37. The Map
37
THE MAP
N ot one of Saffron’s friends were thrilled to be told to go home while Saffron remained overnight at the estate, but he had been expecting that. He reminded them of the beast that lived in his head; the one he could summon with two words, not to mention the size and brutality of whom they’d all witnessed firsthand that morning when Saffron had summoned him into the woods alongside Copper.
“Why should we trust him to protect you? Especially in a place like this,” Copper argued, speaking low as they all crowded in the hallway outside the ballroom, holding their drinks and all equally a little bit buzzed.
“Taran hates this place,” Saffron said. “And he hates his family. I think he’d save Ryder’s ass before he ever chose his family first.”
Taran grunted in the back of Saffron’s mind, neither confirming nor denying that idea.
“He has a point,” Maeve said. “Honestly Taran might even be eager for Anysta or someone else to try something, if it means he gets to gut them.”
“Maeve gets it,” Saffron said, only slurring his words slightly, but definitely spilling a little bit of the spiced wine in his glass. “It’s only for one night. And it’s the only chance we’ll get. And I don’t think I can sneak all of you in with me.”
“I thought we were going back to Avren in the morning?” Sionnach said, clearly more concerned than they let on. “You said you promised Cylvan?—”
“We still are,” Saffron answered. “It’s not like I’m going to stay for breakfast. If I can get away with it, Anysta won’t even know I never left.”
“Because you’ll be sneaking into wherever Ryder is staying the night,” Copper said with narrowed eyes.
“Yes. But don’t get the wrong idea.”
“I’m getting the wrong idea,” Naoill muttered.
“Why in god’s name would I fool around with Ryder Kyteler when I have Cylvan waiting for me back in Avren?” Saffron cut that sentiment off at the head.
“Humans are prone to fucking anything that moves.”
“Um, alright,” Saffron wrinkled his nose, pointing a finger at them. “That’s a satyr stereotype, actually.”
“Hey,” Sionnach hissed.
“Beantighes, then,” Naoill corrected.
“I’m not staying the night to fuck Ryder Kyteler,” Saffron said. “And you know what—even if I was, that’s my business. But I’m not, so I need all of you to stop thinking that. He would be insufferable in bed anyway. God, I can’t even imagine.”
“Probably couldn’t even last that long,” Copper said. “I know Cylvan can probably last a long time, right Saffron?”
“Ew, Copper, what are you saying?” Maeve hissed, elbowing him.
“I—” Copper stammered. “I don’t know. I’m a little overwhelmed.”
“Just—!” Saffron cut back in again. “Can we focus, please! I’m not actually here to have a discussion about whether or not I’m staying or not. Or what I’ll be doing while I’m here— not in the way you all think. I’ll be back in time to leave first thing for Avren. You know what—find a room nearby in Vjallrod. To be close. Just in case.”
“Alright,” Naoill said. “There’s a bit of sense.”
“But what if something happens?” Sionnach asked. “What if you need help?”
“I can send Taran to get you.”
“How far can he actually go without you there?”
Saffron stared at Maeve for a long time in considerate silence, until her face finally twisted up and she scoffed. “That’s not making me feel any better!”
“Let me talk to them,” Taran growled. “Call me out.”
“Absolutely not,” Saffron answered.
“Absolutely not what?” Sionnach asked.
“I think he was talking to the dog.”
“What’s Taran saying? Bet he hates the idea, too.”
“Alright!” Saffron finally snapped, throwing his hands up and spilling a little more from his glass. “You all, find a room at the nearest inn. Wait for me to come back. If something happens, I’ll send Taran. Or, you know what? I’m sure there’s a nightjar roost somewhere in this godforsaken house. Why don’t I just send a bird at midnight and another a few hours later? To reassure you all.”
“Oh… a messenger bird. That makes a lot of sense, actually,” Copper nodded, before looking at Sionnach. “Why didn’t you think of that?”
Sionnach stomped their hoof, and Saffron downed the rest of his drink. He was going to need it.
As the fete stretched long into the night, guests grew progressively drunker the closer to midnight the time drew, including Saffron and his own. Partially to better blend in, partially to ease their collective nerves, as, despite having a plan, even Saffron was beginning to feel apprehensive about staying there by himself once the chance came. But it would be fine—he would have Taran. He might even be able to count on Ryder to keep him from getting into too much trouble, at least when it came to Anysta. And if Ryder tried to start trouble of his own, Saffron knew what to expect from him. Something even told him Ryder wouldn’t have any opportunity to open any veils there in the middle of the house, too, considering how tightly Anysta kept him on her leash during the nighttime fete alone.
