15. Rowan

15

ROWAN

R owan cut through the Borderwood with Sarai at her side. The wind rustled the branches of the birch trees—bark scratching on bark an ominous sound heralding cooler weather. Autumn was always in a rush to give way to winter in Ballybrine, the ground damp from constant rain and frosting overnight.

The sunlight cast dancing shadows on the forest floor as Sarai squatted low to look at some mushrooms. It was the first hint of peace Rowan had felt all week.

Sarai's confident presence soothed Rowan. Rowan's head was spinning and she knew an afternoon gathering herbs with Sarai in the Borderwood would help ground her so she could see a clear path forward.

Sarai had always been braver, wilder, and more daring than Rowan. She was a world unto herself. Where Rowan struggled against the solitude of her life, Sarai embraced every sacred silent moment to herself. She kept her own counsel. Sarai had the kind of wisdom that came from being connected to something higher, something other, but she never lorded it over other people. She was generous with her time, her love, her joy. She lived as if the world owed her something, and she intended to claim it.

Sarai spoke as if feeling Rowan's appraisal. "I thought about what you said the other day—about what I'd be if I wasn't what I am."

"I thought you wrote that off."

"I did, but then I considered it, and I thought I owed you and me a better answer," Sarai started. "I love what I am. I love having a foot in two worlds and not fully belonging to either. I love reaching my fingers across the veil and pulling down ideas, thoughts, and inspiration from something much larger than myself. It's magical and exhilarating—but you know like no one else does that it can also be…isolating."

Rowan nodded.

Sarai ran a hand down her braid. "If I could be anything, I'd be what I am, but without the rules that keep me in line. I'd want no elders. I'd be a Crone like in the old days when there weren't a bunch of old men making the scripture more palatable for the wealthy and powerful. The Crone used to write the scriptures, you know, before the men wanted to claim power for themselves."

"I'd say I'm surprised, but that would be a lie," Rowan said dryly.

"The elders think that the tighter they hold on, the less traction the new religion in the north will gain, but I think they've taken everything pure about our beliefs and corrupted them. The world as we know it—this system that serves to crush both of our spirits—that aims to tame wild women—I want to break it."

Rowan grinned. "How?"

"I don't know yet, but the way I see it, you and I have power. It may not be much, but it's something. I can feel a change coming. I don't understand it, but I haven't missed the way my mother looks at you like you're a harbinger of something terrifying. I don't see it quite the same. I think everyone has light and dark, good and evil. No one is just one thing. I think if I could be anything, I'd like to be the person who rights this world."

Rowan grinned at her friend. For a woman who spent most of her life in isolation, Sarai had a remarkable grasp on humanity.

"By the Mother, let it be so. Is that all? Just that one small change?" Rowan teased.

Sarai laughed. "Well, perhaps I'd also like to spend some time with Raya Grange."

Rowan cackled in delight. "I knew it! I saw you staring at her at the last ceremony."

"She's quite lovely with all that wild blonde hair, and she kisses me like she's afraid I'll disappear." Sarai sighed whimsically.

Rowan's mind drifted to how it felt when Conor had kissed her the same way.

"You think that strange?" Sarai asked. She smoothed her dress, nervously playing with the end of her braid.

Rowan had always suspected that Sarai favored women from the way she perked up around Raya, but they'd never spoken openly about it. Just one whisper in the wrong direction could make her the victim of violent prejudice. Nothing was more threatening to a man than a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.

It made no difference to Rowan who Sarai loved, as long as that person knew how lucky they were and treated her with respect.

Rowan shook her head. "I find it strange that she wouldn't be as enamored with you. You are a brilliant, magical woman of astonishing beauty. She should be so lucky to have your heart."

Sarai sighed again. "I know it sounds frivolous, all things considered, but I think that love is the thing that adds the spice to life, gives it depth and peril and stakes. I just want to feel what I feel with her. I want the freedom to be something for which no mold exists." She went silent, looking down at her hands before taking Rowan's hands in her own. "I think if you hadn't asked me that question, I wouldn't have considered it. So thank you, Row."

Rowan grinned.

Sarai squeezed her hands. "Let's agree to keep asking each other the questions that challenge us to see beyond everyone else's expectations. Let's keep asking the questions that tear down worlds, Rowan."

Rowan nodded silently, in awe of her friend's intensity. Sarai had always played her cards quite close to the vest. This admission was the most she'd ever shared at once, and it meant the world to Rowan. She tried to hide her emotions with a laugh, but Sarai missed nothing.

"What would you want to do, Rowan?" she asked.

Rowan wiped away a tear. "I want to break the world with you. I just have no idea how to do it—so you're in charge."

"And what about your handsome Wolf?"

"Goddess above!" Rowan sighed. "I know I'm inexperienced, but I genuinely do not understand how to get through to him or if I want to. I know I should be afraid, and yet I can't help feeling drawn in."

"Give it time. Perhaps all you've learned doesn't serve you well. Maybe you just need to be yourself," Sarai suggested.

"And who is that? It's not as if the life I've lived has cultivated a personality," Rowan grunted.

"And yet you still have one," Sarai said with a smile. "You are a woman of a hundred little rebellions. You have a wild heart hidden behind a pretty face. I think the question is, do you really want the Wolf to be interested in you?"

