“How are you feeling, miss?” he asked.
“I’m okay now but… but what happened? I was just fine and then all of a sudden I… I… and where were you, Brother Callum? You and Mel were gone for days, and I can’t talk with anyone here.”
Mel answered for the monk. “We were down the mountain. A path goes down into the valley, and there is a good-sized town. Abbot Callum had business to attend to, and I accompanied him in order to record the aftermath of the goblins’ attack.”
Eibhlin stared at the monk. “Abbot Callum?”
Callum replied, “Unofficially. To actually become the abbot, we will need to hold a formal election, but in the mean time someone needed to assume the duties of abbot, and I was chosen for the time being.”
“Then Abbot Ormulf is?”
“Dead. He was among the first killed by the goblin raid,” Callum explained, flatly. Eibhlin noticed he left out the customary prayer for the newly dead’s repose.
Mel took over. “The night we first arrived, Ormulf did, indeed, send for the goblins, but when he went to fetch us, we had disappeared, and goblins are not very forgiving. When they learned their latest prey had escaped, they demanded the abbot’s head for wasting their time. However, they could not get past the Tensilkir’s barrier, so they laid siege upon the monastery. Several times, some of the monks tried to summon help with the bell tower, but the abbot, corrupt man that he was, hindered them.”
“Yes,” said Callum, grimacing. “He even threw some of us to the goblins to make his point. He was intent on trying to wait out the beasts.”
“But then we obtained the key,” said Mel. “The contract was voided, the barrier fell, and the goblins, worked into such a frenzy after a few days of bloodlust, set out to slaughter the entire monastery.”
“Those of us who survived only did so because we had managed to break into the tower and call for help,” concluded the monk.
Eibhlin stared at him in horror. “I… I didn’t mean to put you all in so much danger,” she cried. “I didn’t know… I… I….”
The monk shook his head, his countenance darkening. “Don’t feel guilty, Miss Eibhlin. That contract was a vile thing! And now Ormulf has met his end by his own wickedness and gone to his true masters.”
“But so many innocent people died!”
Abbot Callum replied, “I know. I know, and I cannot deny my anger and sorrow. Why must so many people die for the wickedness of one, even those who resisted him till the end? I don’t know. Hopefully we shall know someday, but it’s quite possible we never will on this side of the Gate. But that is enough on that topic. I believe you have other questions?”
Eibhlin wasn’t satisfied, but she let the matter go and instead reached up to touch her hair. She said quietly, “Mel… what’s happening to me? I… I was okay and then I wasn’t, and my hair is changing colors, and I don’t understand at all!”
The instrument made a sound Eibhlin could only describe as a hiss. “It was a nasty trick by that Witch! After taking your hair color, she made you fall into the moonlight, and your hair absorbed it. Here in the Mortal Realm, such a thing would be inconsequential, but the rebellious moonlight of the Fae is poisonous to those of the Mortal Realm. Before then, you were protected by such magic as Yashul’s blessing countering the power of the Moon. But when your hair absorbed the moonlight, it was like being injected with it. The poison had a direct route to your mind and soul and poured in. If you had remained in the Fae but an hour more at the most, you would be dead.”
Eibhlin shivered and reached for the keys hanging from her neck. “So, the moonlight poisoned me, but it’s okay now, right? I feel fine.”
“Did you feel fine yesterday?” Mel asked.
“W-well, yes. And the day before.”
“Then it is just as I feared.”
“What? What is?” Eibhlin asked.
The instrument’s voice shifted into minor key. “The poison from the Fae Moon has become a part of your body. Your hair is moonstricken, tainted forever by the Fae Moon.”
“What does that mean?” said Eibhlin. “I don’t understand.”
“It means you will never, can never, be fully cured, Milady.”