Saffron really might be able to use all that to his advantage. To incapacitate Ryder first; to sneak through the house using Taran as a guide; to either perform the summoning spell like he originally intended, or take his time searching. To find the queen’s memory tapestry, or to return and throw Ryder on Taran’s back to take all the way back to Avren. One way or another, Saffron would not be leaving the Winter Court empty handed.
When guests began trickling out, some returning to their carriages in the courtyard, others retiring to the block of rooms in the estate, Saffron made sure to stumble through the front door and climb into the carriage with his friends, putting on the front of leaving alongside them—only to yank his shoulder bag out from where he’d hidden it under the seat, then scurry through the opposite door of the carriage and into the bushes along the edge of the courtyard.
Ryder had already described to him where his own room was, promising the window was unlocked, and Taran knew his own home well enough to direct Saffron there once he had a chance to sneak through the darkness.
The entire time, Saffron’s teeth chattered. His heeled boots slipped on the ice of the drive, but he only fell and cracked his head once. He barely felt it, having done the same an infinite number of times growing up in Amber Valley.
Ryder wasn’t lying about the open window, thankfully, and Saffron was able to shove the pane open before heaving himself inside. He tumbled into a pile of his own cloak on the other side, untangling himself from his cloak and hurrying to re-latch the window, before scrambling over to where the fireplace burned low to keep the otherwise dark room at a comfortable temperature. Holding his hands toward the flames, he exhaled a low breath of relief, before patting the breast of his doublet for his knife, and checking beneath the cuff of his sleeve for his wand. Both remained where he’d stored them.
“Icarus, come ,” he whispered, and his shadowy companion emerged with hardly a breath of sound to join him.
“What’s your plan, exactly?” Taran asked. “Do you really intend on trusting Ryder this much?”
“Hardly,” Saffron answered back, rubbing his hands together as the feeling slowly returned to his fingers. “I’m going to wait at least until Anysta lets him leave the party; I assume that’ll be proof that all other guests have also left or gone to bed.”
“And then what?”
Saffron thought about that. “I admit—there’s a part of me willing to ask you to just kill him on the spot,” he muttered, and even Taran chuckled darkly. “But I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. You say the memory tapestry definitely isn’t here, but I’m curious to know why Ryder thinks so. I’ll ask him, and depending on his answer, maybe you’ll realize something he doesn’t.”
“Fair enough,” Taran said, lowering himself to rest on the floor. He crossed large paws in front of him, but otherwise remained upright and alert with ears pointed. “Do you think Ryder will assume you’re also looking for the tapestry? To find it before he does.”
“He’d be the stupid one if he hasn’t already figured that out,” Saffron muttered. “And honestly, I don’t know if I care if he thinks that. He wouldn’t have told me what he was looking for if he didn’t also think I’d also look for it, especially something so dangerous…”
“Maybe he hopes you’ll find it first, in order to take it from you. To save himself the trouble.”
“That’s fine,” Saffron said with a frown. “He must really be desperate, to risk that though…”
“Or he truly underestimates your ability to keep things from him.”
“Oh, I know he does.”
“He’s a bit of a prick, isn’t he?”
“And the sack.”
Taran chuckled again—a sound Saffron might never get used to, one that still made a little chill race down his spine, as even in wolf form there was the smallest hint of familiarity to it.
“You really will keep me from getting hurt, right?” he asked before realizing the feeling had turned into words. Taran’s bright red eyes turned to him, regarding him for a long moment, before gazing back toward the fire.
“I don’t have any choice,” he answered simply. Lacking any sentimentality, until he adjusted the overlap of his paws, and stretched out his neck in order to nudge Saffron on the shoulder with his nose. “Don’t do anything stupid, and I won’t have to.”
“When have I ever done anything stupid?” Saffron asked—just as the bedroom door suddenly slammed open, and the stench of burning yew flooded his nose.
Leaping to his feet, Saffron barely made it upright before he was shoved back to the floor again, pinned beneath gloved hands that clawed at the ring on his finger, his engagement ring, that would make him prone to enchantment.
“Icarus—!” he attempted, but yew was shoved into his mouth first, burning and making him gag as the wolf vanished into the shadows beneath the weight of the assaulting tree.
Dragged from the room, the corridor on the other side was too dark to see, Saffron’s insides burned too brightly against the yew to think clearly, to consider any possible way to free himself. He didn’t know who had their hands on him, only that it wasn’t Ryder, himself. They towed Saffron too roughly, grunted their commands too bitterly, where Ryder had always handled him with such possessive ease and care. But it didn’t matter who exactly carried him through the halls of the mac Delbaith estate, Ryder or not—Saffron knew the man was not innocent in any of it.
