Page 111 of The Crown of Moonlight
The second sloop is close enough to land that we’re able to break her and beach her in a matter of minutes.But a new group of sails coming hard across the open water raises an alarm from the lookout.
“Frigates!Two of them—40-gunners at least.Approaching dead to starboard.”
“Push the cattleboats ahead into the bay where that second sloop was hiding,” Chyr orders.“We’ll cover them and draw the frigates close to shore where it’s easier to sink them.”
A shot cracks from a new longboat that’s appeared from behind a jut of rocks along the shore, spitting splinters from the rail of the closest cattleboat.I hear one of the Shadehounds yelp, and I run to the back of the birlinn.Chyr runs with me.
Shade is down, blood seeping onto the planks beneath him.Shadow stands over him, her hackles high.
My ears ring, and a paralysing stillness fills me.I can’t lose anyone or anything else.I won’t.
But I can’t think how to reach him.Shadow whines loud enough that I can hear her above the ocean’s wail.
“Sean, get over here,” Chyr orders.“Pick the hound up and bring him here.”
Sean sets his jaw in a stubborn line.“It’s a Shadehound.Not worth the magic.You want him here, you do it.”
“You have the rune—it will cost you less.”
“Still not bloody worth it.You want to appease the witch, do it yourself.”
Chyr steps towards Sean to stand chest to chest.For a heartbeat, the crash of the ocean is the only sound.
Sean doesn’t move.He’s taller and broader, his body built to intimidate.But Chyr’s strength is in his mind as well as his muscles.Force of will blazes from his eyes with an air of command that Sean can’t match.
My eyes flick from the two of them to Shade, and I feel useless.Despite all the magic I can summon, I can’t trust myself to use it.Not with Shade’s life at stake.
Then Sean loses the stare-down between him and Chyr, and with a muffled curse he steps to the aft railing of the birlinn and activates one of the runes along his temple.But there’s no gentleness in the way his air magic picks Shade up and carries him from the cattleboat to drop him onto the birlinn’s deck.
“Thank you,” I grit out as I drop to my knees and reach for Shade.But Sean is already striding off to cope with the two frigates.Chyr squeezes my shoulder, then follows him to help.
My hands pressed lightly above Shade’s haunch, I use my magic to sense for the iron that’s not supposed to be there.I pull the metal towards me until the misshapen shot works free, leaving broken bone and torn flesh behind it.I mend the damage, knitting bone and muscle and skin a piece at a time.The sensation is familiar now, more controlled.The magic pours from me almost as if it follows a channel I’ve already carved in my mind.
As if he knows not to move, Shade lies still on the deck, head flat but his one moon-pale eye watching me.Trusting me.Then it’s done, and his tail thumps once against my boot.
I pat him on the head.“I’m not letting you go.You’re mine.You and Shadow and everyone else.”
He licks my hand, then lurches to his feet and gives himself a shake.A broadside from one of the frigates screams towards us only to be stopped by a wall of air.
Ships and battles blur together.Between the skirmishes, we sprint as fast as the cattleboats will let us along the coast to Muilean.At some point, Lorcan replaces Daire beside me, and Sean comes to take Niall’s place.Chyr’s magic is more familiar when he works beside me, but he’s better at sending a whipcrack of air to break a mast than he is at filling a sail and moving a ship towards shore.
We’re clear of the patrols eventually.Those we can see, at least.What lurks in the Sound, or approaches from the direction of Eireen or the western isles, we cannot guess.
Chyr and the Riders have spent most of their magic and need to rest, Niall so much so that Chyr has given him the extra Veilstone.He’s white and trembling, his short, ash-blond hair damp with sweat and seawater, plastered against his skull.Apart from the muscles, the six discrete runes on his wrists, and a quiet aura of deadly power, he has none of the affectations of some of the other Riders.He doesn’t play with knives the way Lorcan does, hoard weapons like Chyr, or wear his hair in complicated braids.He doesn’t complain.He’s steady and solid, and I find that I like him very much.
And without him or the other Riders to help me fight in case we need to, and with nothing immediately threatening us, I decide to take a risk.
As Muilean’s western cliffs come into sight at last, I ask Niall and Daire and the other Riders to help me understand the process of raising a storm.I don’t have an existing cloud to bring down rain, but I understand water enough now to know that I can use salt to seed the droplets and create the dark sheets I need above the water.And the wind—I can create that already.
“How do I make lightning?”I ask.
Chyr smiles down at me, that crooked smile that makes my heart swell.“Fierceness, lightning is so far outside my skills I’ve never dreamed of it.But you wear the fire of the sun in your crown.It’s there inside you already, and from what I’ve seen of your magic, you need only to understand how lightning relates back to that.”
“But it doesn’t, does it?”I ask.My voice comes out thinner than I like, and I rub the gritty salt from my fingers against the damp fabric of my skirt.
Ronan comes up behind me, with Rua once again a warm band of red fur and watchful eyes wrapped around his shoulders.“Fire is a memory of summer’s heat—of life itself.It’s in the heart of the earth and the food we eat, in the warmth of our breath rising on a cold winter day.Think of it like that.”
“Lightning builds in the pressure of warm air racing up and cold air pressing down,” Cathal surprises me by adding.“I’d imagine the Crown of Flame gives you heat enough.Push it out into the air, send it up, and you’d make lightning.”He counts the steps off on his fingers—one, two, three—as precise as if it’s all logic and study and nothing else.
