31. The Pass
31
THE PASS
S affron went to check on Boann as the others finished their breakfast, grabbing a brush to try and wick away the wetness of her fur before returning the saddle to her back. Aodhán approached to ask if he needed any help. It caught Saffron off guard, but he offered them the brush, nonetheless. He watched as they reached to stroke the horse’s back where Saffron couldn’t reach on his own, stomach fluttering more than ever at how much they resembled his raven.
“I’m surprised you didn’t go back to Avren with them,” he said after the silence nibbled a little too deeply. “I hope it wasn’t out of some sense of obligation?—”
“Cylvan is a real piece of work,” Aodhán interrupted flatly, reiterating their sentiments from the table. They didn’t look at Saffron as they said it, but their movements with the brush intensified a little more as their clear annoyance grew. “Despite the conclusions you came to about him—I still can’t believe the nerve of that spoiled little prick. I’ll be writing a harshly-worded letter to his damned father the second I’m back home.”
“His fath—you mean the king?” Saffron couldn’t help but laugh. Aodhán said nothing else, just pressed their lips together like they were on the verge of splitting apart. Saffron wondered how they’d react if they knew just exactly how many of their mannerisms reminded him of the prince he knew so well—especially when trying to keep their composure against the ruthless swell of their own emotions.
“I made sure he knew how disappointed I was in his behavior, when we crossed on the road last night,” Aodhán said with a sense of finality. “It won’t mean anything to him now—but soon enough, may it cast ice in his heart.”
Saffron wanted to ask what that meant, but hesitated as Aodhán pursed their lips, slowing the motion of the brush while clearly anchored to a coming thought.
“Again, those conclusions you came to earlier… I mean, the things you said, about how… you’ll love him, no matter what. No matter how cruel he is, or how hard it gets. Knowing as well as the rest of us, all of Alfidel will do everything it can to ruin the both of you once you’re revealed… do you really mean that? You’ll really love him forever, no matter what?”
“Yes,” Saffron answered. Quickly enough that Aodhán huffed, like they thought he was exaggerating. “I mean it. And the things we’ve been arguing about lately aren’t even the worst of what he’s done to me—worse things he’s apologized for, already. Genuinely. Baba Yaga is very protective of all her beantighe chicks, sometimes to a fault, so it makes sense for her to demonize him so much, but… I think even she can understand the kind of pressure Cylvan is under.”
“You as well.”
“Yes, me as well,” Saffron smiled, though grimaced toward the end. “I don’t normally take any of Cylvan’s attitude to heart—in fact, I usually tell him off right back. I don’t just submit to whatever he wants, either—but maybe that was obvious, considering where we’ve found ourselves… Hence why I threw my ring at him. Or why I turned on heel and came to Morrígan on my own, even when he expressly forbade it.”
“I suppose you also insulted Renard dé Bricríu to his face, too,” they mumbled, shaking their head like they still couldn’t believe it, before adding: “I’m glad Cylvan found you. I only hope he truly understands what he’ll lose if he continues navigating such precious relationships like this…”
The look on their face after saying it was one of surprise, like even they hadn’t expected it. Before they could circle back, however, a sudden heavy thud , then the clatter of dishes and a bark of surprise from Baba came from inside Cottage Wicklow. Saffron turned in alarm—but then heard a familiar voice laugh a little bit, followed by: “Oh. Nice to properly meet you, granny.”
“Granny!” Baba Yaga hissed, followed by the clang of a tin dish against a skull, and Copper’s sharp laughter. Saffron’s heart leapt, racing to the open door and rushing inside to find his friend crouched on one knee, naked, messy-haired, flushed as Baba Yaga puttered over him.
“Copper!” Saffron exclaimed, summoning his giant friend to turn with a massive grin, sweeping him up into a hug and squeezing him hard enough to push all the air from his chest. “Oh, thank god! I thought you might be a beast for the rest of your life!”
“Kinda miss it already,” Copper laughed, shaking Saffron back and forth like a ragdoll. “A lot warmer with all that fur.”
“I’ll fetch him some of Hollow’s old things,” Baba Yaga sighed, slipping past them and up the stairs as Saffron just laughed and clung to his friend in return. Not bothering to wonder how, or why, Copper had seemingly, suddenly, regained dominance over his sídhe magic in the face of the ashen state—though he could muster an idea, once Sionnach appeared in the kitchen doorway. Squeaking in alarm, before covering their eyes against Copper’s nakedness. Summoning a booming laugh from Copper, who knocked Saffron away in favor of stalking toward the satyr, who shrieked at him to stay away, to put some damned clothes on, to find even an ounce of dignity—but even Sionnach, caught in Copper’s arms and powerless to stop it, eventually sighed and offered Copper a bashful hug back.
