Dermott and Antoine, and a middling magician, her haphazard schooling undertaken first by scholars, then, in adulthood, by Dim-Dim. Her mother is an unlettered peasant woman who came of age and went from the house of her father to the house of a man who wanted her, as most women do the world over, without considering any other option.
"I know. On the surface it sounds ridiculous. You had such shining promise. My beautiful girl, quick-witted and graceful, your magic apparent before you could speak. I thought if any girl could overcome harsh circumstances, you could. Climb up and out—by force if necessary. Your will was so strong, even so young. I could feel it. But for all that, you didn't manage it, did you?" She smiles softly. "I didn't, either."
Maeve's spine stiffens. She does not like this talk. She's hesitant to shove away the only other soul here, unsure whether she'll be left alone for eternity if she does. She doesn't like that option, either. But she struggles against what her mother says. "Did you even try?"
The woman's shoulders hitch, a halfhearted shrug. "I chose a man they didn't approve of. A man they warned would never make me happy." Her mouth curves in a self-deprecating, hard little smile. "They were right, of course."
Maeve never had parents to either approve or disapprove of her choices. Her people at Breakwater seemed to accept Sinbad well enough, for the short time they all coexisted. Dermott did not, but he had his own reasons. He liked Sinbad fine, just not the fact that the man was fucking his baby sister. No one ever questioned Sinbad's ability to make her happy, she doesn't think. They trusted her to make her own decision, and to un-make it if she wasn't satisfied. But, she supposes, maybe that's the difference between real parents and a makeshift family. She wouldn't know. She's never known.
"I didn't pick a bad man," she says softly, her eyes shifting from the ghost of her mother, staring blankly into the blackness. She didn't ever particularly want a man, want children. Nonetheless, the loss of both now threatens to crush her.
"You picked a violent one. The same as I did."
No. She didn't. Sinbad isn't like that. He's a happy man, generally speaking, easygoing, eager to help where he can. "He's not violent," she says, closing her eyes to the unending dark.
"Don't lie to me, or to yourself. He lives by the sword."
"But he never attacks first. And he defends people who can't defend themselves. You chose a bully."
"That bully gave you the beauty and aggression that kept you alive for twenty years, child. You think anyone would have cared what happened to you had you been born plain and quiet? Nobody cares about ugly girls, and they forget the meek ones. You received the help you got from others—from the scholars at Brí Leith, from the old sorcerer, even from your sailors—because of your beauty. Your fight. Because you stood out. And all that came from him. Don't delude yourself. You're dead now, there's no point."
A thread of indignant anger rises in Maeve's heart, but only a thread. She's too full of grief for more. But she hates her mother's words. She's not like her father—she's not. He's a large, dangerous shadow in her memory, someone she knew to fear even so young. She wants nothing to do with him, nothing of his, no comparisons with him.
From somewhere in the blackness, far off in the distance, Maeve hears a thin wail. A baby crying. Her head jerks up.
"Don't mind that. They all do it from time to time. They don't like the dark, the cold."
No one would. Maeve herself does not. That cry tugs at her, wrenches something deep inside. Her numb hands slowly unlock from her knees. They feel frozen, like ice, muscles resisting her command. She hesitates, unsure if she's capable of rising.
"You'll get used to it."
How can she say so? She had two children of her own. Doesn't she feel anything at that thin, quavering wail? Maeve's jaw clenches, and she rolls her weight slowly onto her feet. Her head swims and her palms hit the cold ground. She crouches on all fours, heart pounding hard against her ribs, summoning the energy to stand. "I'm not like him," she insists. "I'll never be like him. I may have failed, but I did the best I could." She forces herself to her feet.
"Did you? Really?" Her mother's eyes are sharp in the freezing darkness. She rises with tense grace. "For whom?"
Maeve doesn't have an answer for that as her head swims, threatening to bring her down again. She's always tried to do her best for the people she loves. Dermott. Her chosen family, including the crew of the Nomad and its captain. And, most recently, her daughter. She tried. It just wasn't enough. Resolutely, she takes a step toward the sound of the infant's cries.
