Demon Slayer by Juliet Webber

Author:Juliet Webber [Webber, Juliet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781527221499
Published: 2019-04-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

Any worries I may have had about waking early enough to get Tine up so he could start training Abhainn are allayed when, perhaps four hours before the sun even thinks about rising, I am awoken by terrible screams coming from beside me.

Abhainn sits bolt upright in her sleeping sack, eyes wide with terror, face as pale as death, sweat rolling down her temples. Her mouth is wide open, and she screams loudly enough to wake the dead.

“Abhainn,” I try to soothe her. “Abhainn, it’s ok, I’m here. Everything’s fine.”

Her eyes are unseeing as she empties her lungs.

I wave my hand in front of her face, but she makes no indication that she’s seen me.

I bolt from our tent to Tine and Saighdiuir’s which is next to ours. I struggle with the ties on the tent flap and then frantically claw my way across the floor of their tent to wake my brother.

He and Saighdiuir are already awake, disturbed by the noise of the screaming.

“Tine, Tine, something’s wrong with Abhainn. Her eyes are open but she’s not seeing me, and she keeps screaming and she’s gone really pale, and she looks terrified and I don’t know what to do. Please, come quick.”

When he hears Abhainn’s name, Tine sprints from his sleeping sack to our tent.

I walk towards my tent more slowly, still reeling with shock. No one else seems to have been woken by Abhainn’s screams, as no one emerges from their tents. Abhainn may not have been screaming for long, but it was loud enough that my ears are still ringing.

Aonair is probably still under the influence of Caillte’s sleeping charm and I expect Dorcha went back into a deep sleep after our talk as the drug would still have been in his system; and Caillte? He’s either not back or doesn’t care.

I remember being told that dwarfs are heavy sleepers, but I think I greatly underestimated them.

I squat down outside our tent and look through the doorway. Tine is sitting next to Abhainn, who has stopped screaming. She’s crying bucketsful though, limply leaning against Tine’s chest.

He holds her to him, whispering comfortingly to her. Colour is beginning to tint her cheeks again, and her sobs are dispersing.

Saighdiuir comes and sits next to me. “I’d never have thought your brother could be so good with people,” he whispers. “You know, the strange thing is that everyone else seems to have slept through that.”

I have a burning urge to tell him about Caillte and his apparent double life and how he’s drugging Dorcha and Aonair to make them fall into a deep sleep. Yet I bite my tongue and return his comment with a vague grunt and nod of my head.

After a while, Tine emerges; Abhainn has gone back to sleep peacefully.

“We need to talk to her about what’s happened to her, and I hate to say it, but in terms of the dwarf's rule against doing so, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

We leave her to sleep.

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