“I know you missed me, goat,” Copper grinned, swinging Sionnach back and forth. Sionnach didn’t respond—but didn’t pull away, either. Hugging Copper just a moment longer, until Baba Yaga appeared to offer him something to wear.
His friends who’d boarded the train in Ailinne, only to de-board suddenly in the middle of the woods when Cylvan demanded it, had managed to barter for horses in the next town they reached on-foot—but while they had steeds, they still lacked most of their other traveling essentials, especially considering their upcoming traipse into the Winter Court.
Arriving in Connacht, Maeve and Aodhán walked the shops to purchase winter clothes for the rest of the party, while Copper went to procure a carriage for them. If there was any benefit to most of their belongings being sent to Avren—it was that they would no longer travel bearing the crown’s sigil emblazoned on the sides of their saddles. Even with Boann’s, Saffron could cover the motifs with bags, at least. To disappear into as much anonymity as any other group of travelers making their way north. Something about that was reassuring. Something about it was unexpectedly harrowing.
Saffron and Sionnach, meanwhile, were tasked with finding some food to take on the trip with them—only for Saffron to lose his focus as they wandered a general store, and a stack of that morning’s gossip pamphlets caught his attention with big, bold letters:
AFTER FLOWER OF ALVENYA SEEN ABANDONING HIS HIGHNESS’ TRAVEL PARTY, PRINCE CYLVAN DEMANDS ONE-WAY TRAIN HALTS IN MIDDLE OF FALL COURT; Raving Mad About Lost Beantighe Servant. Is The Prince’s Perfect Facade Finally Starting To Show Cracks?
“This is overdramatized, right?” Saffron asked Sionnach weakly, and Sionnach grimaced. That was answer enough. Saffron nearly tucked the paper back, not wanting to know—before biting his lip, and adding it to their pile of things to pay for. Feeling like he wished to know what those people wrote about Cylvan, especially if he wasn’t there to see what really happened.
From Connacht to Ailinne, then north to Turias, then Ceilt, they traveled the remainder of the day and into the evening, when Saffron felt the first kiss of chill on his skin.
With new clothes to help keep the cold at bay, and a little bit of steamed rum in his stomach to quell his nerves—Saffron had officially turned his back on Avren. And, therefore, Cylvan.
That far away, though, there was an easier sense of accepting what he’d done. He could settle in the back of the carriage with Copper and Sionnach, knowing it was too late to turn around.
Maeve rode alongside them as Aodhán drove from the seat on the front, helping lead the horses through a growing layer of snow, chatting lightly between one another as the sídhe lady attempted a few times to summon her ice-magic with the help of the natural elements.
Inside the cab, Sionnach sat on one side while Saffron and Copper occupied the other, the once-again-fey lord’s head resting in Saffron’s lap as Saffron attempted more than once to draft a letter to Cylvan on a pad of letter parchment. Fiachra watched from her carriage perch, waiting for him to finally finalize something and give it to her to deliver. Like even she would be willing to traverse the distance in those circumstances. Not knowing that Saffron was quickly realizing there wasn’t a combination of words in his limited vocabulary to properly express how he was feeling, especially after the conversations earlier that morning.
Finally crumpling up the fifth sheet of paper in a rush of frustration, Copper’s giant hand whipped up to snatch the whole writing stack away from him, tossing it to the floor before locking his arms around Saffron’s middle to imprison him where he sat. Saffron huffed, but didn’t fight back. He opened the carriage window enough for Fiachra to wiggle out if she felt like she needed to get her own jitters out, but instead the bird seemed relieved in her own way when it became clear she would be delivering no messages at any long distance anytime soon.
Saffron tried to study instead. He tried to read his books. Then he tried to play a card game with Sionnach on a plank of polished wood balanced between the satyr’s knees and Copper’s broad shoulder. He watched as Sionnach went to work knitting a scarf with hand-spun wool yarn gifted to them by some satyrs at the borough, showing Saffron the unique type of stitching satyrs always used that could be stretched wide for cooler days or squished together to brace against the cold.
Saffron did everything he possibly could to simply distract himself from looking out the window. From reckoning with exactly how far they traveled in the opposite direction of Avren, even at such a slow pace as the snow on the road slowly steadily deeper.
When nightfall came and they opted to continue riding through the night, Saffron hunkered down in the back of the carriage with Sionnach and Copper, who had returned to his fox form to act as a shared, furry heater. Having apparently healed his own ashen state, though it was still unclear exactly how .
Saffron just buried himself beneath the blankets, under the pillows, forcing his eyes to remain shut. Knowing that, as soon as morning came, they would be on their way into the Hoarcliff Pass, and by the end of it, fully crossed over into the Winter Court. Where there really would be no turning back.