A door was kicked open in front of him, and Saffron was dragged through on his knees, before tossed to a carpeted floor. Inside the room was warm, smelling of burning birch logs and candles, ink and paper, leather-bound books.
When he finally managed to push himself up just enough to see for himself, Saffron deciphered the inside of a old study, where only two other figures waited for him to be delivered.
Anysta mac Delbaith sat at the large desk in the center of the room, writing something calmly on a piece of parchment. In the chair facing her—Ryder sat stiffly, one leg crossed as he looked down at Saffron with an unreadable look on his face. But whatever it was didn’t appear directed at Saffron, specifically—rather, like he was furious to be forced to betray him at all.
“Here he is,” Ryder said, addressing Anysta flatly, but with a sense of urgency. “Now tell me what you promised.”
“The queen’s memory tapestry is not here,” Anysta answered, with such simplicity Saffron almost didn’t realize the implication of the words. “It vanished with Virtue Holt at the end of the war. I believe Verity entrusted him with it.”
“Virtue—!” Ryder exclaimed, leaping to his feet. Anysta’s eyes flickered up to him for a moment, before sliding to Saffron, then to the group of people who’d dragged him there from the guest room. Saffron finally turned to look, too, stomach sinking at the sight of three veiled witchhunters hovering at his back. Blocking the doorway.
“Take Master O’Daire back to his room,” Anysta continued calmly, before smirking with faux apology. “Ah, my mistake. Mister Kyteler, I mean.”
“You bitch—” Ryder attempted, stumbling backward as the same witchhunters who once obeyed him flared forward, grabbing him by the arms and shoving him to his knees. One of them hissed ‘restraint,’ and Saffron jumped at the familiar sound of two silver cuffs snapping together behind Ryder’s back.
“Should one of us wait here with you, my lady?” Another asked before dragging Ryder out. Anysta just waved them away, focused on finishing her letter as the contentious group left with the door closing on their heels.
She paid no mind to Saffron in the meantime, even as he forced himself all the way upright, reaching into his mouth to scrape as much of the yew from his tongue and the back of his throat as he could. Even cleared of the offending taste, Saffron still couldn’t hear Taran in the back of his mind. He could still feel the disconnect from his magic. He knew it would return, it was only a matter of time—he only needed to prolong his life a little longer.
“I assume there’s a reason you—” he started, but Anysta raised a hand to him. A sign to wait as she finished what she was writing. Saffron stared at her, struck first with a rush of beantighe-tinged embarrassment, before it was quickly overtaken with annoyance.
“There’s a reason you brought me here!” He insisted. “Rather than have those witchhunters kill me on the spot. Why take Ryder away? I think he could have made our conversation much more entertaining.”
“Ryder won’t be kept long, I’m sure,” she said. “I knew from the start he was only behaving because I had something he wanted. Now that I’ve told him, it’s only a matter of time before he shakes free.”
“Aren’t you worried the witchhunters might betray you? Seeing as they were loyal to him first?—”
Anysta barked a laugh, sitting back in her chair. She tipped the end of her quill into the inkwell, allowing the writing on the parchment to dry as she finally turned to meet Saffron’s eyes. Resting her chin on overlapping fingers, she smiled at him, appraising him up and down. Looking far too much like Taran, though lacking the same brooding misery that fey lord always had hanging heavy under his eyes.
“Those witchhunters are loyal to only one person in this life—and that is their queen. Ryder Kyteler made them promises in her name, but I made better ones.”
“Like what?” Saffron asked, but Anysta just continued smiling at him.
“You really are quite bold, considering whose floor you are currently kneeling on.”
Saffron clenched his jaw. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Why would you be?” Anysta tilted her chin slightly. “The first veil-oathed rowan witch in centuries… I should be more afraid of you, shouldn’t I, Saffron de Patron de Luvon mag Shamhradhaín?”
Saffron’s blood ran cold, lips parting slightly as the air slipped from his lungs, leaving him empty.
“… Ah. My mistake,” she said, with the same amused curl of her lip as when she uttered the same to Ryder. “The Flower of Alvénya, I meant. Lord Saffron mag Shamhradhaín of Lelfe, of Alvénya. Is that right?”
“You…” Saffron meant to threaten something in return, but managing that single word was almost too much. And Anysta mac Delbaith—just kept smiling, like the look on Saffron’s face was her favorite taste of wine.
