11. THE COST OF A VOLATILE MAGIC
Chapter eleven
THE COST OF A VOLATILE MAGIC
Rian
I sat as still as I could while the sun rose, its warmth and light a soothing caress on my face. I listened to faraway cries of Feurin seabirds and waves crashing thunderously against the shore as I breathed in the briny air. In the wake of the brutal and unforgiving anguish that had ravaged me during the night, I now felt empty. Numb.
Achieving that kind of oblivion was something that had taken me a long time to learn in order to control my volatile magic, but I had perfected the meditation. I had forged a quiet place in my mind where my magic and my emotions were all at peace. An imagined woodland cabin filled with sunlight and herbs hanging in a kitchen where a woman was humming some lullaby.
“It is a shame we do not live closer,” said my uncle Carrick, breaking into my thoughts about the cabin, as he leaned against the wall tower. “Sage has brought me to see the sea before, but it is always a wonder to behold.”
My eyes opened slowly. They still felt swollen, and it was a reminder of the pain which I immediately repressed before it could spark any more feeling.
I had been trying to get him to walk through a portal and go home for hours, but he would not leave me, and I would not speak. Which was for his safety as much as my own pride because I was too unstable to safely discuss such heavy emotions when my magic was tied to them.
So we were at an impasse.
Carrick sighed deeply when I still would not respond, and he walked over to settle beside me again, sitting so close that our arms and shoulders brushed.
“If you will not talk, then perhaps I shall,” he mused, casually crossing his arms over his bent knees to sit the same way that I did.
He had absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
“I do not want to kill you,” I insisted softly once again. These were the only words I had managed to speak to him without rousing too much feeling .
“I would prefer that too. But this is not working, Rian. These attempts not to feel anything have never worked in the past, so I want you to try things my way this time.”
Anger flashed through the void like lightning in the darkness, and I felt an urge to remind him that I was not his project. I was dangerous. To him and to everyone else. But then I closed my eyes and suppressed the emotion. Stifled it at the root until it was reclaimed by that secret cabin somewhere in the mountains that smelled of coming rain and lavender. Where the evening sky rumbled with an approaching storm and hollowed, wooden wind chimes clinked harmoniously on the front porch. I could feel the presence of that woman who hummed between sips of tea as she watched the clouds rolling in…
“If you cannot talk about your mother, then perhaps you can tell me about negotiations in the Winter Court,” suggested Carrick.
The cabin and the woman faded into my subconscious as I carefully considered his recommendation to see if there were any volatile emotions connected to that topic. Anything that my power could use to wrench free again.
“The Jotunn who have joined our cause still have not managed to find the hiding place of King Ymir,” I said, relieved when the words did not cause any reaction.
“You would think a primordial being whose very body was used to create their court would be… easier to find,” Carrick commented with a smirk in his voice.
“We have not yet been able to locate our Draugr Queen or the Spring King, so I am unsurprised the Winter King is proving equally intangible.”
“Mhmm,” mumbled Carrick thoughtfully. “And you’re sure that you will be able to forcibly absorb the power of the fey kings and queens once you have located them?”
“I am perhaps the only remaining source of the power that the Destroyer gifted our ancestors. I have to try.”
“And still no more information on the reincarnation of the Summer Queen?” he confirmed.
I opened my mouth to tell him the shocking news that brought me back early from the Winter Court, but then I hesitated in guilt. I had come seeking my brothers only to find their tents empty. It was unlike Darragh to leave our encampment, so I had known then that something horrible must have happened. When I was unable to reach any of them using our telepathic bond, I’d realized they must be immersed in battle. Sometimes when we coordinated to defeat a foe, the riders of the Wild Hunt could become like a single-minded unit. I had been absent when they formed that focus together to fight the Fuath, so naturally, I’d been excluded. I could not forcefully interrupt to find out what was happening, it risked distracting them if they were fighting, so I portalled to them immediately.
