Page 78 of The Crown of Moonlight
A shudder rolls through me.I try to take a breath, but the air is too thin, and it refuses to fill my lungs.
I want to demand that he tell me what he sees.
But I’m afraid I already know.I’m afraid I should have guessed days ago.That deep down, I already suspected.
I can almost hear my grandmother’s voice, hushed against the crackle of the flames in the hearth behind her as she told the story she’d already told us so often that my brothers and I, and every child at Dunhaelic, could repeat the words by heart.
No one ever knew who among the queen’s blood might be chosen.The land took the Domhnall woman it needed when the time was right, and it marked the new Maiden with a crescent moon on her right shoulder in glowing silver—the Great Mother’s own symbol—so that the Cailleachan would be called to begin the tests.Three tests and three crowns had to be won before the Maiden could become the Cailleach Queen.
Chapter 29
Vine and Flame
Chyr
F
lora looks broken—I have broken her.I’ve pushed her from one shock to another, one betrayal to another, and I still can’t stop.All my oaths are compulsions, giving me no choice but to obey.Where they conflict, those to the High King deliver their punishment in the moment, their magic poised to still my heart.
I don’t know how Flora can take any more.Even her magic must be near-depleted, and I recognise the despair trapped behind her eyes.
The green circlet of thorny vines and leaves etched on her brow is a gift from the land, glowing like the runes of my oathbands.But like those, the Crown of Vines is a lifelong sentence.
Flora’s lower lip is trembling.Her hand flies to the mark, feeling for it.
“It can’t be the Crown,” she says.“That isn’t mine.There’s no queen, and I’m not the Maiden.I’ve never been the Maiden.”
Silence hangs thick over the bog, as if the gods are waiting.
There’s a splash of mud on Flora’s cheek and a small twig tangled in her hair—not to mention a crown etched in green light across her brow.She’s never been more beautiful or fierce.Yet she’s a cornered cat spitting at a pack of wolves.
I pick the debris from her hair and brush the mud away with my thumb.She draws a thin, unsteady breathas I touch her, and I wait for her to exhale, to push me away.
When she doesn’t, I can’t resist.
“Come here,” I growl, opening my arms, tucking the top of her head beneath my chin when she takes a step, drawing a deep breath to take in the scent of her that underlies the smell of the bog—Flora’s own salt and heat and fire and magic.I wish…I wish so many things.
She trembles against me, still holding back.She makes me want to have been born to another life so that I could be better for her.I’d give anything to give her different choices.But eventually, I have to let go.
I hold her at arm’s length and look down into those grey eyes that are no longer calm.I’m not sure whether it’s the moonlight shining into them or something wrought by magic, but they’ve turned from grey to a molten silvery-gold—the colour of the moon.
“Will you let me see the mark?”I ask because she won’t believe it until she’s forced to acknowledge it.
I ease the cowl of the heavy plaid back from her shoulders and loosen the laces of her bodice.
Her eyes are puzzled, not furious, and she makes no move to push my fingers aside.That alone unmans me, but I don’t let my fingers linger.I hold the bodice closed for her as I slip the sleeves down her arms, making sure the dress doesn’t fall.
She bites her lip while I turn her around.I’m not surprised to find a small crescent moon etched in glowing silver on the back of her right shoulder.Like the crown, the mark is smooth as I drag the pad of my finger across it, but she draws a sharp breath at the touch.
“Does it hurt?”I ask.
““It can’t be there.”She flinches away from the contact.“I don’t want it.I refuse.”
“But you knew it was there at some point?When?”
She blinks as tears spill over.“At the camp, when I put out the beacon fire.My shoulder burned, but I didn’t think it meant anything.This isn’t Muilean, and there are four more nights until Beltane.It can’t be the Hunt.”
“For your sake, I wish that was true.”I pull the sleeves back up and cup her shoulders with my palms, holding them in place while she reties the bodice laces.“Our oaths felt it when you ran.We had to chase you.You’re the Maiden, and we are the Anvar’thaine.You ran, and I caught you—”