“You look surprised,” she cooed. “Though, not nearly as surprised as Cylvan was when I shared it with him. For a second, I thought maybe even he’d been tricked by you—but no, he knew all along, didn’t he? You were the wild, red-veiled witch who killed my brother at his own engagement party, weren’t you? What a shock, that Cylvan knew all along…”
She rose to her feet, taking the parchment from her desk and folding it over, once, twice, three times, before tucking it into an envelope. “I’m saving those details for after the prince’s court of expectations, though—when I’ll really need them most. Thankfully, Cylvan’s own reputation is propelling the rest as it is. I think the final call for it will come tomorrow night, at this rate, which means we’ll have our coming Night King declared by next week. So much to do, still, so many things…”
“You—!” Saffron attempted again. He leapt to his feet—only to stumble, tripping back to the floor as something long and thin, silver and sharp, shuddered on Anysta’s desk before lifting and darting toward him.
He didn’t have to see the companion quill in Anysta’s hand to recognize it—Elluin’s quill, her silver needle, the same one that carved words into Saffron’s back. The one that killed Kaelar, the one Saffron himself used to claim Taran’s silver bones. In the chaos of what he’d done on Ostara, he’d assumed someone else had picked it up. Cylvan, or Adelard, or someone else, to put it away to never see the light of day again—but that was wrong. Right in front of him, he could see how wrong he was—and Taran’s warning from Cylvan’s bedroom the night of the games rang like deafening church bells in his ears.
I can assure you, they are not as isolated as you may think.
They do not need to attend galas in-person to know exactly what goes on at them.
Even back then, Saffron had asked if there was any chance the mac Delbaiths were working alongside Ryder in all of that man’s destruction—and Taran had reassured him it wasn’t likely. My family wants to rule on the throne, not overturn it.
The needle hovered mere inches from Saffron’s eyes as Anysta went back to her business, opening the latticed window and allowing the wintry nighttime air to waft inside. She whistled something, summoning a great horned owl to clasp at the edge of the window with flexing talons. She scratched under its beak, before tucking the envelope into the sash attached to its back, and sending it on its way.
“I don’t wish to kill you tonight, Saffron,” she spoke again, closing the window with a small flurry of snow rushing through the crack between the panes. “In fact, I think you’re more important to my cause than Prince Cylvan himself—considering how easily you’ll bring his undoing. More than anything I could have ever dreamed up, myself. You really are a gift to the people of Alfidel, and I intend to treat you as such.”
“I’m not doing anything for you?—”
“You don’t have to,” she said, turning to him with an excited shine to her warm hazel eyes. “The fact Cylvan chose you secured his Night Court already, don’t you understand? He was doomed the moment he thought a human better suited him than my brother. Or any other high fey, for that matter.”
“I told him as much first,” Saffron sneered. The tip of the needle followed his slightest movements, making his heart pound harder than the wind against the window.
“No matter,” she said, sweeping back to her desk. “I promise to take good care of you until Cylvan’s Court of Expectations has come and gone. After which, you’re free to return to Avren. I already have a room prepared for you.”
“And then what?” Saffron asked. “After Cylvan’s Court, then what will you do?”
She practically fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I can assure you, Flower of Alvénya, you’ll know in due time. The people of Alfidel need someone they can turn to for the promise of a rising sun after such long darkness—and I intend to deliver them exactly that. One who resembles the veiled queen herself. Ambitious just like she was—and bright enough to devour Cylvan’s impending darkness as they were always meant to, with a little guidance.” She glanced at the table behind her for a moment. “Just you wait and see, the warm Day I will deliver to the people of Alfidel.”
“Saffron!” A voice tore through the back of his mind, and Saffron didn’t waste a second.
“Icarus, come!”
The wolf tore from the shadows, summoning a sharp gasp from Anysta, who stumbled backward from her chair at the desk. The needle collapsed to the floor as she stared at him—at her brother, at the wolf king, who pawed at the ground with a lip-curling growl emerging from the back of his throat. Like Saffron would have to command him to hold back on killing her, instead of the other way around.
Saffron turned for the door, only to be knocked back when it suddenly slammed open, and one of the witchhunters stormed back inside with their veil askew, nose bloodied. Nearly tripping over his feet, Saffron rushed backward, out of the hunter’s reach while they were distracted by the sight of Lord Taran glaring down Anysta on the other side of the room.
Stumbling backward into a wide table pressed into the wall beneath the rows of books, the glasslike sound of wind chimes rang up in protest—and when he turned to look, his already-racing heart slammed harder against the inside of his ribs.
