Chapter 4
The Turlaith encircled Elara and Reynnar as they marched through the ancient wood, guiding them toward the kingdom of Cruithneach.
Guiding, Elara thought dryly, was rather generous for what this was.
Her wrists remained unbound, her ankles unchained, yet she felt their gazes upon her like fingers tracing along her spine, probing softly for weakness.
Fear, she supposed, would have been the sensible reaction—the logical one, certainly—but she’d grown rather tired of threats.
Tired of being tired. It had been days since she’d slept properly, longer since she’d eaten anything resembling a real meal, and that—more than fear—dulled her responses.
She cast a sidelong glance at Reynnar as they descended the narrow, switchback path carved into the hillside, the city unfolding below them with every turn.
The power that had silenced the Turlaith was gone.
Or, she realized with a small jolt, it simply no longer needed to be present.
Reynnar didn’t require weapons or warnings. He was one.
Who, Elara wondered faintly, in the gods’ name, had she befriended?
Forcing her gaze away, she shoved a hand through the snarl of curls that clung to her damp neck. Pain lanced her palm, fierce enough to draw a hiss.
“You should’ve let me handle it,” Reynnar murmured, breaking the hush. His eyes weren’t on her face but on the crude bandage around her hand—moss and vines torn from the forest floor, now dark with blood. A muscle jumped along his neck. “Taking a spear to your palm wasn’t exactly wise.”
“Yes, well, given the circumstances, pausing to debate strategy didn’t seem practical.” She grimaced. “I’ll be fine. It’s hardly the first injury I’ve endured.”
He exhaled a harsh breath. “You don’t need to keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Throwing yourself into danger to spare everyone else.”
Elara lifted her chin, matching his tone. “Neither do you.”
Their eyes held for a beat, sharp as a struck chord, before he looked away. “There’s a difference between necessity and recklessness,” he said, voice low. “But I’m beginning to think you prefer the latter.”
“Well, if I do, I’ve had an excellent teacher.”
When she looked again, his frustration had shifted into something heavier. Exhaustion, familiar and shared. Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him.
“Perhaps next time your instincts could lean toward self-preservation rather than martyrdom.”
She almost smiled. “I’ll make a mental note.”
A shove to her back caught Elara off guard. She lurched forward, boots skidding on stone, and barely caught herself before sliding off the path. Reynnar’s growl followed—low, guttural, a sound that seemed to vibrate through her.
Kynra laughed as she passed, flashing Reynnar a look that needed no words: Then get her moving faster yourself.
His gaze followed Kynra for a beat before lifting to sweep over the others. No words, no sound—just that measured look, cold and lethal. The line of Sídhe adjusted almost at once, bodies shifting to grant them space. They moved on in silence.
As they reached the gates, the air changed—a low hum rolled through the stone, vibrating up Elara’s legs as the city’s massive doors ground open.
Light spilled through the widening seam, carrying the rich scent of sun-warmed herbs and a hint of ripe fruit on air too warm for the mountain.
Inside, the city stirred: a grand thoroughfare broad enough for fifty men abreast, paved in interlocking granite etched with faint, glimmering runes; oaks and ash rising at measured intervals, their roots vanishing into stone; buildings climbing upward on either side, carved directly into the cliffs that cradled them.
The Turlaith moved unhurried through the streets—long-limbed, watchful, eyes dark as forest pools—some crowned with woven branches tipped in silver leaves, others draped in autumn-colored robes, jewelry catching the light like rain.
Sound gathered and folded around her: stag-drawn carts clattering past, leaves whispering against stone, voices rising and falling in a vine-curled tongue that softened or sharpened when their gazes found her.
And beneath it all, Draoth—alive, breathing, brushing her ankles like a curious cat.
“Keep moving,” Kynra grunted.
Elara staggered forward, realizing only then that she’d stopped.
The pull to look—to drink it all in—was impossible to resist. Every time she thought she’d grasped the scope of this place, something else shifted into view.
It was too much beauty at once. Not the polished, ornamental kind of Latheria’s high halls, but beauty that felt uncontainable.
Every surface, every corner hummed with the same vitality she’d first felt in the forest, only stronger now, condensed, as if all the Sídhe gathered here had pressed their power into one vast, rumbling presence.
Latheria, by comparison, seemed like a graveyard.
A shiver of dread ran through her.
Best not to dwell on what Osin would do if he ever set foot here.
