Bane of the Wild Hunt (Heart of the Tithriall #2)

38. A GODDESS OF WRATH

Chapter thirty-eight

A GODDESS OF WRATH

Rian

I strode through the entrance of my yurt back at the army encampment and hesitated at the sight of Nuala sitting on the floor at the table in front of my couch. Carrick sat across from her with a game of cártaí, a favoured pastime among our people, between them. I had almost forgotten I still had my childhood board tucked away.

“I can only move two spaces even with the mór card?” Nuala was verifying, and I stayed back to watch them as Carrick explained the constraints to her. My uncle was so patient and kind with her that it made me smile at them.

“Rian,” he greeted, inclining his head when I decided to make my presence known and walked into the room.

Sage had made my apologies, I could tell the hurt from our conflict had lessened in my uncle’s eyes. I needed to make those apologies myself, but it was hard to do when my magic was so closely tied to my emotions. Even just talking to Sage the night before about how I had failed him as a leader had been a risk. My emotions and magic were both so much more volatile than usual.

Nuala did not verbally greet me, but I could tell she was relieved to have me back from her expression. It had taken a lot of reassurance that morning before she seemed comfortable being left alone, and I hadn’t been able to stop myself from worrying about her while I was gone. Knowing Carrick had been keeping her company made me feel immensely better.

“Ornella took a short detour with Sage, but when the dryad returns, it is my hope that she will heal you at least as much as she is able,” I advised the Seer.

“They took a detour?” Carrick asked with concern.

“Worry not. Sage merely wanted to show Ornella the hot springs. I will know if something goes amiss.”

I did not tell him that Sage was utterly closed off to the rest of the Hunt. His mental shields were all up and thick to prevent any transference of information to occur.

Which was just how I preferred his mental shields to be when he was with a female.

Carrick nodded, still concerned about his son, but that was understandable with Fuath sweeping across the land and infiltrating all the deep places of the Autumn Court.

“Nuala, I would like to speak with you,” I informed the fire witch and held out my hand to her.

Carrick remained seated as the witch rose and limped to my side to accept my hand before we walked into my bedchamber where I erected a silencing ward.

“I have been thinking a lot about your condition and Ornella’s ability to heal you. It is unlikely that she will be able to restore your body wholly with her usual magic.”

I watched Nuala’s reaction carefully, noting the way her mouth tightened and her nostrils flared with emotion.

“I knew what they did would impact me for the rest of my life,” she assured me, her eyes duller than before.

“That need not be the case. There is something else we can ask her to do, but it is a harsher magic. One that is more akin to blood magic than to the elemental power that our kind inherently possesses,” I told her.

“You would permit her to use this kind of magic?” Nuala verified in surprise. “Is it not harmful?”

“I am not willing to allow you to carry the scars from those monsters. Erasing them will not erase the past or unburden your heart from the pain, but it will allow you to reclaim mobility and health.”

“Are you asking me?” she asked, and I considered how to respond given her desire for subjugation.

“No. I am not,” I admitted, but I watched her carefully to ensure that she did not find this command too taxing.

I knew Nuala didn’t wish to be responsible for herself, and she would never ask me to utilize this kind of magic to restore her. I was willing to shoulder the burden of the decision for her, but I also knew it could impact her deeply to have all physical evidence of her abuse erased from her body. So while I wanted to maintain the illusion of security that she craved, I also did not want to make the wrong choice for her.

Luckily, Nuala released a sigh of relief, and I knew I’d made the right call.

“I do not want to share my body with those monsters anymore. I do not want to have them etched into my skin. So if you can remove these defacements, then do it.”

“Good girl,” I praised her advocacy of her own wishes, but it still pleased me when she dipped her head in a sort of acquiescence.

“But will it not be harmful to use this kind of magic?” she asked again.

She had said that she wanted me to tell her not to have any worries. But considering my mission to protect the Tithriall from just such magical corruption, I wanted her to know this information.

“It is harmful when witches draw from the Tithriall and twist it to do this kind of magic, and then allow that tainted and infected power to bleed back into its source. But Ornella is a Summer fey, and her magic is inherently healing which allows her to use this kind of magic and cleanse it before she returns it to the Tithriall.”

Nuala was thoughtful as she nodded.

“Impossible for fire witches.”

