Page 22 of The Crown of Moonlight
“Cruel is Vheara’s stock in trade.But I doubt that’s the only reason for the tactic.She’d never trust an ordinary human with a weapon made of celestial steel—not when it could be turned against her or her Greys.”
“Can you be sure the queen was behind the ambush?”
“Without a doubt.Anything involving celestial iron points straight to her.”I almost smile at the grim irony of it.“It’s hard to fathom.More than 1,600 years of banishment in the Pit—the Gloaming—and she goes straight back to mining ore the moment that she escapes.”
“Sixteen hundred years?”Flora’s hand goes still.“Are you saying the Raven Queen is the same Vheara whose abuses led to the Human Uprisings and the Compact?And why?What does she want with it?”
I scrub a hand over the stubble on my chin.The skin feels hot and damp.My brain is spinning, and it’s hard to pull out any single thought, to know where or how to explain ambition as warped as Vheara’s.
“That’s hard to explain without starting with what it means to be immortal.In some ways, 1,600 years is nothing for us.That doesn’t mean it doesn’t take a toll.Life needs death to give it depth and meaning, the same way that light needs shadow for contrast.That’s why we also call the Father of Light, who gave us immortality, the Father of Curses.But when he realised what he had done to us, he created the Anvar’thaine and cast a piece of his own celestial throne from the heavens to give the Riders power over life and death—the power of peace and justice.”
I study Flora, though I’m not sure what reaction I’m looking for.Horror?Fear?She turns to the basin and rinses out the bloody cloth.
“Do you know about the Anvar’thaine?What we are?”I ask.
“The Great Hunt.”There’s nothing in her voice.No condemnation.
Not yet.
“We’re the guardians.Enforcers of oaths and laws, and the gatekeepers to the Gloaming—the world between the worlds.The king’s fists, errand boys, and glorified messengers, yes—but originally, we were meant to be something more.”
A pain worse than the wound in my chest flashes through my veins as the oathbands flare.The individual runes glow and shift on my arm, and my back arches as the muscles contract.
“Lie back,” Flora says, dropping the cloth back into the basin as she turns back to me.“Breathe through it.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course, you are.”She pushes gently against the top of my chest until the pain passes, and I ease back against the bed.
There’s a moment of silence between us, and with my head flat, I can’t fully see her or what she’s doing.There’s only the sound of our breathing, the rasp of linen against flesh, and the swish and drip of the water in the basin as she rinses the cloth over and over.Occasionally, I catch glimpses of her pale face or that hair that’s like living flame at the limits of my vision, but even without seeing those deep grey eyes, I can almost feel her thinking.
I study the way her shadow shifts along the wall, looking for a hint of what she feels.She has every right to hate us.Treachery can’t be forgotten, and all Siorai, everything that is Tirnaeve, must be tainted by what Fionn did to her family when he seized power and made himself the Sun King.What he did to stay in power.
I feel the shame of it on his behalf.
“You still haven’t said why Vheara wants the celestial iron,” Flora says.“What makes it worth all this destruction and death?”
“I was getting to that.All the celestial iron the Father gave us was forged into the celestial steel swords for the Anvar’thaine and the ceremonial daggers our priests use in the Temple.There’s nothing left of it.But there are Siorai who would give everything they own to be allowed to die, and others who would pay anything, betray anyone, to escape the justice of the Anvar’thaine.Some—a more cunning few like Vheara—simply want the power a weapon capable of killing Siorai will give them.The power to offer a merciful death or to threaten someone who doesn’t want to die.”
Flora’s face turns ashen.“The Raven Queen sells death for money?”
“For power.For favours or influence.When she discovered there were deposits of celestial iron in Alba Scoria, she enslaved humans to mine it for her.But that’s only the means to an end.She’s here to build an army, and ultimately, she’ll march into Tirnaeve to capture the throne that she wants.”
The cloth stills against my chest, water trickling down the wound in a rivulet as Flora’s hand squeezes into a fist.
“Then the war—all this misery and death—none of it’s about Alba Scoria at all?”Her voice is soft, every word enunciated carefully.
Water splashes in the basin, and the chair scrapes against the oak planking of the floor.I raise myself to one elbow, and her right hand grips the back of the chair so tight that pale moons surround her knuckles.
She has every right to fury.
“The war is about survival.Yours and ours,” I say.“Make no mistake, Vheara’s end goal doesn’t mean she won’t destroy this realm, and every other mortal realm, before she ever sets foot in Tirnaeve again.She’ll feed on the destruction, grow fat and bloated with it.That’s what she does.Who she is.”
Flora’s expression is haunted, and the colour has bled from her cheeks.“Then that’s why the Anvar’thaine and the rebel king have come.You’re fighting here so the war doesn’t come to Tirnaeve.”
“Evil grows the longer it’s left to fester.”I catch her eyes, and I hope she can see the truth in mine.I need her to believe me.“We have to stop her.If there’s celestial iron in the wound, it’s likely I’m dead already, even if my body hasn’t caught up yet.A clean slice with a celestial blade can take weeks of recuperation, even in Tirnaeve with magic all around us for our bodies to draw from.I can’t afford to stay this weak, much less to get any weaker.What I need is time.You said you can’t cut all the poison out.But will you try?Cut out every bit that’s been infected.”
Her left hand hangs near the edge of the bed, a few scant inches from mine.I reach for it, needing to make her understand the urgency.