"You chose a man over your brother," her mother says, "over your vow to save him. Was that really doing your best?"
The crushing guilt of that decision will live in her forever. But she's not as heartless as her mother seems to think. "No," she says softly, taking another step. Her knees hold. Barely. "I didn't. Why does everyone insist on framing this as a choice between two men? It wasn't!"
"Only your brother's ingenuity and bravery saved you when you were young, you know that, right? Your father would have abandoned you in the woods or drowned you in the river, had Dermott left you with him. Dermott is the reason you survived to meet that sailor in the first place."
"Of course I know that," Maeve whispers, staring ahead into the darkness as she navigates by sound, the baby's cries guiding her forward. Her arms wrap around herself, hugging tightly. How could she not know these things? She lived them. She remembers. She doesn't remember her mother's face, apparently, but she remembers Dermott. The smell of whiskey and blood heavy in the air, the feel of her brother's wiry young arms as he dragged her away from their mother's broken body.
"Then why? Why would you choose a foreign sailor, a man you have nothing in common with, over your own brother? The brother who did everything for you—saved you, raised you?" The hurt in her voice is very real, and Maeve winces against it, against the accusation she can feel in every word.
"It wasn't like that! It wasn't a choice between them," she insists. "I needed Sinbad to help me find Dim-Dim. I needed Dim-Dim to complete my training, so I could face Rumina." A trickle of air leaves her lungs, all she has left in this moment. "But it doesn't matter now. I failed at all of it."
"No," her mother agrees, "I suppose it doesn't matter now."
Maeve almost trips over the child in the darkness. She has no cold grey light as Máire does. She's alone in the freezing dust, newborn, the tied-off cord of her navel still attached, wet and freezing, squalling at the cold, the isolation. Her mother's ghost hisses but doesn't prevent Maeve from dropping next to the tiny, wriggling thing. She takes the cold, rubbery body in her arms, scowling fiercely as she brings it to her chest. "This isn't right! I've made my mistakes. Scratch can do with me as he likes. She hasn't."
"That's not yours," Máire says.
"I don't care! It doesn't matter who her mother is. It's still not right."
"The only ones claiming the afterlife was meant to be fair are living humans who have no clue." Máire takes a step back. "Put her down. She's not meant for you."
Maeve refuses. This may not be her lost daughter, but she refuses to just abandon her. She's tiny—too tiny, like a little bird, born too soon and died because of it. But that's not her fault, not a sin to be punished with everlasting darkness and silence. She cradles the crying child, though her own body holds no physical warmth to give her. She's a pretty thing, wee elfin features barely discernible in the ghost's dim reflected light. Her eyes open, blinking blearily, and meet Maeve's. She can't tell what color they're meant to be in the darkness, but she can clearly see the hurting soul inside. It's not fair. It's just not fair.
"Put her down," Máire repeats.
"I will give her to her mother, when she comes. Not before." Maeve curls the child against her body, holding her close as the wails quiet, turning to fretful whimpers. One tiny palm opens, pressed to her heart.
"You don't get that," the woman snaps, her eyes suddenly alight with bitterness. "Not after everything you've done. You thought you were invincible, thought you could have it all, and you lost everything because of it. Dermott died because of you! My son, my perfect boy. Moons ago, searching for that old man on his own. His beloved, too, or didn't you hear me before? She never even made it to the continent!"
Maeve ducks her head, resting her chin over the tiny cranium cradled against her collar. She can't face that stare. Not when her mother's right. She killed that woman's son with her thoughtless decisions, killed her own brother because she made too many conflicting promises, trusted herself to do too much. And everyone else will pay the price. "I'm sorry," she whispers, voice cracking. She has no idea who she's apologizing to—her mother. Dermott. Nessa. Her daughter. Everyone she's ruined with this failure.
"Sorry doesn't change facts! Put that thing down. You killed your brother for the chance to save a sailor, a gamble you lost. His woman is likewise dead because of you, and the sailor you intended to help will belong to Scratch before long. Because of you. Because of the choices you made!"
