16. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
It had been fourteen sunrises since I defeated that disgusting creature with the help of the First Forest.
Tairngire hadn’t called for me, hadn’t appeared in the shadows, stalked the village paths, or materialized in a curl of mist at my door. Not that I expected him to—divines didn’t tend to linger in the Seventh Realm.
Good. Maybe he was gone at last. Maybe the Old Gods had taken notice of me after all, and instead of damning me they saw how I could be of use, protecting the Seventh Realm from threats.
Doubted it, but a girl could dream.
Branwyn attempted to drag me out. A few dice games, Maeve, she’d teased, calling me by the false name she loved. A little mischief.
I refused every time. My anger hadn’t cooled since the Fates bound me to Tairngire, and mischief was the last thing I trusted myself with.
So I buried myself in duty and silence. I didn’t have time to train.
The temple made sure of that, seeming to keep me even closer.
Brannach would catch me before I could sneak away.
Where do you think you’re going, girl? Your lessons with the Shaman are no longer necessary.
That is what the god is for. What have you learned?
What has he been teaching you? He would ask through narrowed eyes, and I’d evade him every time with some lie about how he was helping me hone my Sight.
I was not about to admit to my wardens that I’d seemingly angered Tairngire during our first “lesson” and he hadn’t appeared since.
I could sense the Old Gods’ gaze everywhere I went.
It was an eerie feeling, and though I didn’t fear the afterlife before, I certainly did now.
I couldn’t imagine it was as peaceful as the tomes said with the whisperings around it these days—I would try to avoid that fate at all costs.
Which meant staying quiet and keeping my head down.
I attended the rites, with more days spent beneath the waterfall’s hush, studying under the High Priestess’s judgmental stares.
I eventually opened The Chronicle of Eryndor Vale.
I’d been avoiding the damned thing like it might burn me.
Maybe I was afraid it would confirm what I already knew—nothing in my life would ever come without riddles and half-truths.
Because as the Elder had told me, the book chose me, and books don’t leave their shelves without a cost.
I couldn’t help but dwell on what that might mean, and what cost I would inevitably be paying.
How backwards was that? An apparently sentient book decided it wanted to come with me, and now I was doomed for something unknown because of it.
Welcome to my life.
The Chronicle didn’t read like a history. It read like a children’s story whispered by firelight, meant to teach important lessons disguised as fairytales.
It told of a Fae king who wore no crown, sat on no throne, and held no court. His kingdom was the wild itself—the canopy of forests, rivers that mirrored him, stones shifting when he walked. A figure never bound. He had never desired the title his birth had forced upon him.
Rootless as wind, dangerous as flame.
Wherever he went, the land bent, remembering him.
And always shadowing him was her. Dorienne, the Queen of Sorrow.
She detested Eryndor. The book painted her in envy and paranoia, a ruler who couldn't bear the thought of another power breathing in her kingdom.
And although the destined king had no desire to execute his birth right, Dorienne still hunted him.
Because as long as he lived, she was never truly sovereign.
She laid snares of glamour, set hounds on his trail, assassins in her debt. She spun courts into honeyed traps meant to ensnare him. But Eryndor always slipped free.
Every page was the same—her chasing, him evading her traps. A cycle without end.
One passage stood out, scrawled in a hand older than the book itself. You cannot chain the wild. You can only chase it.
I closed my eyes and saw the tavern again. Branwyn’s sly smirk, Davorin Kesh leaning back with his grin, voice curling as he called across the haze. Eryndor Vale.
Tairngire had responded to it, slow and unbothered. He hadn’t denied it. He claimed it as if it were his own. But I knew that it couldn’t be…could it?
At the time it was nothing—another mask, another name. But now, with this book in my lap, it felt significant.
Why that name? He could have chosen anything. Yet he took the name of a Fae king from some fairytale who never knelt, who could never be caught.
Mockery, maybe. A private joke…or, a warning.
You cannot chain the wild.
A crash split the silence outside, loud enough to jolt me. The tome nearly slid from my lap before I shoved it closed, the foreboding words still echoing in my skull.
I was on my feet, bare toes pressing to the cool floor. Saorla hadn’t stirred—whether asleep or ignoring, I couldn’t tell.
I pushed the door open…
Branwyn. Of course.
She stood in the garden, moonlight catching on her hood, arms full of herbs she'd clearly just dropped. Crushed stems scattered across the stone path like spilled secrets. “Oh, Aíne’s tits.”