The news I had come to share had been long forgotten in the events that followed.
Carrick was not a part of the Wild Hunt, I should have been waiting to talk to the other riders, but he had been my loyal confidant since before Ciaran and Sage joined. Darragh was keeping an eye on the army encampment, Ciaran kept me apprised from afar of our efforts to get the Aes Suri villagers to safety, and Sage was…
I could not bear to look at Sage yet.
“No. But a Summer druid has reappeared,” I revealed, and Carrick scooted away from me so he could turn and meet my eyes.
“I thought they were killed with the Summer Queen?”
“I thought so too, but this one was different from all the others. He was taken instead to Uile Breithà,” I hinted, and Carrick’s eyes widened immediately in recognition.
“O’Duinn escaped the Destroyer’s prison? How do you know this? Did you see O’Duinn in the Winter Court?”
“I did not need to see him. Someone dismantled the wards around a temple in Kaldthjem and slaughtered all the priests,” I explained. “I was asked to attend the scene, and I would know his magic and his violence anywhere. They are now going through all their texts and supplies to determine what he took. It will take weeks.”
Carrick sighed, tilting his head back as he processed this latest development.
“It has been a hundred years since he led that revolt, but in Uile Breithà, where he was imprisoned, it has been a millennium,” he mused with the same concern I had.
“He was never friendly, and I expect being entombed at the bottom of an ocean for so long will have made him even less so,” I assured my uncle who nodded.
“Ornella may have been in the Summer Court when he was gathering his army,” he pointed out, and I felt an icy hostility creeping up from my gut as I averted my eyes. “Rian, she could be every bit the asset to you that Aodhan would have been,” he insisted, acknowledging the truth that I had also deduced concerning our new rider.
“Aodhan was more than an asset!” I hissed at him.
“Certainly, but we were trying not to discuss anything too personal for now,” he pointed out, and I turned away.
“Very well, Carrick, since I know you have things you desperately want to say on the matter, please tell me what you know of the Summer dryad.”
I could tell he was pleased by my reluctant invitation to speak about one of the topics he’d been trying to broach since we left the village.
“Ornella is like Aodhan in many ways. She presents as flippant and calloused, even cruel at times, but like him, there is more to her. I believe she suffered as he indicated, but rather than seeking retribution for it, she has opted to ostracize herself.”
“Then how will she serve my purposes? Aodhan was prepared to take his place among the Ruadhán and deliver them into my army.”
“She may do the same,” Carrick pointed out.
“She is an outcast who seems to have spent her life running from who she is. Aodhan wanted his birthright. There is also the matter of her sex. The dryads will not want to follow a female,” I pointed out reluctantly.
“They were once a matriarchy,” Carrick reminded me.
“Not anymore. Not for a very long time.”
Carrick was thoughtful while I worked up the courage to broach the subject on a more personal level. “Does she know about him?” I asked finally.
“I don’t believe so. She only asked about him once,” Carrick admitted, and I nodded.
“Sage refuses to demand answers from her,” I advised my uncle. Ciaran had been shouting in my head about his frustrations all morning.
“Ornella is cautious and defensive, but she is learning to trust my son. It would be better to allow him to coax the information from her,” Carrick cautioned me.
“You know I do not have time for that. She is a rider, whether I want it now or not since she is evidently also my cousin’s mate. But I need to know I can trust her.”
Carrick frowned at me, and I knew Sage must have told him about our plan to deduce the dryad’s secrets and then have her killed and replaced at the first opportunity. He did not approve, but that was not remotely surprising to me. Carrick was a great advisor, knowledgeable and a good judge of character, but he was too gentle to acknowledge when unsavoury things needed to be done.
I’d never had such qualms.
“There has never been a mated pair in the Wild Hunt,” I insisted in exasperation with his disapproval. “How can I trust Sage to follow my orders if she is not willing?”
“Ornella is loyal,” Carrick tried to reassure me.