Maeve's eyes clench tightly against tears she no longer has to shed and her hands clutch the tiny child against her chest, refusing to put her down. It's true, all of it, and she can't deny it. She deserves to be here, but this child does not. Her own baby does not. "I'm sorry," she repeats, for she has nothing else she can say. She knows how it feels to lose a child. She can't ease this woman's grief.
A blaze of bright golden light flames up, and Maeve winces against it as the warmer light flares behind her eyelids. She cries out softly, the child in her arms bleating its fear of a light brighter than any it's likely ever known. From the midst of the blaze, she hears a voice both familiar and very, very welcome. "That," Cairpra says, firm and very displeased, "will be quite enough of that."
Maeve's head jerks up, and she watches Máire draw back two steps from the golden light. Cairpra strides forward, very solid and very real.
"I realize you enjoy these games, demon, but this is low even for you." The old woman places a hand at Maeve's elbow and despite her exhaustion she obeys, rising to her feet. The hand on her arm is warm, the first warmth she's felt in...she doesn't know how long. Too long. "Maeve, dearest, don't look with your eyes. Look with your heart."
"I don't know how," she stutters, clutching the premature infant to her chest, her heart slamming against her ribs, hard and out of rhythm.
"You do. This shade is made of his whispers just as much as the thoughts in your head have been influenced by them. Look harder."
Cairpra has never lied to her. Cairpra has never deceived her. She opens her eyes and looks at Máire, the woman's cold grey light nearly extinguished in the golden blaze. It's not Cairpra who's glowing, she realizes abruptly, but a fissure in the darkness, a jagged slice of a doorway cut through the black. Beyond it, she can see the warm golden glow of a hearth, bright Arabian sunshine streaming through windows in a room she knows. Basra.
And suddenly she knows where she is.
"I'm not dead."
"No. Not yet. By all rights you should be, but you're tougher than that." Cairpra touches her cheek, her hand firm and warm, and it's the most beautiful thing Maeve thinks she's ever felt. "You tried to travel untrained. I would very much like to know why, but now is not the time. You're not dead, my dear. You just got a little lost, and Scratch took advantage. He has more leverage in an un-place than he does in our world. Now do you see?"
Maeve stares at the ghost of her mother. A bright, malevolent gleam appears in the depths of her eyes. The woman's shade melts away, shifting and changing into a visage she's only seen as an apparition before. He's big, bigger than she thought, and hairy from his head to his cloven hooves. He scowls at Cairpra with his terrible half-human face.
"Begone, meddling witch! This is no place for you!"
"This is no place at all," Cairpra says firmly, "for me or for anyone. Certainly not for a woman so badly in need of care and a child not ready yet for the world."
Not her mother. Maeve wants to sob in relief. That's not her mother.
"I may not be your mother, girl, but I spoke the truth," Scratch snarls. "Every word of it. You still failed, and everything that happens from here on in is your fault. Take the easy way. Surrender to death. I'll be merciful. I'll let you keep the child if you do."
She clutches the baby close to her heart, sure now that she's hers no matter how firmly Scratch denied it before. Maybe because he so vehemently denied it, tried to make her put her down. She presses her lips to the soft spot on the tiny head, so gently, breathing in the smell of her. "Never," she whispers. Making deals with Scratch never ends well for anyone. She refuses to do so.
"Good girl," Cairpra approves. "You need to go now. This place isn't for you. You got lost, but you need to keep going. You need to return to the world again. Whatever reason you had to try to jump without training, it can't be worse than what Sinbad will do to himself without you."
Yes, she realizes that now. But she's so cold. So tired. She holds her baby close. "Can't we go back with you?"
"No, my dear, much as I would prefer it. You and your daughter need more than I alone can give if you're going to survive this. But you are not without help, without friends. And Scratch cannot touch you unless you let him. Do not give him the opening and he cannot take it."
The demon snarls, but Cairpra seems to be correct. He doesn't touch her.
"Where were you trying to go? I may be able to help you find your way."