A drawn map of Alfidel, curled edges weighed down with silver blocks on each side. Hovering over the parchment, more than two dozen small, silver points loomed, some bobbing up and down slightly, others shifting as their tips slowly traced along a minuscule road, a river, within various cities across the map. The largest cluster hovered over Fjornar at the highest point of the map, unmoving except whenever Saffron’s thighs bumped the table. One barb trailed up the edge of the mac Delbaith Estate—before suddenly jumping ahead, whisking into the cluster floating over Fjornar and colliding with the group already there. Saffron knew without having to ask—it was Ryder, tracked somehow by the needle hovering over the parchment. That was Ryder—and he was going to get away, again, if Saffron didn’t hurry.
Taran’s confrontation nearly brought Saffron back—but something else caught his attention. A smaller handful of points scattered over Avren—one of them indicating the place where Saffron knew Lugh’s Altar to be. Where Cylvan spent so much of his time praying for the recovery of his lost sibling. Just like Ryder—Anysta was following his every move, too.
“Cylvan—” Saffron choked, recalling the prince’s opulent silver horn. Placed by Anysta, herself. Claimed to help the missing horn grow back, but instead—Anysta had used it to track Cylvan’s location. Explaining how she always met them wherever they went. Explaining how she knew Cylvan had already returned to Avren, why her invitation to Saffron didn’t bother including his name.
Throwing out his arm, Saffron swept it across the map, knocking every piece of silver away with a sound like a bag of coins spilling across the floor—but the needles just shuddered where they rolled to a halt, before lifting upright again and, like a choreographed dance, returning one by one to where they belonged. That same barb once again indicating exactly where Cylvan stood. Where he lingered on the edge of the cliffs. Alone. Waiting for Saffron to return.
Of course Cylvan was eager to return to Avren after Anysta confronted him at the dé Bricríu Estate. Of course he’d acted strangely toward Saffron, knowing someone so powerful knew Saffron’s most dangerous secret—god damn him, he should have just said something!
“Damnit!” Saffron exclaimed, inadvertently drawing the witchhunter’s attention back and compelling them to rush him. Rammed back into the edge of the table, the silver points clattered against one another a second time as Saffron’s hand struck his attacker’s chest. Shoving them away just enough to roll back onto the table, bending his knee and slamming his heels into the witchhunter’s chest to send them flying back into the bookshelf.
Only as the witchhunter caught themself on their hands and knees, pushing themself upright, did Saffron see the silver ring on their finger—the same one Kaelar once wore to command Saffron’s silver cuffs in Danann House. That time, used to control the ones Ryder wore. Perhaps even the very same.
Saffron summoned the rowan magic in his blood to flare—to fill and overflow in his veins, to swell up into his eyes until the glow of opulence and aridity filled his vision and haloed around every living thing in the room. Seeing the bright white glow around the ring on the witchhunters hand, it was the last confirmation he needed, before pushing off from the table and lunging at them.
Grabbing the back of their veil, Saffron tore it off, revealing a feral fey lady underneath, baring her teeth and snarling like a wild animal. Saffron bared his teeth right back, slamming a knee into her stomach, before shoving her into the books and pinning her against the floor. He clawed at her hand, fighting against her defensive fists that found his chest, the side of his face, until he was able to wrap his fingers around the ring and rip it away for himself. In the scuffle, he didn’t notice her opposite hand fly to her waist, removing something from her belt—and liquid silver was thrown across his face, setting his skin on fire and sending him reeling back with a cry of alarm.
Collapsing onto his back, Saffron threw his hands up to smear the silver away, fighting to rub it out of his eyes, to spit it out of his mouth. He barely managed to look up through blurry vision again when the witchhunter leapt on top of him. That time, she bore down with a knife, pinned just barely out of reach of Saffron’s throat as he held her back with his elbows.
In a rush of panic, he did the only thing he could think of—and summoned all his magic into his chest. Down his arms, into his hands, he forced it into the witchhunter’s body. Just like outside the beantighe dorms at the palace—but that time, he was prepared. He would kill her, before she killed him; he would kill anyone, anything, if they dared get in his way again.
Flooding her pink-tinged halo with red, with crimson arid magic as bright as fresh blood, there was no fear in him that time—only fury. Anger and a burning wrath which flooded that pink glow with his own merciless, burning magic, hotter than any silver that seared his skin or might burn him from the inside out. The veil once said he was too scared to use the magic given to him—and he was going to prove it wrong. He would use his magic, as wild and untenable and dangerous as it was, to carve his way back home no matter what it took.
The witchhunter guttered with wet gasps, blood spilling from her mouth across his chest, before finally collapsing onto her side with a choking death-rattle. Saffron kicked her off, scrambling back to his feet, searching the room for where Taran still had Anysta pinned against the wall.
Saffron didn’t wait—he just called out for the beast to follow, and threw himself into the corridor to run.