“Or fire fey,” I pointed out with a smile and a shrug. “We all have our gifts and our limitations.”

“Will she do it?”

“I think so. This kind of magic is practised often by her people, it will not be foreign to her, and she has probably had to use it before,” I reassured her before hesitating. “We require a sacrifice for it.”

“A sacrifice?” she asked and tilted her head curiously.

“In order to restore your body, we must take essence from someone else. Their blood, flesh, and bones.”

Nuala’s eye widened briefly before she nodded at me with thoughtful interest.

“And you want to know who I will choose.”

“I will make the choice if you wish. I have committed their scents and magical signatures to memory,” I told her. This further shocked and awed her.

“You will always be able to find them?”

“Yes, and I will when you are well enough to help me make them suffer. But for now, we require the sacrifice of one fire witch, and I feel it should be one of them. It is something I… do. I consume things,” I tried to explain.

She was thoughtful, and I knew she was attempting to decide whether she wanted to make this decision.

“My brother.”

“Your…” I hesitated, disgust warring with a hot rage. “Was he one of the ones who was assaulting—”

“He hurt me the most,” she assured me unflinchingly. “He loathed me for taking from him what he always felt was his birthright. For making our father kill our mother when she tried to defend me. He thought I tried to divert attention from him by feigning visions, and he wanted to put me in my place.”

Fire rumbled through my veins, my rage winning out briefly and igniting as swift as a bolt of lightning striking. I was able to quickly get it back under control with only a few wisps of smoke and shadow escaping. My skin still felt stretched and my bones creaked from the pressure of so much power swelling and being forcefully contained.

“Are you sure about this? You want to use his remains to restore your body?”

“I will consume him. The way you said you would do. The way he always feared I would,” she declared, and I could not help the sharp but pleased smile from spreading across my face.

“Then I only need to know if you wish to be the one to take from him what you need,” I told her because there was no way I would take this decision from her. I would wait for her to be ready to make it on her own if I had to, but I would not take this from her. No more than I would take away her right to be the one to unleash her wrath upon her oppressors.

I could tell that she was playing the scenario out in her mind as she considered. I watched her imagine becoming the knife and the bruising hand and saw a familiar gleam of vengeful greed in her expression.

“I want to do it.”

“That’s my good girl,” I breathed, resisting the urge to stroke her arm in proud approval. “But I will not have him contaminate this space for you so we will go to him.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

“Wait here,” I commanded, and she inclined her head when I turned to go back into the main room. “We have some business to attend to, Uncle. We will be back soon,” I assured Carrick who had wandered over to my model of the Tithriall.

He wanted to ask for clarification, but I could tell he was reluctant to get involved in my personal affairs again, so he merely nodded. Oddly, I was not sure whether I preferred that to his relentless questions or not.

I went to the anteroom of my tent to retrieve a long, heavy cloak for Nuala. I also grabbed several of my finest carving knives from the trunk under my war table and slipped their sheaths onto my belt on my way back to the sleeping chamber. I could feel Carrick’s eyes on me as I opened the curtains to invite Nuala out into the main room where I would have enough space to form a portal.

I am returning to Uile Breithà. I will be back shortly.

As expected, my announcement merely bounced off of Sage’s firm shields, but both Ciaran and Darragh blared in my head with their disapproval.

Not alone, Rian! Ciaran snarled. There is no way for us to communicate with you if you need assistance.

I ignored them, insulted once again that they thought I’d require assistance against witches. There were indeed some very powerful blood witches who could bring even demigods like King Riordan to heel.

But I was no demigod.

The thought of a mortal witch attempting to take my power made me want to laugh. I would shove it down their throats if they wanted and then laugh when it burned them up from the inside.

Connecting with a place that I’d already gone was far easier to do than tracking Nuala’s fading scent between the worlds. But establishing a connection from so great a distance was still an immense task, so it took a moment.

The glare of a portal shone upon my closed eyes, and I groaned when I looked up knowingly.

I am here and will go with him, Darragh thought down the bond even as he met my gaze sternly.

This seemed to put Ciaran at ease, and he muted our connection again. I glowered at the silver dragon, but he merely clasped his hands behind his back. Perfectly at ease and prepared to wait for me to make my move.

“Has it occurred to you that this might be a personal and sensitive mission?” I demanded.

