Page 82 of The Crown of Moonlight
The Pit take me, I didn’t mean for her to hear the ache in my voice, the despair.But I’m damned if I know how to hide them.The knowledge that she must hate me shatters me to my soul.
Daire has stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.He’s crouched by the ashes of yesterday’s fire, coaxing dried moss and kindling to light, the flame turning his gold hair nearly the same shade as Flora’s and making the power runes glow across his jaw and down his throat.
Soft-footed as a wraith, Ronan stops beside him and drops a load of knotted old gorse roots as thick as his wrists to the ground.Then he turns to me with his arms folded across his chest.
“We’ll discuss the Maiden later,” he says.“First, tell us how Tuirse and Oran died.Tell us where you left them.”
One of the horses releases its bladder, and there’s a long cascade of piss streaming against the stone.
It feels appropriate—this is one of many conversations I’ve been dreading.With the Hunt compelling us to go after Flora, I delayed giving them the details.There’s no way around it now.
I set the saddle down with the fork resting against the stone beside my foot.“When you left to draw off the Greys that followed us—”
“When youorderedus to leave you,” Ronan says.
“We were slowing you down,” I respond.“The Greys would have picked us off as soon as they caught up.I gave the only order that gave all six of us a chance to survive.”
“Then why are they dead, and you are not?”
“Are you accusing me of something, Ronan?”I pull myself up to snarl at him.“Speak plain.”
“Great Mother, what is wrong with you?”From where she is rubbing Eira down with bog moss, Flora whips towards Ronan.“Aren’t you supposed to be the next best thing to brothers?Chyr was a thread away from death.”
Ronan barely glances at her, his jaw tight and his teeth gritted.“Siorai don’t die of wounds like that.We’ve all had worse.”
“Any given week,” Daire says.
“But again, Oran and Tuirse are dead.Chyr isn’t.”Ronan shifts his attention back to me and rakes a hand through his russet hair.“So how is that?”
“Because of her.”I wave in Flora’s direction.“There was celestial iron deep in the wounds—ground into a fine dust that was slowly poisoning us from the inside out.We were dying from the moment we were ambushed.”
My throat closes at the thought of how much Flora has given me and how I’ve repaid her.Shaking my head, I try to push away the guilt, lock it away along with the anguish of those long final miles with Tuirse and Oran.It will come back—guilt always does.
“Tuirse could barely sit up in the saddle,” I continue, “but he was telling a joke about what Vheara’s Greys wore under their uniforms.Oran was leading the dappled mare and walking beside me.I heard Oran laugh, then the next thing, he was dead on the ground.The mare tried to carry them both, but Tuirse insisted on walking.He fell and didn’t get back up.”
“Fuck.” Daire’s shock is mirrored on Ronan and Lorcan’s faces.
“Dying of a wound after leaving the battlefield?That’s never been a possibility,” Lorcan says, pulling out his favourite knife and tossing it blade over hilt, the way he does when he’s excited or upset.“I guess that almost makes us mortal.”
Ronan shoots him a filthy look.“Chyr isn’t, apparently.”
“Flora healed me.She buried Tuirse and Oran when I couldn’t, and she hid me when the Greys came.She’s kept me alive ever since.”
The three of them turn to stare at her, but she ignores them.Little does she know that’s the surest way to get Lorcan and Daire’s attention.
“What do you mean, she healed you?”Daire stands up now that the fire is crackling.“You said you were poisoned by celestial iron.”
“She cut out most of the infected flesh, used magic to draw out the iron, and knitted the wound back together.Think aboutthatthe next time you cretins are inclined to be disrespectful.”
Flora’s pretending not to listen, but even in the dim light I can see the blush blooming in her cheeks.
She finishes grooming Eira and has moved to work on Bramble, and we all watch her silently.Exhausted, furious, scared—she’s clearly all of those things.She’s also the damned Maiden, and the most fierce and beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.I know better than to ask her to sit down and let me take care of the horses for her—especially in front of the others.I beat down the impulse, and I swallow the growl that fights its way up my throat at the way the Riders are looking at her.
As if he’s heard it anyway, Ronan snatches up his bow and quiver and strides to the cavern entrance.“I’m going out to hunt,” he says.“There’s another storm coming, and the Maiden will need to eat.”
He vanishes into the early light, and I suppose I can’t be surprised.Ronan’s first instinct when he adopts a wild thing is to feed it.
Thunder cracks outside.Within the cavern, the silence stretches.Lorcan and Daire exchange one of their long, silent looks.Daire shakes his head.
