Page 96 of The Crown of Moonlight
Fergal smacks the back of Cathal’s head with a paw the size of a warhammer.“If she wears the Crown of Flame, we’re oathbound to marry her, you oaf.Except we can’t, can we?There is no Cailleach Queen.There’s a king, and he’s standing there beside you.”He turns solemn blue-grey eyes to me.“This isn’t good.It means at least one of us will have to decide which of our oaths to break, either to the Compact or the Master.”
“I’ll need to re-examine every word of the Compact.”Cathal rubs his hands together.“I’ve always taken the text literally: ‘The Master shall open the doorway to the Sacred Isle on the Night of Rebirth, and the Anvar’thaine shall Hunt the Maiden.’But that can’t be literal, or the woman wouldn’t have the Crown of Flame already.Assuming you’ve completed the Hunt without reaching Muilean—”
Sean glowers at him.“Leave the Compact to the bloody scholars in Tirnaeve to debate, would you?What does it matter?Whatever that woman might be, she’s no Maiden, and she’ll never be the Cailleach Queen.She’s a fraud and an abomination.”
“Sean, enough.”My voice is quiet enough to warn him I’ve reached the limits of my patience.“You don’t understand anything yet, and I won’t tolerate more insults.”
Sean draws himself into his most forbidding stance, a habit when he’s feeling out of his depth: legs wide, arms folded, nose high, lips thin, eyes hard.His gaze snags for an instant on the flames at Flora’s brow, then he snaps his attention back to me.The six power runes he bears glint along his temples, three on each side.
Fergal steps between us.“Fists and arguments later.Explanations first.What is the woman doing, and why is there a dead Grey on the path?More importantly, where are Tuirse and Oran?”
I shake my head, and Fergal turns away to drop down to his haunches, head in his hands.Cathal strides off with his back turned, and Niall’s pale brows slide together into a frown.“What happened, Chyr?”
My lips are dry, and my hands shake.I’m not ready to go through it all again.But Ronan speaks before I can.
“Their wounds never healed,” he says.“Their swords were coated in powdered celestial iron.”
The night is suddenly colder, and the darkness closes in around us, making the jingle of the horses’ bridles and the rustle of leaves through the trees unbearably loud.
“Fucking Vheara.”Sean kicks at a clump of grass, then rests his forehead against his horse’s saddle.
For four centuries, the ten of us have hunted together, fought together, bled together—survived together.And now we haven’t.
Grief has weight and pressure.It’s a bitter taste on the back of my tongue.Apart from me, none among the Riders has lost a parent.Sean lost his twin sisters, but that was long before I knew him.Fergal lost his betrothed shortly before joining the Anvar’thaine, and I remember the way he used to wall himself off from us in the beginning, his face turned to stone and his eyes like chips of ice.
He looks like that now.Even Niall has his shoulders hunched around himself as though the news has gutted him physically.Rage has replaced the usual studious disinterest on Cathal’s face, and Sean’s fury is even worse.
He shrugs off the hand I place on his shoulder.“I told you we shouldn’t split up,” he snaps.“You wouldn’t listen and insisted on having your way!”
I resist the urge to snarl back at him.“The three of us were as good as dead after the ambush.That magic you sensed was Flora’s, and if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be here either.”
“You think a human healed you from celestial iron poisoning?Are you insane?”Sean glares at me, then has the good sense to drop his eyes to the ground.“Your General Mora did more than shake your loyalty to your brothers.He’s shaken all the sense straight from your head.”
“Sean,” Niall warns, “that’s far out of bounds.”
Sean turns to him with a snarl that makes the horses raise their heads and shift their legs.“No.With only eight of us left, Chyr needs to stop wasting time considering howhumansfeel.We could have won at Culodur if he had trusted me over Mora, but he’s still turning a blind eye to their evil.We’ve all seen the atrocities they commit against each other.And now here’s this creature who endangers everything we’re trying to do, and he acts as though sheisn’tan abomination.”
Fury as sharp as steel rips through my chest.“She isn’t—”
“You know the High King would condemn her.”Sean flings the words at me.“Think, Chyr.You’re bound to protect the Compact.Protecting Alba Scoria from illicit magic was the main reason the Compact was created.The old queens are dead, and apart from the Shadelings and us, any magic left in this cursed place is illicit.We’re oathbound to remove it—which means we’ve no choice except to kill her.”
“That is not what the Compact says or what our oaths require.”I seize Sean by the shirt and pull until we’re standing nose to nose.“Make a move to hurt Flora, and I will bloody well end you.Do you hear me?”
“That’s all right, Chyr,” Flora says quietly from behind me.“I don’t need you to defend me, and your Rider is only drawing the battle lines more clearly.”She steps around me and squares up to Sean, magic still billowing her hair around her face.“Let me be equally clear.If you want to kill me, try it.I’ll defend myself, and I may not be able to kill you outright, but I can make damned sure you spend eternity looking up at the world from the bottom of the bog.”
Chapter 36
The Hunt Begins
Flora
D
aybreak approaches too fast after the delay with the soldiers at the picket and the arrival of the other Riders.There’s a ruined Domhnall castle on the coast that I’d planned for us to use as shelter, but there’s a long stretch between the end of Loch Seil and Castle Tchirum that won’t be safe to cross in daylight.If we can’t make it the whole way before dawn, it will cost us another night that we do not have.
Dropping any pretence of stealth, we rely on magic to get us past the camp.Daire touches a number of the runes along his jaw and throat, and magic shimmers across my skin.
“What is that?”I ask.