“It has,” Darragh responded, his eyes slipping to Nuala to whom he inclined his head respectfully. “But this is the Wild Hunt. We share burdens, we do not face them alone. And that includes you.”

“Oh, very well!” I sighed in exasperation when he used my own damn words against me. I did not look at Carrick, but I could almost feel his approval from behind me.

Turning away from them, I focused again on sinking my magic through the veils like an anchor to the place from which I’d taken Nuala. Then I used that connection to pull us toward it, forming a portal through which the three of us stepped at the same time.

The witch coven had not had time since my last visit to erect their wards again. I imagined that magic had been ancient and not something that the current members of the coven would be able to replicate easily.

Not that their wards would have stopped me.

We landed in the hallway right at the mouth of the hole that I’d drilled into the coven. It had been boarded up in a pathetic attempt to keep out invaders. The familiar stench of the place made me grimace but Nuala trembled.

“You need not be afraid. You will never again be kept in this place. That is a promise,” I assured her, and she relaxed as she nodded.

This is where she was kept, Darragh verified in shock, and I gave him the equivalent of a mental nod.

I’d had no intention of taking Nuala anywhere near her old prison cell, but we heard shouting coming from that direction in the hallway. Shouting that made Nuala tense up again with a fresh flood of fear in her scent.

“It’s them,” she whispered.

“Behind me,” I commanded her. I did not need to tell Darragh to take up a position at her back. The dragon had already moved so she was walking safely between us as we moved down the hall.

“—said she would burn the entire coven!”

“Who gives a fuck about the coven? We all need to get the hell out of here! It promised to come back for us!”

“Don’t you think it will find us if we run? We stand a better chance of fighting it here amongst our people.”

“Are you all really this afraid of a stupid little bitch?” snarled a new voice. This one was harsher than the others, and it made Nuala hesitate a step behind me.

Her brother, I had no doubt, and I slipped my hand behind me in offering. She was too primed with terror for me to touch her presumptively, I knew it would only be triggering for her, but she accepted my hand. Her fingers were too crooked to thread between mine, but she let me hold onto her.

“She always swore that it would come for her, and it fucking did come, Luke!”

“Maybe… Maybe we should have left her alone.”

“She was chosen by the Dagda. We all saw it. Why the fuck did we listen to you?” shouted another of the men.

“Shut up! All of you, just shut up! She is nothing but a fire-touched dóite, and don’t pretend like you didn’t love every second of fucking her,” Luke shouted at the others.

Thankfully we had reached the entrance to the torture chamber because I could not listen to another second of this poison. Nuala certainly did not deserve to hear it.

Take her for me, I instructed Darragh.

I turned to place Nuala’s hand deliberately in the grip of the dragon shifter, meeting her wide eyes so she knew that my fellow rider had my full permission to touch her.

Then I turned and strode down the steps and into the room where the witches were arguing.

They all cursed, jumping as if they had been merely startled by an unexpected interruption. But then the one that I’d encountered earlier, the one that I had threatened, started pointing and fumbling over his words.

“Who the fuck are you?” demanded one of the men.

I recognized Luke’s voice, although I may have known he was Nuala’s vile brother from his dark hair and eyes the same blue as her eye that was swollen closed.

“It’s the fey,” was all the frightened one could manage to squeak, but all the men drew back with recognition. Even Luke was fearful, although he tried to hide it more than the others.

“I’m flattered my reputation precedes me,” I drawled, breathing in the sweet scent of their rising fear greedily as I strolled into the chamber. Cornering them against the furthermost stone wall where their backs pressed against the torture devices hanging there. I saw their eyes darting around me, looking for a way to escape me, so I allowed my shadows to bleed into the air and drift across the floor. Forming an ominous wall. The frightened one recognized them and even more delicious fear flooded the air.

“Where is Nuala?” demanded Luke, raising his head in determination to maintain his composure.

I was going to enjoy making him quake in terror before Nuala cut him.

“Where she belongs. With me,” I replied.

She wants to come down, Darragh warned, and I gave him my permission to escort her.

“She belongs in that cage to rot. She is a monster,” Luke sneered as he pointed to where I knew her prison still stood open behind me. Like it waited for her.

“And what do you think I am?” I laughed.

The young man appraised me as if he had just realized how absurd it was to try and convince another “monster” that his sister deserved to be imprisoned.

“You do not belong in this world,” he accused me.

