Page 13 of The Crown of Moonlight
Her chin tips up and her eyes bore into me with disdain.“The Compact has been dead since the murder of our last true queen.”
“The Compact isn’t dead.Not to the Riders.Our oaths still bind us to uphold it, and none of the crimes Fionn or Vheara committed—that Vheara continues to commit—can change that.We’re still bound to stop her.”
She studies me as though she’d like to pull the truth out through my entrails.
I’ll hold her eyes for as long as she likes.I will uphold every clause in the Compact, not because I fear eternal punishment in the Pit, but because I still believe in honour.
Whatever this woman sees in me eventually seems to reassure her.Her shoulders drop a fraction as some of her tension rolls away.“My name is Flora,” she says.“And my clan is Domhnall—as you know already.”
Among mortals, a name is a seemingly simple thing.From this woman, now, it feels like a gift, a small bit of absolution I don’t deserve.
Flora means flower, but like her flame-coloured hair paired with those cool grey eyes, the name is a contradiction.There’s nothing soft or flowery about Flora Domhnall.She’s a rose with daggers disguised as thorns, quietly fierce.
It’s the contradictions that make her so intriguing.
Chapter 7
Picking Up Strays
Flora
T
he sun is high by the time I have the Ever hidden at Padraig’s house.Where the trip there from the woods took me fifteen minutes when I was alone, it took twice that with the Ever in the saddle behind me.Even with his arms around my waist and his weight braced against my back, he could hardly balance himself.
He claims he doesn’t know what sort of poison could be causing his flesh to blacken, so there’s only so much I can do.I’ve packed the wound again to stem the bleeding and applied a fresh, tight bandage.
If he stays still, he should be all right until I return.Now it’s a matter of getting back to my rooms unseen.That’ll be easier said than done.
Dunhaelic’s defensive strength lies in its position at the intersection of two long glens with a view across the wide, flat plain and the military road that cuts past the keep.That’s dangerous now that I have to travel the half-mile from Padraig’s house to the gate of the inner fortress without being seen.
Mounted on Ari and leading the dappled mare, I round the corner of Padraig’s house, but the distant rumble of wheels and the dull thud of horses’ hooves prompts me to turn back and trot the horses out of sight.
Two small wagons laden with young children and household goods approach the keep along the road.A group of older children, women, and elderly men trudge alongside.
They’re all too silent, and I recognise that soul-deep tiredness that leaves you unable to think of anything but the need to take another step and then one more.They remind me of the Ever warning me to take my family south, and I wonder where this group is going.On any other day, I’d ride out to offer them food and a night of shelter.
Today, I can’t.The Ever aside, the more I consider the situation, the more I wonder whether the choices my brothers made, and those made by the lesser Domhnall chiefs, have already put us in danger from the queen.
I shiver as I wait for the wagons to pass, as if my body’s only catching up to everything I’ve felt.Everything I didn’t let myself feel while it was happening.
The Ever who pinned me down and made me want at the same time that he made me afraid was dangerous.When he apologised in that low purr of a voice that slid past my defences and made me crave things I’ve no business wanting, he became a threat.
Standing here in the shade of Padraig’s house, I can still feel the hard planes of the Ever’s chest pressed against my back and the warmth of his arms around my waist.With every unconscious flex of his muscles, he made my body feel more alive than I’d ever known it was possible to feel.
I’ve agreed to help him because he needs to be strong enough to leave Dunhaelic as fast as possible, and because he admitted his mistakes and his vulnerability.It takes strength to admit weakness to a friend.Confessing it to an enemy requires courage.I can admire him for that, but I can never allow myself to trust him.
I peek around the corner of Padraig’s house and watch the travellers trudge up the slope towards the Sacred Wood.Then I set the horses into a trot past the fields that lie waiting to be sown, past the larch trees that stand sentry between them, past old furrows that catch the light, and past lambs bleating in the sheep pens.Smoke rises from the cottage by the mill and the smaller ones up the glen, carrying the earthy scent of burning peat and the green bite of April heather.
Seeing Dunhaelic like this, I take a moment to etch every piece of it into my memory.The morning has reminded me of how easily I could lose it, and I love it all so fiercely, every acre from the peat-cutting trench that runs like a scar to the south to the snow-capped crag of Ben Aran in the distance.
I hurry on, hoping the road stays clear, but as I cross the military road, a cloud of dust appears at the far eastern side of Dunhaelic Glen, where it first curves into view.The speed suggests riders without carriages or wagons, and these days that means soldiers.One side or the other.
Urging Ari and the mare into a gallop, I race across the few hundred yards of fields that separate the road from the keep’s exterior grounds and buildings.I ride through the gate in the outer wall and wait out of sight of the road.Ari chafes at the bit while I make him stand.
Heart thudding, I listen as the staccato hoofbeats of what must be a dozen horsemen thunder closer.But they trot past without breaking stride.I wait briefly, then ride back into the open, my breath catching as I see their scarlet uniforms.Scarlet and black—the colours of the Raven Queen.
My heart still beating too fast, I nudge Ari forward again.The soldiers worry me.I can’t help wondering where they’re going, but there’s no time to indulge such thoughts.