"I don't know," she says, desperately holding back tears. "I was just trying to get away. Wishing for a sanctuary. My sister. Dim-Dim. You." Not her mother. Scratch chose the wrong shape if he wanted to truly convince her. She didn't entirely trust Máire from the first, but she'd go with Cairpra anywhere.
"You'll wish you took my offer before this is over." Scratch's voice lowers with portent as he vows. "And you will have an eternity to regret what I'm going to do to you and yours once you finally reach my afterlife." He vanishes into the darkness without a flourish.
Maeve tightens her hold on the child in her arms. "I don't understand," she says, her voice cracking. "Is Dermott really dead? Why were my daughter and I separated?"
"I wish I had answers for you. I'm sorry, child. Scratch is extremely powerful, though the ways in which he wields that power are constrained. All I know is that you don't belong here, and you will die if you remain too long. Go to your sister. She has more people and therefore more power at her disposal. She'll be better able to help you, and you will need a great deal of help when you return to the world."
"She hates me," Maeve says, her voice small as she huddles around her child in the freezing darkness.
"I don't know anything about that, but I know a crisis tends to eclipse petty arguments and differences. Trust me, Maeve. Go to your sister."
"How do I find her?"
"Listen with your heart. Take that child with you—don't let go. And Maeve? Do not ever attempt to travel without proper training again. You have a ship at your disposal, do you not? Legs, if nothing else? Use them. Don't make me track you down in the real afterlife to scold you again."
"Sinbad?"
He ignores the soft female voice. It doesn't matter. All that he cares about in this moment is wounding in return for his wounds. He launches himself at Doubar, but Rongar remains between them, large and solid and unmoving. He restrains his captain again, greater muscle and skill easily holding back Sinbad's grief-fueled fury.
"We've always been so careful with you!" Sinbad bellows over Rongar's shoulder as he struggles fruitlessly to reach his target. "Respected your feelings, tried not to make you feel stupid! But how idiotic can you get? Everyone else knew the truth, knew Maeve was carrying my child! Rongar knew almost from the first! Talia knew soon after she arrived! You were the only one who couldn't see what was right in front of you!"
Rongar reaches out, clasping Sinbad close, hard and brotherly. But he doesn't want his brothers, he wants his girls. The fire-haired sorceress he finally caught—or who finally caught him, he doesn't even know anymore—after so much struggle, so much effort. And the baby girl meant to save his soul, the daughter she carries.
Carried.
"Sinbad," the soft voice repeats, slightly louder. "I need—why are you covered in blood?"
His eyes slowly open, blinded by bloody tears as he shoves Rongar away. He stares dumbly at the small woman standing quietly next to Talia, her delicate form and short, tawny hair not registering in his mind. "They're dead. Gods, they're dead." He staggers at the abyss of this loss. In another moment he's going to fall in. He braces for the drop, the enveloping darkness.
"No, Sinbad. Breathe before you pass out." Wren reaches up, undaunted by the blood he's smeared across his face, and shakes his shoulder sharply. "Keely's with her now. She sent me for you because I have so little magic, barely enough to work the opals. We need to hurry. Every second counts. Shit, you look awful." She extends her hand to him.
His mind fights to comprehend. Maeve is gone. Firouz said so, and Firouz is never wrong. And also, "Antoine said—"
"I don't understand either, but Keely was very clear that we need to hurry," Wren says. "That girl is tougher than she knows and Keely caught her partway, pulled her in. Explanations will have to wait because I don't think Maeve can. She needs you."
Maeve needs him. Yes. That much registers through the fog in his brain, and that's enough. He'll go anywhere, do anything, for her. His lungs feel like they'll never expand again, his ribs squeezing down, preventing a good, solid breath. But through the stinging blur of blood and tears he knows Wren's face. She trusted him with her children. She won't lie to him.
"Take over." He lifts a hand for Rongar to take. The Moor clasps it, accepting command. "And get that traitor off my ship." Without another glance at Doubar, Sinbad releases his new second-in-command and grasps Wren's waiting hand firmly.