“Oh, you are very wrong about that, witch. This world was ours before the human species had even opened their eyes on it. We are in its blood,” I assured the young man. “That magic you think belongs to you does not.”

“And yet humans drove you away with a bit of plastic and carbon. I guess that means it’s not yours anymore,” Luke retorted, and to his credit, his voice only cracked a little with fear.

“And what do you think your sister’s visions showed?” I asked him evenly, relishing the way his feigned bravado wavered in uncertainty. “When the earth is reborn in fire, it will be free at last from the hateful infestation of both humans and witches.”

“The fey are not strong enough or they wouldn’t have been driven out,” he murmured, trying in vain to reassure himself, and I could not help laughing at his naivety.

“Our old kings and queens were weakened, it is true, although certainly not by humans. But kings and queens can be replaced. Consumed and then remade. Much as I am going to have done to you.”

Luke straightened at my threat, somehow looking at once alarmed and offended.

“You have much in common with humans,” I mused, allowing my eyes to encompass all the men behind him. “Nothing but lesser beasts diseased with entitlement and ignorance and a desperation to feel some semblance of the power you crave. And you think that exerting yourself over another makes their power belong to you, but what you want cannot truly be taken by force.”

And he knew that. It was why he hated his sister who had been born with the power he craved in her veins.

I heard the soft padding of Nuala’s slippers on the floor just before her brother’s eyes drifted behind me, and then he froze. I could see a brief second of desperation fleeting through his eyes, like he considered begging for mercy, but his pride and loathing would not let him.

“Nuala, please !” some of the other men began to cry, but Luke just glowered at her.

“You still look like a used-up whore,” he snarled.

I tutted quickly when I sensed Darragh stirring behind me like he might slaughter the vile creature before I could take what I needed from him.

“We are here to rectify what you’ve done, and all we require is your blood, bone, and flesh,” I told Luke.

“Blood magic,” hissed one of the others.

“I will not give you anything!” Luke scoffed at me as if offended by the suggestion.

“Oh, I was not asking,” I assured him, grinning when his eyes widened in understanding. He looked at Nuala, ready to spew more venom at her, but I’d heard enough. “I’ll put that barbed tongue to better use,” I promised as my shadows darted forward to seize him before he could utter another poisoned word. “I want you to know that the last thing you will do in this world is give up your body to restore hers and erase all trace of you.”

He made a futile yell, attempting to wrench himself free from me before my shadows plunged into his mouth and broke his jaw. He screamed, the sound resounding in the room the way his sister’s must have.

The other men recoiled in horror rather than laugh or rejoice in his pain as they no doubt had done when it was Nuala in anguish. Much as they all might hate Luke for planting the seeds of it in their minds, they participated. They had enjoyed some part of it too or they would not have allowed him to convince them to abuse her.

I removed one of my blades from my belt and stalked toward him while my shadows forced him to kneel with his eyes rolling and his jaw hinged at an awkward angle. The other men drew back from me, clambering to be the one furthest from me. I did not spare them another glance, though the wall of shadows at my back flared to keep them corralled like sheep bleating in panic.

“These are nice teeth,” I mused once I reached Luke and tapped the tip of my blade on them. “I best take them now before I bloody them while removing your tongue.”

I shifted the knife into one hand which I used to hold his jaw steady, and then I began to pluck his teeth out like I was picking flowers. His screams sounded sweet.

I took the last of his best teeth and then stepped back from him, carefully stowing them in an empty cneasú tin that I had tucked into my pocket for this purpose.

“Nuala?” I beckoned for my witch now that I’d shown her that her tormentor and his flock were subdued.

She was standing with Darragh, clenching his arm and watching me with a mixture of fascination and hunger. She craved what I was offering her.

Luke tried to make a sound so I stuffed my shadows down his throat until he was struggling to breathe.

“You can just watch me if you prefer,” I assured her when she did not answer.

She glanced at the others who still cowered against the wall or on the floor, petrified and unable to fight back, and she raised her head with dignity.

“I want to take his tongue,” she insisted, so I held out my hand to invite her to join me, and my shadows parted to allow her to approach.

Nuala stepped forward, slow and hindered by pain, but Darragh was eager to assist in supporting her as she made her way to me. His expression was thunderous.

Luke groaned as he tried to twist away from her, but I grabbed him by the throat and held him still. Anger and hatred burned in his eyes for her when she reached him.