“Then there is no reason not to suspect she will have loyalties to the Vale,” I dismissed.
“She knows and understands all about the blight, Rian. She will want to help, especially now because of Sage,” Carrick persisted logically. “Discover the source of her purpose and find a way to make it your own.”
“Perhaps,” I uttered, unconvinced, and turned my face back to the sea as I contemplated the odds before me.
We sat on top of Tràigh Tùr, the coastal watchtower on the border between Feura and Nabeene, the two biggest kingdoms in all the Autumn Court. Nations that had been at war with one another over petty political squabbles that wasted valuable fey lives. Lives that helped concentrate the essence of the Tithriall in our court and staved off the decomposition that human pollution was causing. I had been unable to force the leaders to see reason and cease their quarrelling. So I’d brought my army between them and was now camped on their border. Neither side dared to oppose us. Not after Darragh had taken his dragon form and flown over their armies and both of their capitals in a blatant threat. But it was safe to say that neither nation appreciated my efforts to preserve fey life, and they would attack me if given the opportunity to do so safely. Which was why Darragh tried not to leave the army.
Now the Fuath were sweeping across Ahnnaòin as they had done once before. Cian O’Duinn somehow escaped imprisonment, and I had no doubt that whatever mischief he was up to would impact my efforts to unify the courts. He had been so fiercely loyal to his queen before she was killed that I did not believe for a moment he would not attempt to seek revenge.
“Enemies converge on all sides, and we do not have the time or might to contend with all of them,” I uttered. “And now our inner ranks are in turmoil. Ornella is the bane of the Wild Hunt.”
“There need not be turmoil, Rian. You are their leader. Bring order to your warriors,” Carrick compelled me.
I decided to change the subject.
“The Sua are adamant that Darragh and I should not contend with the Fuath our way?”
“They do not want you to burn everything south of the Raveina Mountains,” he clarified.
“And yet, we cannot afford to lose so many fey lives fighting in an open war. Especially not when I have the power to end it before it begins,” I maintained, rising to my feet abruptly and striding over to the wall.
I needed a drink and a smoke. I needed someone to distract me. Ideally a pretty stranger in whom I could drown all my whirling thoughts for a time.
Not something I wanted my uncle to witness.
“I need to sleep,” I told him in another effort to get him to leave me to my depravities. My old coping methods. “It’s been a long night.”
“Yes, agreed,” he said thoughtfully. “I will watch over you until you wish to—”
“No, Carrick,” I sighed in aggravation, pinching the bridge of my nose hard between my thumb and forefinger. “I’ll be fine. You need to return to your family.”
“Rian, look at me,” he ordered so sternly that my brows rose before I turned to face him. “I don’t care that you are the Autumn Prince. I don’t care that you lead the Wild Hunt, or that you have an army at your command in the plains beneath this tower. I don’t care that you wield death, or that you seem to feel the need to take on the whole world all by yourself,” Carrick listed, making my brows rise higher with each proclamation. “What I care about is that you are my nephew. I care that your teine and lover were just killed. I care that you feel betrayed by your cousin, and you are overwhelmed by enemies. So I am coming with you, and I will not be leaving you until you and Sage make amends,” Carrick declared, his voice leaving absolutely no room for debate.
I stood before him, dumbfounded for a few moments, but also strangely thankful for him.
Evidently, I would not be getting rid of my uncle or my cravings so easily.
I was standing in a dank, underground hallway that was roughly hewn from rock with metal brackets drilled into the walls to support torchlights. An oppressive magic was heavy in the air, dulling my sense of the flames, and my feet were drawn toward the wall of darkness at the end of the corridor. Once I reached it, I found it was a stairwell descending even deeper into the earth.
I glanced up at the last torch, the iron buzzing against my fey senses. I lifted my hand and called one of the gauntlets from my Wild Hunt armour to me. The glove covered my hand, its magic acting as a protective barrier so I could reach for the iron handle of the torch without the toxic metal burning my fey flesh.