Saffron could taste the cold on his tongue before ever opening his eyes to see it. In the low light of morning, he knew the shade of blue-gray in the air. It made him close his eyes again, digging fingers into the thick fur of Copper’s neck and making the beast grumble in his sleep. Sionnach was already awake, themself, wriggling around beneath the shared blanket and attempting to use a small bag of charmed fire-stones to warm up some tea to drink.
When they whispered Saffron’s name to offer him some, Saffron finally emerged from the warm burrow to take it, forcing himself to look out the window and accept there was no going back. There was only one way through the Hoarcliff Pass into the Winter Court, which meant no changing one’s mind. Not until the next town, where an entirely separate road would take them back south again.
He’d made his choice. Eventually, when Saffron never returned to Avren—Cylvan would know it, too. He could only hope the prince had meant what he said to Baba Yaga—that he would understand, and he would wait. No matter how long it took. Even if he never anticipated Saffron choosing to leave Beantighe Village to continue north on Ryder’s trail without him—the prince had still promised.
Sionnach sipped at their tea while gazing out the window, absentmindedly petting the thick fluff of Copper’s tail with their opposite hand. Saffron cast his own occasional glances outside to the familiar landscape blanketed in white, distant horizon hidden behind a wall of snowy mist. It didn’t alarm him at first—but then a heavy wind whisked through the pass, making the carriage sway and causing the horses outside to whine and stomp their feet. He pressed a hand to the cab wall to steady himself, glancing out the window again, before throwing a brief look to Sionnach, who did the same on their side.
Unlatching the window, Saffron slid it down just a crack to ask Aodhán if everything was alright—but the carriage suddenly jolted, knocking everyone inside on top of one another. Groaning, Sionnach kicked Copper off their lap as the fox scrambled to return upright, finally shifting back into his fey form—resulting in him straddling Sionnach naked. It summoned a screech of disapproval from the satyr, followed by a flail of their hooves into Copper’s chest. Saffron barely dodged the chaos, grabbing Fiachra to keep her from being flattened in the commotion as he called out through the window a second time to ask what was going on.
“Someone on the road!” Aodhán called back against the wind. “Look like they lost their horse. Maeve is going to check them out.”
“Someone on the road?” Saffron asked, detangling himself from Sionnach and Copper’s squabble as Copper fought to pull his clothes on, throwing open the carriage door and jumping out.
The wind whipped Saffron’s hood over his head in an instant, nearly knocking him off his feet as the road beneath his feet was compacted with more snow than he expected. Fiachra attempted to follow after him, and Saffron yelped just as the wind hooked on her wings and nearly sent her flying into the abyss. Throwing out his hands, he grabbed her from the air, cursing before stuffing the owl under his cloak. She writhed and squirmed upward until she could settled on his shoulder, within the curve of his hood instead.
“Saffron, come back into the carriage!” Sionnach called, before snapping, “Copper, no, damnit! Both of you get back in here!”
“I just want to look for myself!” Saffron called back, already making his way slowly through the wind, barely able to see through the thick snowfall as Maeve approached a shadow with its hands raised further up the road. The stranger’s own dark cloak whipped against the constant gusts, dusted in a thick layer of frost to prove they’d been out there a while. Not so long to succumb to the cold, at least, as Saffron’s mind turned over the possibility of picking them up to take them into the next town—but then Maeve suddenly reeled back on her horse’s reins with a shout, and Saffron choked at the sight of the stranger leaping forward in an attempt to grab the horse before it pulled out of reach.
“Hey!” he exclaimed, just as Aodhán leapt from the driver’s bench, racing to where Maeve shouted at the figure to let her go, kicking them in the head with her boot.
Hands grabbed her foot with one of the thrusts, yanking her free of the saddle just as Aodhán skid through the snow to reach them. Maeve hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Copper grabbed Saffron’s arm to pull him back. But Saffron moved on his own instinct, reaching for the obsidian knife in his belt. He raced down the snowy road toward where Aodhán put themself between Maeve and the stranger, and Copper kept close on Saffron’s heels the whole time.
Maeve drew her sword, white-silver and bright in the reflecting snow. Her horse reared back against the stranger attempting to mount it, who had to throw their hands up while stepping backward so as to not get their head smashed open. As they did, the wind suddenly shifted direction, slamming into Saffron’s front and whipping his hood off, practically blinding him with snow like a thousand needles. Crossing his arms over his face, he squinted through the gale toward the conflict only a hundred feet ahead from him, finding the stranger’s hood had been blown back, too—and they were looking right at him.
“Your highness!” Ryder Kyteler shouted with a grin, as if not realizing who exactly he attempted to rob until that moment. Saffron just stumbled backward, nerves bright as Fiachra dug talons into his shoulder.
