Page 118 of The Crown of Moonlight
There’s no point in telling Shadow and Shade to stay with the horses.They’ve made it clear that they’re selective about which requests they’ll follow.They pad behind us as we move towards the nearest group of enemies, Chyr, Sean, Niall, Daire, and I walking together, and the other Riders follow with their swords already drawn.
The land is quickening with power.I can feel it, and I’m not alone.Four Hallow Keepers appear, their too-thin bodies little more than shadows, and their eyes glowing that eerie blue.Each takes up a position beside one of the black stone pillars, and they incline their heads at me.The magic around me hums, raising gooseskin along my arms.
The altar is ready, and the Goddess is waiting.I touch my fingers to my heart, and it feels like a challenge that I’ve accepted.I feel dread and anticipation in equal measure.
The Riders and I skirt the head of the loch, keeping clear of the bog and slipping past the reeds along the outer edges.We’re close enough to the Greys that the corrupted magic seeping from them turns my stomach.
Chyr stops behind me, his big hands splayed wide around my waist, a gesture I remember.Without words, it says, “Trust me, Fierceness.”It says, “I have you.”
I close my eyes, leaning back against his broad chest, feeling the strength in his arms and the gentleness in his touch.I sense his air magic coiling, building a thin current that twists itself into a rope, and I imagine feeding him slack to splice into a single, unbroken line.Almost immediately, I feel Sean and Niall with us.They find each of the individual Greys and soldiers and guide the rope while we loop it like an invisible noose around the enemies’ necks, one after another, until we have them all.
“Now,” Chyr whispers.
The four of us wrench the rope of air and lift it higher.
The queen’s soldiers and her Greys dangle like men from a hangman’s noose, scrabbling at their throats.
I feel their lives snuff out, that same thread snapping in my chest.Then only the Greys remain.The Riders pierce their corrupted hearts with celestial steel, and I feel nothing but relief when they die.Wind brushes my face, as if even the land around me sighs a breath.
We move on without a break, the nine of us working as a unit.Avoiding the odd purple light that illuminates the soldiers and Greys near the altar, we circle behind the enemy.And we repeat the rope trick with the men and Greys that crouch there waiting to ambush us.
The process is slower the second time.There are more men and more Greys, but the Riders are also depleting their magic, relying more on what they can pull in real time through the Veilstones rather than the reserves inside them.I study the way Chyr crafts the rope, and I start to narrow and twist the air for him as I feed it to him.But this isn’t the way my magic wants to be used.
My Cailleach magic is a living power.It knows the things I can find in nature, and twisting the air like this, forcing it into such a narrow constraint in the way of Siorai magic rakes through me in needles of pain the same way it used to.That part of me hasn’t changed.
Instead of constraining air and trying to shape it, I think of how a vine grows, the way it lengthens and snakes forward.I grow a vine of air and feed that to Chyr instead.His hands tighten at my waist as he senses what I’m doing, and he no longer has to twist or shape it either.We simply grow the air vine longer and longer together and guide it until it has wrapped itself around every one of the soldiers and Greys, and we wrench their lives away.
Chyr kisses the top of my head as the other Riders run forward to kill the Greys.“I didn’t think you could be any more beautiful to me, but I was wrong.”
I turn and reach up to lay a palm across his cheek, and I hold it there a moment, memorising the feel of him, the shape, the likeness of those perfect features, and the eyes with endless layers that I could lose myself in forever.
“I love you,” I say, and I need the words to hold every bit of what I feel for him.
Chyr’s brows snap together.“Why does that sound like regret?”
“No regrets, and no apologies.”I turn away, choking on sorrow.But I’ve made my decision—the only decision I can live with making.
We set to work on the group of soldiers and Greys beside the altar.There are fewer of both, but as we creep closer, I notice amulets of serpentine—brilliant green veined through with glowing yellow—hanging around their necks.Not just the Greys, but every soldier also has them.
The amulets are similar to what the soldier was wearing when he started the signal fire back at the Loch Seil camp.But these amulets hold three runes each, and they are active.They’re purple instead of gold, but their glow is similar to Daire’s power runes when he has them triggered.
I tug at Chyr’s arm.“The amulets—”
“I see them,” he whispers.
Even so, we keep to the plan.We grow the vine of air and nudge it to the nearest soldier’s chest.The vine shreds like storm-torn clouds.Sean tries to force it back together, but it seeps away.
“Damn it,” Daire says.“They’re immune.The runes on the amulets must eat the magic.”
“Then we do it the old-fashioned way,” Chyr orders dryly.
The Riders draw their swords, celestial steel singing in a single voice as it leaves their scabbards.The enemy hasn’t seen us yet, but that changes when the first blood is drawn.
The six Greys all swivel towards us, their motion slow and eerie.The nearest throws up a palm, pushing out a cone of dark red vapour.I smell the reek of decay and terror long before it reaches me—sharp enough to make my skin crawl as if it’s overrun with spiders.It sends a sting of bile up my throat.
The mist billows closer.Niall is closest, and it slams into him even as Chyr sends a burst of fire to scorch it.Niall chokes and screams, staggering to a knee while it rolls over him.He screams even after the mist is gone.
A female Grey cocks her head, her milk-pale eyes studying Chyr with interest.She flicks two fingers, and a flame shoots out, the heat snuffing out a few inches from his face.