“Whore!” he choked stubbornly, wincing in pain.

“He still speaks too much,” growled Darragh.

“Agreed. Nuala?” I prompted her, lifting the carving knife I had brought for her. She pulled her gaze from her brother and eyed the fine weapon I presented to her.

“It is too sharp,” she said softly, her voice a whisper in the darkness of her old prison. “I want the one he used. The dull blade,” she insisted resolutely and nodded to the bench with all manner of devices.

I grinned before inclining my head in agreement.

“As you wish,” I assured her, striding toward the array of blades. I held up one with dried blood on it, and Nuala nodded her head. I bore it back and presented it to her.

Nuala took the knife, her warped fingers barely able to tighten around it, but she was determined. She looked down at her brother with a sort of hot fury that made me swell with a strange emotion. But the sight of it made her brother falter, and the anger he bolstered himself with cracked under the force of her impending wrath.

“This is going to hurt,” she told him, and I had the sense the words were significant. A promise often made in the reverse, perhaps, before great pain was inflicted.

Luke tried one final time to twist away, but I held him steady for Nuala, shadows keeping his arms pinned down, his head turned toward her, and his jaw open. She reached into his mouth to grip his tongue without any fear before she began slicing and sawing.

Blood spurted, splattering her face and my cloak that covered her thin body, and his screams renewed with a frantic pitch. His entire body shuddered, and when Nuala removed his tongue, one of the other men vomited.

I opened my cneasú tin and extended it for her to drop his tongue inside along with his teeth.

“Some hair,” I declared, gripping a handful from his head to yank it out by the roots. He screeched.

“A finger,” Darragh added in dark satisfaction, and I used my power to raise one of Luke’s arms against his every attempt to keep it behind him.

He screamed in denial as Nuala grabbed one finger and set her blade at the base just above his knuckles.

“How does it feel, brother? To be helpless at the mercy of a monster?” she snarled, leaning closer to him.

“Uaua—” he attempted to choke her name but could not pronounce it fully without his tongue.

“Oh, so now I have a name?” Nuala screamed at him, the ignition of her rage making her shake so violently that I almost reached out to steady her. Her anger and pain was a living thing, a twisted and anguished beast threatening to consume everything around her. This boy, her coven, the whole damned world would burn for what she had suffered at the hands of these men.

And I was happy to watch.

“You were so afraid of my shadow, the shadow of a little girl, that you had to try to make me feel as small and useless as you are. Well here I am, Luke. And just look at what your lessons have made me into,” she taunted.

“Uck… ou,” he swore, face contorting in pain as he tried to curse at her.

Nuala grinned at him, a vicious smile with her battered face still speckled in his blood.

“You tried so hard to own me, but in the end, I will be the one who consumes you. But worry not,” she cooed, tapping his nose like he was a petulant child who flinched from her, his eyes flaring in hateful rage. “I’ll think of you from time to time. I will think of you like this, on your knees before me where you always belonged. I will think of how it was your blood and flesh that made me whole. And I’ll think of you while I rip apart everything you love and burn this world into ash.”

Darragh met my eyes, looking as impressed by this vicious creature as I certainly was.

Nuala took his finger. She took his eye. She took everything from him that she needed, and when she was finished, she tapped into her fire magic for the first time since she was imprisoned. Unleashing the delectable scent of such overwhelming power that even the male witches shuddered with understanding.

She might have been their captive, a hapless toy while her power was suppressed, but they had not broken her. She would always be this at heart. Powerful. Vengeful.

A goddess of wrath.

She burned her brother from the feet up, turning him into ash so gradually that he watched. When he finally went limp, she grew bored of him and consumed the last of him in one final blaze of fire.

He was gone. Nothing but ash on the ground.

She turned her eye to the others who all whimpered and cringed away from her attention.

“I will return, and I will do all that I have promised. Your mothers and fathers, your brothers and sisters and wives will suffer for their indifference. They will kneel as you do and beg for forgiveness and mercy, and I will make sure they know that you are to blame for carving it out of me. Their pain and death is on your hands.”

And then she unleashed an inferno of fire that should have been completely impossible for such a malnourished mortal to conjure. Blistering hot enough to melt the stone at their feet and the metal devices behind them as they were consumed wholly by her wrath.