Chapter Fifteen
As they emerged into the clearing that had once been home to the army camp, lush grass gave way to charred earth, and the heavy skirts of her dress dragged through the ash still littering the ground.
“All hail Queen Aemyra Daercathian!”
The shout went up as Aemyra moved through the funeral pyres.
There were hundreds of them. Some housed multiple bodies—couples or siblings able to be burned together.
The survivors were gathered on the far side of the clearing, before the moss-covered trees cloaked in perpetual fog. Coupled with the sight of the priestesses’ torches, it was enough to make one believe in the curses and ancient bargains the river folk still spoke about.
A man rested on the pyre to her left, his sword placed reverently upon his chest, dark curls escaping the wrappings. Making the sign of Brigid’s cross and saying a prayer for his soul, she moved forward to the next.
Two women lay side by side. Lovers or sisters, Aemyra didn’t know, but she hoped they were feasting in Brigid’s halls together.
Draevan cleared his throat, but Aemyra did not increase her pace. She caught sight of a small child nestled in the crook of his mother’s arm atop one pyre, and almost fell to the ground.
“Keep your composure,” Draevan hissed.
She almost struck him for the words. They had given their lives for her cause, the very least she could do was look upon their sacrifice.
“I might be queen, but I am not above these people.”
Refusing to wipe her wet cheeks, Aemyra held her shoulders straight. The Daercathian banners, crimson and gold, were fluttering in the gentle breeze, and Aemyra made her way toward them.
Sorcha was standing beside Maeve, her eyes rimmed in red.
Aemyra had found her after the battle, seated on an overturned crate, a bloodied knife in hand. Her eyes had been far away, and Aemyra couldn’t bring herself to ask what Sorcha had seen during the fighting.
A heavily brocaded chair had been provided for the queen, but Aemyra refused to sit. If her people had to stand through this, she would too.
As she took her place, Greer lifted her arms and began the ritual.
Five priestesses held burning torches, twisting them in time with Greer’s words.
Tracking Eilidh’s progress, Aemyra noticed the smears of ink staining her fingers and the dark purple smudges under her eyes.
Perhaps when sleep evaded her, Aemyra could help Eilidh with translating instead of numbing the visions with òmar.
Closing her eyes, Aemyra allowed the musical intonation of Greer’s prayers to soothe her aching soul.
They were perilously far from victory, and this was but a taste of the amount of death they would see before war was over.
Sounds of mourning filled the clearing as priestesses anointed the pyres with blessed oil.
The majority of the dead had been townsfolk, unprepared for an onslaught from the river. Those who had survived had Maeve to thank for splitting her infantry when the insurgents attacked from the forest.
Men and women who had answered their queen’s summons had been felled by their non-Dùileach brothers and sisters—just like at the hamlet in Clan Leòmhann lands.
As the pyres roared to life, the beathaichean began to descend.
Fire salamanders scurried from the tree line to settle themselves on the chests of the deceased from Clan Gille.
Even though the flames would not harm their impenetrable hide, they would lie atop their Dùileach until only ashes remained.
With a mournful chirrup, firebirds settled on the edge of Clan Kerr and Morran’s pyres, their flaming tails setting the wood alight. Unlike the salamanders, they would not survive the burning.
Adarian reached for her hand as more swooped down and she gripped it tightly, thinking of their mother’s beathach, Solas.
Aemyra watched as the firebird closest to her clicked his beak affectionately against the cheek of his Dùileach before curling up at the base of her throat with a soft cheep.
Tears burned in Aemyra’s eyes and she desperately sought her Bond to Terrea. The idea of being separated from her beathach, even in death, was abhorrent.
Feelings of deep irritation coursed toward her, leaving Aemyra with the impression that if she ever dared to die before Terrea, the dragon would burn her body before they even had time to construct a pyre. Dragons were volatile creatures at the best of times, you didn’t want one angry at you.
With a nervous swallow, Aemyra entertained the very likely possibility that both Kolreath and Aervor would now seek revenge.
With that disturbing realization, Aemyra’s tears dried and she managed to stand firm as the pyres burned. Priestesses walked through the smoke, adding more flames to the already growing inferno with their torches.
“May Cailleach grant them eternal rest as Brigid welcomes them in her halls,” Greer called out, raising her arms. “We implore Hela to judge them fairly and release their spirits from the Otherworld.”