Rowan pulled her hands away and ran them through her hair. Her mind wandered unbidden to the memory of Elder Garrett. She cringed, trying to banish it from her mind.

"I don't know. Sometimes it feels like admiration is just another excuse for violence. Others, it feels like I can't believe I've gone so long without it. Either way, the Wolf has somehow become the lesser of two evils. I don't know what this ceremony the elders have discussed entails, but I imagine it's worse than Conor."

"What aren't you saying?" Sarai asked.

"A lot," Rowan said. Her lip trembled, and she was embarrassed by how quickly her composure slipped.

She admitted how Elder Garrett had beaten her. Sarai's face lit with fury as Rowan spoke and explained precisely what he'd done and what Cade said about his bargain with a demon.

"I don't know what to do," Rowan said, wiping away tears furiously with the back of her hand. "He can do whatever he wants, and there's nothing I can do to stop him because he's right—who would believe me?"

Sarai grabbed her hand. "I believe you." She spiraled a finger into one of her dark curls as she considered their options. "Maybe you should tell the Wolf."

"That's what Cade said," Rowan sighed.

"Then why don't you?"

"Because no matter how he reacts, there's no way it doesn't blow back on me," Rowan said. "Either Conor blames me for the elder's behavior, or he acts on it, and then the town blames me for the Wolf being dissatisfied enough to take it out on an elder. People are already upset enough with the blight. Tension is high in the village, and everyone looks at me in my white dress like I'm letting them down. I'm daily confronted with hundreds of stares that just remind me how I'm failing them. This morning, there were three more blighted trees in Ashand Orchards. A man yelled at me when I was on my way here that if I ‘ wasn't so frigid and stuck-up, the town wouldn't be at risk of starving .'"

Sarai wrung her hands together. "I know you're right, but I hate that there's nothing I can do."

"Sarai, we've never been able to protect each other. I don't expect that of you, just like you don't of me. We do what we can when we can."

"Wouldn't you feel the same?" Sarai challenged.

"I'd want to burn down the temple if that happened to you," Rowan said bitterly.

"I know." Sarai smiled. "I will think on it. There has to be a way to protect you. Demon's bargain or not, Elder Garrett is only mortal."

Rowan nodded. It was a comfort to share the burden. To know there was another person who held the righteous anger with her. A burden shared was easier to carry.

"That's not it, though, is it?" Sarai asked.

Rowan laughed. "How do you do that? It is so unnerving how well you read me."

Sarai smiled in satisfaction. "You can't hide from me, Row. I'm all-knowing."

"Conor kissed me," she admitted.

Sarai squealed. "How was it?"

"It was—" Rowan took a breath and tried to settle on a word. "Consuming."

"And what of Finn?" Sarai asked.

"It's not as if I could choose Finn if I wanted to."

"And that's the only reason you won't give that poor boy your heart?"

Rowan sighed. "No. Sometimes I feel like Finn looks at me and doesn't see me at all. He sees someone who needs saving, whom he can project all his fantasies upon. It will always be better than any real opportunities he has because it exists purely in his head."

"You might be too hard on him. I think he can learn," Sarai said.

"Maybe," Rowan sighed.

"That's not important now, though," Sarai said. "I want to hear more about your Wolf."

Rowan explained all that had transpired in the Dark Garden, the monster on the trail and the bite on her neck, and what happened afterward.

"He kissed me like he was losing his mind, and then just as suddenly as he started, he stopped and practically threw me across the bed," she groaned.

"Sounds like you drove him crazy," Sarai laughed.

"Then I followed him downstairs and found him playing this beautiful song on the piano. I don't understand him at all. I don't know what he wants or why he's fighting against this. Everything I ever learned made it seem like the Wolf couldn't wait to get his hands on me. Now, half the time, it seems like he's afraid of me, and the other half he's indifferent."

Her mind flashed to what the Mother had told her and the blessed dagger strapped to her thigh. She wanted to tell Sarai about it, but the Mother asked her to keep it a secret, so she said nothing.

"It sounds like he just needs more time with you. Why don't you ask to stay a few nights? I'm sure if he has more time to spend with you, he will find you irresistible," Sarai said.

Rowan considered it. "Maybe you're right, and I've just been overcomplicating things."

"The worst he can say is no, but it's supposed to be stormy tomorrow night anyway. Give it a try," Sarai suggested.

"I'm really scared, Sarai. I used to fear almost nothing, but now it feels like there is so much to lose. There are all these things I didn't know to want, and now I can't stop myself from wanting them," Rowan said.

"Why would you stop yourself?"

"Because I feel like I only have part of this story. When I found Orla's bloody cloak in his closet, I thought the Wolf killed her, but after being attacked by that other beast, I don't think that's true. And while I know Conor is responsible for the blight, I feel like there's more to that as well. I have all these puzzle pieces, and none of them fit together, and if I don't figure it out soon, I'm going to get hurt."

Sarai looked at the healed wound on her neck, still purple against her fair skin.

" More hurt," Rowan corrected.

"Just take a breath. One thing at a time. You said you're looking for the Maiden journals, right?"

Rowan nodded.

"Start there, and we will figure the rest out as we go. I'll try to see what I can get from my inspired meditation about the blight," Sarai said.

Rowan nodded. They spent another hour gathering herbs before Rowan snuck back to the tower, comforted by the plan she and Sarai had made.