Page 114 of The Changeling

She smiled.

‘Oh yes. I never expected it. Love was not the point. But somehow it was there for me anyway.’ Her voice deepened as she spoke, and she no longer seemed like a little girl, but a young woman who looked astonishingly like me. She gestured to a man who stood in the shadows behind the throne, dressed in a ragged black cloak, watching me with fierce eyes, one foot twisted awry and useless.

‘Is that my father?’ I asked.

She nodded.

‘What is his name?’

‘Fagan the Raven.’

‘He followed me and watched me? And brought Robbie to me?’

She smiled faintly. ‘Ruis, my daughter, I know you will not believe it, but all your life I have made sure you were defended and safeguarded every step of your way. You were never alone, you were never abandoned.’

I hardly listened to her, intent on my own interrogation. ‘You knew how much I loved him, and yet still you cursed him to dance to his death!’

‘Would you be here otherwise?’

‘And the curse on Sorcha?’

‘It was not a curse. My curses are not so easily undone. It was just a glamourie. A trick of the eye. It did not harm her to think herself ugly for a little while.’

Anger stirred within me.

‘You thought yourself ugly for years,’ she pointed out. She put on an exaggerated Scots accent. ‘Och! The puir wee crookit lass!’

I was astonished how much this hurt me.

‘We are all crookit here! We live in shadows and starve. Do not dare think yourself hard done by, when you ran and played in sunshine, ate well and grew strong, and had the chance to set forth to see the world and seek your fortune. Do you think none here long for such freedom?’

I could not speak.

‘I gave you that gift,’ she said. ‘I gave you sunshine and stars, I gave you love and laughter, I gave you everything I could not have. You think I cannot have cared for you, giving you away like I did. Never was there a greater act of love! Everything I ever did was for love!’

‘My sisters!’ I panted. ‘You murdered them.’

She nodded. She did not seem so young now. Silver glinted in her hair; her mouth was bracketed by lines of suffering. ‘Yes. I carried them within my womb, I gave birth to them in agony, I fed them all my strength, I rocked them to sleep with sweet lullabies, I kissed their soft little faces and then I cut their throats. Why?’

‘So that I might live.’ The words were heavy in my throat.

‘So that you might break the curse!’

‘I dinna ken how!’ I cried. ‘What do you want of me?’

‘If you knew,’ my mother whispered, ‘that three bites of this little bird would make the sick lord as well as ever he was, what would you do?’

The robin on her finger stretched its tiny wings and trilled sweetly.

I snatched the bird from her hand, and broke its neck.

She nodded. ‘So you do understand.’

We stared at each other. I was panting, breathless, sickened. The bird lay limply in my hand, its tiny claws folded, its bright eye glazing. It was still warm.

‘My people have waited a very long time for you, Ruis. Will you be their queen?’

I gave a helpless gesture. ‘I dinna ken how!’