I cleared my throat and cocked my brow when her head snapped up. “Degrading the goddess while you raid her chosen mortal’s garden? How bold.”
A sheepish grin took her mouth. “Well, aren’t you quick?
” she said, shoving the stolen herbs into her satchel before plucking a sprig of nightshade, adding it carelessly to her mix as if it couldn’t kill a mortal.
“I was hoping you’d still be up and not Saorla.
I’d hate for her to catch me in her garden unbidden again. ”
I crossed my arms. “You’ve a talent for showing up when I least want you to.”
“Funny,” she hummed, straightening and dusting off invisible lint from her signature green gown. “Tonight, little sister, you’re coming with me. No arguments.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Her grin widened. “You’ve been sulking in this hut for nights. Brooding over temperamental gods and that disastrous bond. Enough. You need air. And fun.”
I shook my head. Even if I wanted to, the last thing I needed was the Forest God in my business tonight. “Tairngire sees through glamours. He’ll know if you and I are traipsing about where we shouldn’t.”
Branwyn huffed, her eyes gleaming under a lifted brow. “I don’t give a damn what your Forest God knows—and since when have you? He won’t be in the taverns. And if he is, what’s the worst? He broods at you again?”
My scowl twitched, I couldn’t help it. Branwyn was relentless, as usual.
She stepped closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Come now, Aurenya. One night. Under glamour. No gods, no Brannach. Just us, the way it was before all…” she waved an exasperated hand in the air, "this.”
Her hand brushed mine, warm and coaxing. Normally I would have pulled back, afraid of a vision—but not tonight. My resolve cracked. I would go, and for once, I would enjoy myself.
Because she was right, what was the worst that could happen?
I had to admit it to myself that I wanted to find out.
The village was alive with lantern light, dice games spilling from taverns, and the bitter bite of cheap ale.
I tugged my hood lower, Branwyn’s glamour veiling me in another skin. I was no longer Aurenya, the Seer bound to temple duty. Tonight I was—
“Lyra,” Branwyn said smoothly, “a merchant’s daughter from the coast. Which makes me Selene.”
“Selene and Lyra? Really?” I arched a brow.
She shrugged innocently. “Pretty names open purses faster. Besides, no one asks questions if we’re from far away. Trust me.”
I glanced down at the garb her spell had given me this time—dark trousers, scuffed boots, a linen blouse under a jerkin, and a satchel hanging slack like it had seen miles. I grabbed at a loose strand of hair. My dark locks had turned to a light chestnut. It was believable.
“You’ve thought this through,” I muttered.
“I always do.” She twirled once in her own disguise, which matched my chestnut hair, a band of seashells holding it halfway up.
She wore a cunning smile, the kind of woman who could easily talk a soldier out of his sword.
“Selene and Lyra, sisters from the sea, passing through for trade.” She winked.
“We’ll even have an uncle waiting for us in the next town.
He doesn’t exist, poor thing, but it really sells the story. ”
Branwyn clapped her hands and let out a squeal. The night had only just begun, and I was on edge. Stirrings in Karthmor, Brannach’s grip around my noose getting tighter, and my so-called protector seemingly disappearing. Who knew for how long?
“What if someone sees through the glamour?” I muttered, pulling my hood lower over my eyebrows.
Her smile was impish. “They won’t. Not this time. I've been practicing."
The tavern was just as I remembered from the last time: dim, smoke curling thick, incense mingling with mead. Watchers and gamblers filled the alcoves, knives hidden under cloaks, curious eyes measuring every newcomer.
Branwyn slipped us to a table near the back. “Stay put,” she murmured. “I’ll fetch us something to drink.”
My hand twitched to stop her, but I curled it into a fist. Touch was dangerous here—too many bodies brushing close, too many chances for the Sight to flare. Besides, when Branwyn set her mind to something, there was no stopping her.
My thoughts continued to nag at me. Tairngire’s touch in the forest had been unbidden, yet it hadn’t revealed anything. I’d always been warned not to touch the divine, because visions of them could be dangerous.
Divines didn’t always have a sense of discretion, and even the slightest brush against them could bring on a vision, and then I'd risk being coerced into revealing what I saw. That would be disastrous, according to the Oracle. It wasn’t something I was willing to gamble.
But of course, Tairngire didn’t seem to care about that.
Rules were never made for me.
The bastard.