16. MORE THAN ANYTHING
Chapter sixteen
MORE THAN ANYTHING
Ornella
The cliffside was whipping by me in a blur of plants and stone far too fast for me to grab onto anything.
I twisted midair to get a look around, trying to quell my racing heart long enough to decide if it was smarter to catch myself with the plant roots in the cliff or to grow some wings. Although I was falling so fast now that I was sure I would instantly break any wings I tried to grow. Perhaps I could slow myself down with the roots and then grow wings. Either way, my magic was depleted, and it was going to hurt to conjure.
But I would live. And then I was going to kill Sage.
A frantic bark caught my attention, and I looked up to see Pyrope swooping toward me. Her ears were pressed back in determination, her gorgeous wings working hard to gain the speed she needed to reach me, and then we were side by side. She dipped her left wing around me and turned midair to give me her back.
I felt a compulsion, a soft but firm command to grab onto the thick fur around the back of her neck. But under the order was a desperate plea for me to let her save me.
I did not have time to contemplate the fact that I was pretty sure the vargr had just communicated with me as I reached out to grab her fur. As soon as I had a hold of her, Pyrope swooped more under me, colliding with me hard enough to knock the air out of me at that speed, but I kept my grip. She was a remarkable flier, lighter and faster, and much more agile than Serafin as she eased out of the nosedive to sweep above the trees that had been far too close for comfort. Gravity worked for me rather than against me finally, and I clamped my knees around her. She was obviously a formidable creature, but she was also slender and so much better suited to my size. The girth around her flanks didn’t put nearly as much strain on my hips and knees as riding Serafin often did.
The second I was situated, I twisted to look up and sighed in relief when I saw Sage was safely on Serafin and flying toward us. Fuath also seemed to have fallen from the cliff, probably from a surge of their overeager companions all clambering to get to us. I smirked as the beasts fell by, looking horrified, their screams abruptly ending with cracks as their bodies broke branches below.
Then my smile faded, and I cringed at the thought that it had almost been me hitting that canopy.
I looked up again and saw the Fuath that had managed to stay on the cliff were firing arrows at us, but we were out of their range.
Sage and Serafin glided past in a flash, and I could see pure relief in my mate’s face before they were gone.
Pyrope banked to follow, automatically adjusting her wings and body to me when my weight shifted. I leaned into her movements the way I had learned to do with Sage and Serafin and felt a burst of approval come back to me. That feeling of satisfaction was so… intrinsic that I could have mistaken the feeling for my own, but it was not me. It was her . The vargr was proud of me for knowing how to move and fly with her. I realized it would be highly annoying for her to have to train a rider, so it was likely a relief that I already knew how to move correctly.
The first few moments, I could focus on little more than clamping my thighs around her. My hands clenched so tightly in her fur that it must have hurt, but Pyrope did not complain. And once I got a little more comfortable with her, I found it was truly incredible to fly with a vargr who could anticipate me. I had often marvelled at the way Sage and Serafin seemed like one entity while they flew, and now I had that in part with Pyrope. I felt like I was partly in control even though it was her wings carrying us. Even though I could not yet actively talk to her, she was sensitive to my comfort while we were flying.
And it was not nearly as cold as I feared it would be flying without Sage to warm me, although it occurred to me that it might have been his armour keeping me warm. Some kind of magic that helped regulate my temperature or comfort perhaps?
We followed Ciaran and Sage some distance from the Fuath and the burned village before the two males began to descend into a clearing. I landed last, nearly thrown from Pyrope’s back when her paws hit the earth hard.
“—set a trap,” Ciaran was saying. He had dismounted and was standing next to Serafin with his arms raised to help Sage get down. My mate was clearly in a lot of pain, so I decided to temporarily table the whole pushing me over a cliff thing for a later date.
I jumped off Pyrope and almost stumbled to my knees when my weak legs nearly buckled beneath my weight. Ignoring the nausea, I staggered over to where Ciaran had helped Sage to brace against a rock.
“They knew we would return to check on the village,” Sage said, closing his eyes in evident relief when I knelt next to him and put my arms around him. I was careful this time not to touch any of the arrows still protruding from his back.
