Page 49 of The Crown of Moonlight
I can almost feel the way her mind spins as she considers what I’ve said.
“Maybe it’s more than vanity,” she says after a bit.“No one in Alba Scoria would have supported her against your rebel king if they’d seen what she is.”
“Never underestimate what people are willing to overlook if it means they get what they want.”
“People like my father.Is that what you’re implying?”Flora sighs.“I doubt he tried very hard to see the truth beneath her mask.”
Her voice is full of pain, and I know how much she loved her family, how much she loves everyone in her life.I tighten my arms around her as Eira picks her way across a shallow stream.
“Don’t judge him too harshly.It’s hard for people who aren’t naturally cruel or self-serving to see those qualities in others, and Vheara has always been careful to hide the evil at her core.She flatters others into believing in her.Even Chulainn—the High King.He didn’t see what she was doing until she threatened him directly.Then he ordered Fionn to banish her.That’s what set the chain of events in motion.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Vheara wanted a position at court, and when Chulainn denied her, she tried to dethrone him.That’s when he sent Fionn and the Anvar’thaine to hunt her.”
Flora goes rigid in my arms.“The same Fionn who became the Sun King?”
“Yes, Chulainn’s brother.He was Master of the Anvar’thaine, and Chulainn trusted him,” I say, fighting through the ice and fire that the oathbands send through me.
Flora’s tension passes to Eira.The mare snorts and throws her head.“Is that why the Sun King was never punished?He murdered women and childrenbabies—and your High King did nothing for four centuries because Fionn was hisbrother?”
Pain shoots through me and forms a vice around my skull.My mouth goes dry.
The cursed oathbands pick up what I’m thinking before I even form the thought.
I try to go around them from another direction.“I’m not defending Fionn,” I say, balancing on a dagger’s edge, “but there’s more to it than I can explain.The main point is the timing.Fionn banished Vheara before the Compact was created, and no one had ever escaped from there before.The Gloaming has no magic, and magic is as essential to Siorai as breathing air or seeing light.Most Siorai go mad within a century or two of being sent there.”
“But that’s cruel—” Flora begins, then stops herself.
Eira’s hooves slip on the boggy hill track that’s so faint I can barely make it out.The rain has stopped, but water still sheets off the yellow-blooming gorse, and the slope rises steeply ahead.The sky glowers as more storm clouds gather.
“By your standards, maybe it is, but punishment has to be cruel to ensure that oaths and laws have meaning when you live as long as we do.Until Vheara, no one had ever escaped the Gloaming, but she had learned more about runes and magic than almost any Siorai in our history.She found a way to drain the remnants of magic from the Siorai and Shadelings she found there, and she turned the Gloaming into her personal hunting ground.”
“Why would you banish Shadelings?”Flora twists in the saddle, distracting me beyond patience as her backside shifts against me.
“Stay still, please.”My voice is strained.“No, we don’t banish them.Shadelings are creatures of thebetweens, and the Gloaming is a place of shadows, a world between worlds.It’s full of small doors and shortcuts the Shadelings used before Vheara began to capture them and force them to feed on suffering.Terror, anguish, panic, hate, and rage—this war is a feast for all the creatures she corrupted.”
Flora’s gone silent, her every muscle tense.At first, I believe she’s reacting to the shock of what I’ve said.Then I realise her attention has shifted elsewhere.The wind is rising, and it carries the stench of smoke.
My throat tightens as if it’s already choked with soot.I’m afraid I already know the answer, but I don’t know the countryside enough to be certain.
“Whose land is that?”I ask.
Tears strangle Flora’s voice.“Camhrain of Locharn.He and his clan rose for the king from the beginning, and they’ve given him more than almost any other clan.Now they’ll pay the price.”
Chapter 21
Castles Burn
Chyr
O
ur priests would say the gods spare no thought to human suffering, but those are our gods.Siorai gods.The mortals have their own who’ve turned their backs on them.The destruction of their religion is another sin to lay at Fionn’s feet.
Fionn and—
The oathbands lash out, sending ice and wildfire roaring through my veins.I fight to keep hold of the name, keep hold of my thoughts.It’s bad enough that the king’s oaths control my actions, but I’ll be damned if I concede them my mind and conscience, too.