Her gaze flicked to Reynnar at her side, his stride taut with vigilance.
The way he’d described his abduction in the Pit—how the world had gone still, his will dissolving beneath an unseen hand—matched the Druids’ spell on Summons Day too closely to dismiss.
That same cloying pull… Maybe Osin couldn’t breach this place.
If he could, surely he already would have.
The thought eased something tight in her chest. Without the Wound of Light, he had no way through.
She let her gaze drift over the Sídhe ahead, their laughter unguarded, their movements loose and unafraid.
Safe, then.
They walked until the buildings thinned, opening onto a circular plaza.
Smoke curled from braziers set along the perimeter, and beyond it rose a palace carved into the mountain’s heart.
High balconies bore unfurled banners—deep green, earthen brown, autumn gold—each embroidered with twining trees and stags caught mid-leap.
Reynnar’s hand brushed the small of her back—a guiding pressure rather than a touch—steering her forward. His face had gone unreadable again, that same stillness she’d seen in the Pit settling over him like armor.
A pair of Turlaith warriors emerged from the palace. Their armor and weapons looked lived-in, not ceremonial—spearheads softened from use, bowstrings waxed and kept snug. They watched Elara with the same cool focus their brethren had shown on the way here.
It wasn’t hatred, exactly. Hatred had heat. This was colder—a kind of settled surety.
Kynra strode ahead and spoke to the nearest guard, her words quick and clipped, so that Elara caught only fragments—formal phrasing, the cadence of a request made to sound like an order.
The guard’s gaze flicked to Reynnar, pausing just long enough for recognition to bloom.
He murmured to the others, and a ripple passed through their ranks.
Reynnar stepped forward, unfazed, and inclined his head. “I am here to invoke the Warden’s will,” he said, “and the Concord’s ear.”
Silence held for a beat. The guard swallowed, then spoke in that vine-curled tongue and Reynnar answered in kind. Whatever passed between them seemed to settle something, because the guard turned and signaled, and two others stepped forward to flank her.
“Come,” Kynra said, and started forward.
A wide stair curved into the palace’s mouth—the doors at the top already open—a dark seam cut into pale stone.
Kynra led the group through halls that didn’t feel like halls so much as arteries.
The walls were etched with reliefs that looked older than any human kingdom she’d ever read about.
They made Elara’s eyes itch with the urge to decipher them: stags with antlers like branches.
Women with crowns of leaves. Warriors whose faces were half stone, half flesh, their lips parted in song.
At the end of the corridor, the guards halted before a pair of doors banded with dark metal. And then—rather than being ushered into a hall of judgment, or thrown into a cell, or any of the other things her body had begun to expect from authority—
They were led into another waiting corridor.
It was long and curved, as if it hugged the outer slope of the mountain. Windows cut into the stone looked out over the ravine. Benches carved from rock lined the wall at intervals. Every surface was too clean. Not polished—scrubbed, as though even dust had been deemed an insult.
“Wait here,” one guard said in Reynnar’s dialect, and the doors shut behind them.
Elara exhaled slowly through her nose, only then realizing she’d been holding her breath. Reynnar stood motionless, facing the closed doors as if he could see beyond them. She tried not to stare—and failed. She had seen him furious before, but this was different.
“Reynnar,” she whispered—because the corridor carried sound too well. “What is the Concord?”
“A council,” he said. “The Turlaith’s law made flesh.”
“That’s not comforting.”
A faint sound escaped him. “It isn’t meant to be.” He sighed. “They will listen.”
“That’s not what happened in the forest.”
He turned his head slightly. The corridor’s light caught the planes of his face, the scar through his brow. “In the forest, they had spears and arrogance. Here they have…procedure.”
“Ah.”
She folded her arms, then dropped them, the motion pulling at her wound. “What happens if they decide I shouldn’t be here?”
“Then we adapt.”
He said it as if “adapt” didn’t mean blood and running and loss. Her stomach clenched, and Elara forced herself to do what she always did when fear threatened to turn into something less useful—make an inventory.
She had a dagger. A bloodstone. A body that was still healing from weeks of starvation and abuse. She had no allies in this city, no knowledge of their laws, no understanding of their hierarchies beyond what Reynnar had revealed. She had him.
“You said Eamon. Lord of the Silver Glade.”
He rolled his shoulders, stretched his neck. “Yes.”