“But the illusion was—” Ciaran cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Sage, I recognized the yurts. I saw them damaged in the ways I remembered before we left. Not only that, but I think they were cloaking some of their arrows. I was unable to see all of them,” he admitted as he turned to go back to Serafin. He unsaddled the wounded vargr before even attending to his own.
“I also missed a few of them,” Sage pointed out with a pained smirk that made both me and Ciaran frown at him. “It’s something new. Much like the explosive green fire. This mage will be a problem,” Sage said more seriously before turning toward me.
My helmet suddenly disappeared as he turned his face into my neck. I was astonished to realize his armour was so comfortable that I had forgotten I even wore it.
Then Sage brushed his nose along my jaw in a tender caress that had my wasted body perking up immediately, and I forgot all about the incredible armour again.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I need to heal you,” I told him, already knowing that he was going to fight me on it.
“No, Summer,” he growled in exasperation. “Just help Ciaran remove the arrows before we return to the village. My mother will panic if she sees me covered in blood.”
“I don’t care if I’m weak. Please let me—”
Sage gripped me by the back of my neck and drew me back enough to look down at me with a stern expression.
“I know you don’t care, Summer, but I do. And I do not want to be healed.”
I glared at him in frustration and debated healing him despite his wishes but quickly decided against doing that. The concept of consent was too important to him.
“Fine, you stubborn prick!” I growled furiously as I sat back and motioned for him to sit forward so I could tend to his wounds by hand.
“I heal quickly, you know,” Sage attempted to argue, his voice pinched in pain as he moved for me.
“Build a fire, get me some Ichor of Airmid if you have such a thing in this court, and boil water,” I said to Ciaran as he finished unsaddling his vargr. I fully expected him to react angrily to my demands, but he merely nodded his agreement. He easily cleared ground and started a fire and then disappeared to hunt through the underbrush.
There were a few moments of quiet in which I tried to remove Sage’s clothing as gently as I could. Serafin came and curled up next to him, moving as stiffly as his rider did with arrows in his hips and side. He put his head on Sage’s thigh and nosed my anam in demand for affection. It seemed like it was too painful for Sage to move his arm to pet the vargr, but he was able to scratch Serafin’s ears with his fingers without moving too much.
“You look good in the armour,” Sage told me once I had him stripped down to his undershirt and counted four arrow stubs sticking out of him. I scoffed at his comment. “And you seem to be angry with me,” he added.
“You think? You gave me your armour, and then you pushed me over a cliff,” I growled, and I felt him hesitate as if I had taken him off guard.
“I’m sorry to have scared you. I knew Pyrope would catch you, and it was either that or watch you kill yourself with your own magic,” he explained a little curtly.
That certainly did not sound like an apology.
“You pushed me off a cliff , and that’s all you have to say to me?” I demanded in disbelief. I had been expecting him to grovel for my forgiveness after what he did.
“You did not leave me much choice since you were determined to kill yourself!” Sage responded. This time his frustration with me was unmistakable, and I blinked in shock as my hands lowered from his back to my thighs.
The fragile parts of me wanted to shy away from his anger, to bruise and bleed and revert to old habits that demanded I should retaliate to protect myself. But I didn’t want to push him away, and I knew that even if this disagreement felt like an attack, it wasn’t. Sage promised that he could be angry and still care, and I trusted him.
“Are you seriously mad at me for trying to protect you when you are the one who is riddled with arrows because you gave me your armour? That’s not fair!”
“Summer, I would take a thousand arrows in the back if it meant I never have to see you do that again.”
“I don’t understand what I was supposed to have done differently with a cloud of arrows coming at us! I hope you don’t think that just because I’m a female—”
“It’s not that!” he interrupted me sharply, and then he took a deep breath to calm himself before he spoke again. “You are not yet initiated, so you were not a part of the discussion when we devised a plan, and there was no time to explain,” he continued more patiently after a moment. “But if you had looked back, then you would have seen that Ciaran was prepared to counter the arrows. Burning them would have been much easier for him than shielding with water was for you.”
Shit. Shit .
“I didn’t realize,” I whispered.
“I know. You could not have anticipated us, but that is not what made me angry, Summer. Your very first resort was to give everything . I have never seen anyone but Rian use their magic so recklessly. It is like you just don’t care what it does to you,” he accused me.