“I wondered when we would cross paths again! ” Ryder continued, barely audible over the wind, though Saffron heard each word like fired crossbow bolts. Before the man could say more, before Saffron could respond—Maeve lunged through the storm with her blade ready, moving for Ryder’s throat and matching the man’s instantaneous footwork even in the loose snow and ice under their feet. Clearly even Ryder didn’t anticipate the fey lady’s fluidity with the blade, as the arrogance twitched on his face, reaching under his cloak for his own blade to crash against Maeve’s with an earsplitting ring.
“Summon me!” Taran snarled in Saffron’s mind, but Saffron wasn’t sure, moving as quickly as he could over the slippery surface with his own dagger still drawn. No—it might only be a distraction, for Maeve or Ryder, or both, especially with two blades drawn and crashing against one another. Especially on a road so narrow and icy, only a weathered wooden fence indicating where the edge dropped off over the cliffs on the other side. And when it came down to it—Saffron didn’t want Ryder dead. At least, not yet. If Ryder died, he might never learn how to get his friends back; but with the ferocity Maeve unleashed upon him, Saffron wasn’t sure how many chances he’d get to call her off before she did something irreversible.
“Maeve, wait!” He still attempted, but Aodhán grabbed the back of his cloak before he could get any closer. Helpless but to watch as Ryder and Maeve slammed into one another, blades clashing with white sparks, knocking one another off balance or shoving them across the slippery road, more than once losing their footing and having to roll out of the way of a blade coming down on them. Ryder wouldn’t hesitate to kill Maeve, either, if he didn’t think he had any reason to avoid it.
The very moment the man spun on Maeve and caught her off guard, hand gripping her wrist and twisting her around, blade lifting to her throat, Saffron’s magic snapped and flooded him.
Extending his hands pin-straight toward them, the pink glow of Ryder’s inherent aura burning bright in Saffron’s eyes as he focused, summoning the power to the surface. Gripping Ryder without touching him, like Saffron once did the vines grasping at Fiachra. Holding the man in place where he stood, as if pinning him by the wrists. As if uttering the enchantment to be still , without needing such words.
Not again, not again—Saffron would not let that man hold a blade to anyone’s throat that way again, he would not allow him to threaten someone that way, ever again. Especially not in a place like that, so remote, where no one else would see what Saffron was capable of to stop him.
Ryder should have known better—and Saffron was sure he did, as the man realized his mistake the moment Saffron buried fingers into his being like he once buried them into those rowan vines wringing around Fiachra’s struggling body at ériu’s shrine.
Hot blood crept up the back of Saffron’s throat. It found the rim of his nose, dripping over his lip, from his chin, as every inch of his body shook in concentration. He dug through Ryder’s magic until he felt every shuddering mote, until he thought he could scrape fingers through the light like digging his hand through a bag of rice. A vein swelled over Ryder’s temple, muscles straining in his neck as he stared at Saffron in return, unblinking, unmoving. Saffron held him firm, held him in place, paralyzing him by hooking himself into the man’s magic.
“Maeve, come,” Saffron said with a shaky breath, puffs of steam thicker than ever with the effort coursing through him.
Maeve hesitated, moving one toe of her boot, realizing exactly what Saffron had done—but it wasn’t enough. The blade remained too close to her windpipe, that she could barely shift before a line of bright crimson formed on her skin.
It wasn’t enough to just pin Ryder in place, Saffron would have to control him, to move him bodily. But he didn’t know how—he didn’t know if he had the knowledge, let alone the strength, the will to do something like that—and worse, he knew the moment he let up his grasp, Ryder would certainly kill Maeve just to punish him for trying.
“Please,” Saffron attempted, wishing to utter, please don’t do this as if it would make any difference to Ryder—but the words never came, as a massive gust of wind crashed down from the sky, unexpectedly hot and sulphuric. On its tail, a sound that paralyzed Saffron down to his core, the only thing in the world that could possibly break his concentration in that moment.
A roar, a resounding, gut-churning cry of something titanic and death-defying—and it was plummeting straight for them, from the cloudy sky.
Ryder managed to turn in Saffron’s brief distraction, the blade in his hand slipping away just enough for Maeve to shove free. But she only made it a few steps before another gust of hot wind crashed against the road, knocking every one of them off their feet and sending the horses scattering. From the clouds, a winged, black-scaled dragon swept downward in an arch, blasting a line of fire along the edge of the road like a warning. Another roar emanated from the depths of its throat that froze Saffron where he stood. A dragon—a Winter Court dragon, like Saffron had only ever heard of in stories.
The beast turned back upward, rotating wing-over-tail in the sky in order to swing back down over them a second time. Saffron’s hands remained extended, though his concentration was long-shattered—until the sound of rushing feet and someone shouting his name brought him back to earth.
He couldn’t react fast enough, as Ryder lunged at him. Throwing his arms out, slamming into him—and sending them both careening over the edge of the cliff into the white unknown below.