Aemyra found Riya in the crowd, surrounded by her warriors. They were dressed in immaculate amber gowns, intricate beads catching the light from draped shawls across their shoulders. Theirs was the only regiment to come out of the battle unscathed.
Phoenixes flew overhead until burnished gold and deep magenta feathers swirled through the sky. Their gentle calls rained down upon the mourners, and Aemyra felt the vibrations echo in her chest, to her very soul.
Their song was mournful, but there was comfort in it too. In a way that made Aemyra want to reach out and touch the notes, to guide them in her own personal melody of grief.
The pyres collapsed and the cries of mourners reached a jarring crescendo. All Aemyra had given her people during her short reign was death.
Feeling the familiar wave of dread threaten, Aemyra struggled to breathe and found Riya staring at her with narrowed eyes.
She needed to be alone before the panic took her, before she collapsed to her knees and felt like she was dying too. Her people could not see what had become of their queen.
“I have to get out of here,” she muttered.
With her cloak skimming the ground, reminiscent of the blood that had been spilled only days before, Aemyra strode off the dais.
The musical clinking of Riya’s beaded gown told Aemyra that the phoenix laird had followed.
Fuck.
“Aems?” Adarian called out, unable to keep up with his bad leg.
Aemyra clawed against the crimson-and-black corset and her sore rib protested. She needed to get out of this dress before she suffocated.
Pressure was building in her head like she was underwater as thoughts of Fiorean smothered her. A soft keening noise snuck out between her lips and she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth hastily. She had made a death promise to kill him; this was what she had wanted.
Then why had Brigid not returned her magic?
The blackened trees passed on either side of her, but even with the pyres left behind, Aemyra’s panic only increased. Grief threatened to engulf her, to drown her like she was held under the surface of the river and unable to draw breath.
Evander had been right, the crown was breaking her.
A hysterical sob choking up her throat, Aemyra strode out of the trees, scratching the mark on her palm as if she could remove it with her nails.
The smell of the smoke from the pyres was choking her, drying out her throat and making her eyes stream, just like…
“No,” she gasped, fighting against the vision threatening to overwhelm her.
“Aemyra?”
Riya’s voice reached her through the trees.
“I apologize, I must return to—”
Her throat was burning, and she couldn’t breathe through the gag.
The fire flickered and the shadows solidified into the shape of priests, the crackling of logs morphing into the drone of prayers.
“Now you will learn why power such as yours should be extinguished.”
Unable to watch it happen to her again, Aemyra turned her head and found her unlikely salvation—Katherine had thrown the door wide open to let in the man who would save her.
But he never came.
The vision changed. Aemyra was still restrained, but now the pain was in her face.
Katherine was screaming from the doorway in a state of undress Aemyra didn’t remember seeing her in.
“Haedren, unhand my son. Let him go!”
Aemyra wanted to open her mouth and shriek words to the same effect, but the sensation of her cheek being split open rendered speech impossible.
Something snapped in Katherine’s gray eyes. She was already bleeding, her lip swollen and split down the middle, but she threw herself at the king.
Aemyra flung her hand out, desperate for anyone, even Katherine, to save her.
Then she realized it wasn’t her hand.
“No!” she gasped, bracing herself on the nearest tree trunk as she came back into her own head.
Aervor didn’t need to destroy her with fire when he could break her mind.
“An unfortunate development,” Riya said.
The laird had caught up and somehow managed to look down at Aemyra despite being nearly a foot shorter.
“I’m fine,” Aemyra gasped, chastising a sleeping Terrea through the Bond as if her dragon had any way to control what Aervor made them both see.
Ensuring no one was listening, Riya crept closer. “A queen without magic is as much use as a phoenix without rectrices.”
Ice flooded Aemyra’s veins and she pushed herself away from the laird. “I don’t know what you mean,” she hissed.
Riya shrugged, as if it was all the same to her. “In Truvo we perform a ritual that might help you stop repressing it.”
Chest heaving, panic still threatening, Aemyra assessed the laird she still did not fully trust. Admitting her weakness in front of Riya might only persuade her to defect and sow seeds of doubt among the council.
No one could know.
“I said I’m fine,” Aemyra ground out.
Turning her back on her people, lurching through the ancient forest, she cried for the husband she had sent to a Goddess who had abandoned her.