“I…”
“Don’t care,” he finished my sentence in frustration. “And that is what makes me so angry.”
I remained kneeling behind him for a quiet moment of uncertainty about how to respond.
“Come here,” he said, his voice more gentle now.
“No. I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said as I reached for his undershirt again.
“Summer. Come here,” he insisted more firmly.
I sighed loudly with exasperation, but then I began to move gingerly around Sage. He winced as he moved his arms unexpectedly, and I gasped when he pulled me onto his lap. I displaced a mildly aggravated Serafin who then moved his chin onto my thigh instead.
“You are in pain! Let me at least take these arrows out of you first,” I protested, but Sage grunted in dismissal.
“You can remove them when it’s time to disinfect the wounds,” he told me as he reached up with another grimace to take my hand that was resting on his chest. And then he bent his head forward, lifting my hand up so he could kiss my knuckles.
I grew very still as all of my attention zeroed in on the soft warmth of his lips on my skin.
“I need you to know that you are important to me, Summer. Your life is worth more than anything.”
More than anything. I was not remotely sure how to interpret that kind of a statement.
“I save lots of other lives.”
“Yes, and I am grateful for that,” he assured me as he lowered his head. I had an insane urge to lean forward to brush my lips across his forehead. “But we are a team that can protect those lives better together. I know you are not used to having someone you can trust to have your back, but you do now. You are not alone anymore. And I do not want you to think that you need to be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice in every battle.”
“I don’t think that; I am just willing to do it.”
“Well, then don’t be,” Sage insisted, making me smirk at his scowl. “I don’t want to have to override you like I did today to stop you from hurting yourself. I want to be able to trust you to be smart about your own safety.”
“Am I not allowed to make you feel safe?”
“You do . But you also terrify me,” he admitted, and I laughed at the way he raised his brows at me.
“Fine. I will… try to work more as a team. As long as the hesitation doesn’t get us killed,” I added seriously.
“And always find another option besides burning out,” he maintained.
“Yes, I will try to find alternatives,” I reassured him, smiling when he nodded in relieved satisfaction.
“Are you all sorted? Can we get on with removing the arrows from his back now?” asked Ciaran suddenly.
I gasped when I realized he was listening . The nosey prick was leaning against a tree behind me just out of Sage’s line of vision. I would have known he was there if my senses were not so dulled from overusing my magic, but he’d been able to sneak up on us.
I decided not to respond to the other rider as I got out of Sage’s lap and walked around him again. Ciaran went to the fire where he dumped two canteens of water into a small clay pot to begin boiling it. Then he plucked the plant with white flowers off his belt and began to tear pieces off the Ichor of Airmid to drop into the water.
“We can use this to make bandages,” I said as I eyed Sage’s undershirt which was still relatively clean aside from the blood stains.
I took the knife from his right hip and began to slice through his shirt to remove it. I wanted to kill something when I saw his bloody skin all puckered and bruised around the shafts of the arrows. Luckily they looked shallow, Fuath were not known for making strong bows, but they would still be painful.
I cut and ripped his shirt into strips and carried them over to the pot of water that was already boiling thanks to Ciaran’s fire magic. The scent of the Ichor of Airmid wafting up with the steam from the water was delightful, but it had a distinctive medicinal scent that reminded me too much of wartime and death.
“Thank you,” said Ciaran unexpectedly, and I looked up at him in surprise. He was crouching across the fire and looked as if those words had cost him his pride.
“What was that you said?”
“You heard me,” he responded sharply, and then he sighed at his outburst. “Thank you for healing me earlier even though it was taxing for you.”
I remained glaring at him suspiciously until he waved his hand at me in dismissal.
“Just forget I said anything.”
“That’s unlikely,” I advised him, and Ciaran rolled his eyes as I looked back at Sage. “I should just heal him.”
“As much as I’d appreciate how much easier it would make our lives tonight, I don’t care to listen to him lecture you about it again,” said Ciaran.
“That makes two of us,” I agreed with my eyes still on my anam . He was leaning in an awkward way against the rock beside him with Serafin still lying nearby with his head on Sage’s thigh. The rider was shirtless, but he was able to keep himself warm in the chilly night air with his fire magic so it didn’t seem to bother him.