I descended the stairs, listening carefully to the steady dripping of water which echoed up from the pitch dark. The blackness was dense, so heavy that it almost seemed to be a sentient thing trying to swallow the light flickering so weakly from my torch.
At the bottom of the steps was a small room, but my attention did not linger on the simple furniture that was pressed up against the walls. I cringed at the strong smells of liquor, blood, and excrement, but I continued across the small room to stand before a barred doorway. My light would not pierce the darkness beyond the stone archway and heavy iron bars. It was as if the light was being repelled by that same heavy magic that made this tomb-like place feel like I was suffocating.
A prison. One meant to confine something powerful.
As soon as I came to this realization, something stirred in the dark beyond the bars. Soft flesh moved hesitantly across the grimy stone, and I saw dirty, white clothing, perhaps a dress, appear in the dark. Something crawled toward me on all fours with knobby knees and long, dark hair, and the uncanniness of it made me uneasy. If I hadn’t known this was one of the prophetic dreams I frequently had thanks to my sensitivity to the Tithriall, then I would have become defensive, but I knew it was a premonition.
An unusually vivid one.
A form crept slowly into my view, slinking cautiously out of the darkness. It took me a moment to realize it was a humanoid female because of how gaunt she was and the animalistic way she moved. Her hands were illuminated first by my light as she came near, and I saw thin, crooked fingers and scabby knuckles scarred by fire. Some of her fingernails were long and jagged. Some were misshapen and marred by grooves. And others were missing entirely, exposing her nail beds caked in filth and dry blood.
I easily recognized the hands of someone who had been meticulously tortured for a very long time.
She was crouching low to the ground as she neared me and winced from the glare of the light, but the torchlight finally gleamed upon her face. There were yellow bruises around her narrow jaw and throat, her lip was split open, and her nose had healed crookedly. Her hair was loose and knotted, and her dress was torn and filthy.
She finally managed to open her eyes long enough for me to catch a glimpse of their colour, and I was instantly struck by the mismatching orbs, one amber and one blue. There were streaks of red amidst her dark curls that I assumed must be fresh blood.
She drew in a hissing breath, as if in surprise, and it made her cough. The dry, hacking sound was horribly loud in the silence of her prison and made me flinch.
“It’s you… ” she whispered in a bastardized dialect of Sìth Gaeilge, the most common language spoken by fey, but I could still understand her accent.
Cocking my head in curiosity, I knelt to see her better while she tried to push her matted hair out of her face to see me as well. Her strange eyes flickered between my face and the flames as if she was mesmerized by them.
“A fire witch,” I guessed. Undoubtedly a powerful one too if this whole prison was meant to keep her confined.
“Nuala,” she corrected me, her voice weak and rough from lengthy disuse. Tears formed in her eyes as she settled more comfortably on the floor and stared at me. “You are not really here. Not yet.”
I was surprised and not sure how to respond. I’d had many prophetic dreams in which the Tithriall would show me future allies, including Ornella. But this was the first time that someone had ever shared the dream with me. This witch was as aware of me as I was of her, and it was so vivid. I could hear her thin chest rattling with every laboured breath. She was sick.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Nuala,” she reminded me. “I have been here waiting for you since I was a child.”
“And how do you know me?”
“I’ve seen you. In the flames,” she clarified as her eyes slid from mine to the torch between us. The fire flickered eerily in her strange eyes, sharpening the purple hollows beneath them.
“You are a Seer,” I realized aloud, and she nodded.
“Yours.”
“Mine?”
“I am meant to be. I have been waiting,” she stressed, her tears spilling over her dirty cheeks as she began to reach for the bars between us before lowering her hand. Desperation flashed in her eyes. “Please… I have been waiting for so long, please come and take me away from this place! And when you do…”
Nuala hesitated as a fierce anger suddenly ignited in those strange, mismatched eyes.
“Burn. Them. All,” she growled.