But I couldn’t help it when my eyes were drawn to all the definition in his torso.
I’d always been unabashed about my nudity, but Sage was usually very conservative with his body. Which was a fucking shame, really, because he was gorgeous with the sinful way his hair fell into his face when it was mussed. Every inch of him was perfection from the elegant beauty of his face to the breadth of his shoulders and the way he tapered with a lean stomach and hips. He was covered in battle scars and the familial tattoos that formed beautiful patterns on his shoulders and chest. There was a dusting of hair under his navel which thickened a little just above the top of his trousers.
And then there was the perfectly scarred imprint of my teeth in two crescent moons on the front and back of his shoulder which branded him as mine. Not only because the unique pattern of my teeth was embedded on his flesh, but because I’d bitten him over the mating gland, and now my scent was in his pheromones. The sight of it used to cause me guilt and shame, maybe a hint of curiosity, but now…
He was my anam . He was the other half of my soul.
“How was the first ride on Pyrope without a saddle?” asked Ciaran abruptly, and I jolted guiltily. I glanced over at him in shock that he was even talking to me, although I supposed he might have just been trying to stop me from ogling his friend. It was probably pretty obvious.
“It’s not something I’m looking forward to repeating,” I answered, turning my attention to the red vargr who had curled up behind Sage. Her chin rested on her paws and those green eyes were locked on me.
“She is… very loyal to you. I was impressed that you were able to get her to fight for Sage and Serafin,” admitted Ciaran, and I blinked at him in further shock.
Was that a compliment?
“I wasn’t taking no for an answer,” I assured him.
“It’s unusual,” he insisted. “Vargr do not often leave their rider vulnerable. But Serafin defends you almost as fiercely as he protects his rider. And Pyrope clearly feels the same about Sage. It is all very… interesting.”
“I guess they know we are anam ,” I said with a quick shrug because I had no idea what it meant. How much of that bond, how much of how I felt, was transferred?
Ciaran grunted in thoughtful agreement and then was quiet for a few moments.
“You know that anam can share magic. Why not take his power and use it to heal him?” he asked me.
I looked up at Ciaran and saw he was watching me very closely. There was something he wanted to know.
“I am not doing that,” I told him with certainty, and I turned my head away to let him know I did not want to discuss it anymore. Not that I trusted Ciaran to respect my wishes. But I was not about to explain how dryad males harnessed the magic of their female anam . I wasn’t about to have a conversation with him about whether I was ready to give Sage that kind of power over me.
“Rian knows who you are. Have you realized that?”
My body immediately seized with panic. Ciaran saw the reaction and cocked his head with interest while I tried to rein in my emotions. My hands trembled as I glanced over at Sage in relief that he seemed oblivious to Ciaran ambushing me again. But we were close to him, and fey hearing was so acute that I realized Ciaran must have erected a silencing ward around us.
I should have known he was being too nice.
“Does Sage—”
“He is pretending he doesn’t know and is waiting for you to trust him with the knowledge. But we all know the truth of you, little doe, and I do not have the patience to pretend otherwise. Frankly, whatever your reasons are for keeping it a secret are irrelevant to me, because we do not have time to coddle you. So you need to know that Rian will call us back to the encampment soon, and he will expect you to make a deal considering your… birthright,” Ciaran warned me bluntly.
“ Fuck ,” I hissed at his ruthless honesty, but I was not especially surprised by any of it. I’d already known Rian would figure it out and that he would want me to deliver the Ruadhán into the ranks of his army. He would want me to help him establish a foothold in the Summer Court. Become the ignoble queen returned to her people from exile to claim what was hers by blood and birth.
But he was out of his fucking mind if he thought I was going back to the Rowan Wood.
The urge to slip into the Tithriall through the tree roots beneath me and escape almost overcame me, but all I had to do was look back at Sage. And the impulse to flee was gone about as suddenly as it had overwhelmed me.
I was done running. I was done being alone. So if Rian wanted to confront me with the truth of my sordid past then I supposed I was ready.
I just couldn’t let it kill everyone I loved. Not again…