Chapter Forty
By the eve of battle, Iona, Clea, Nell, and Laoise were able to match power levels and send their elements individually through a gemstone.
However, attempting to funnel their combined power through the crystal had proved terribly temperamental. Too much magic would break Adarian’s suspension apart, not enough and there was no effect.
By the time they had made camp outside Edinbane, they were all desperate.
“Fuck!” Adarian cursed, wrenching his hand back from the vial that had shattered.
Clea and Nell were full of apologies, and Laoise reached for Adarian while Iona threw an icicle into the ground.
Aemyra lowered Thear’s crystal as Fiorean sheathed her dagger.
“We must be missing something,” she said, terrified that she had gotten it completely wrong. Perhaps she had misunderstood Bronwyn, or maybe the crone was indeed completely addled and had been spouting nonsense.
Fiorean’s hands clasped her cheeks gently. “No. Their magic is being amplified by the garnet as predicted and binding inside the crystal. It just isn’t neutralizing the binding agent.”
Anxiety twisting in her gut, Aemyra looked down on the coastal city, praying she wasn’t sending her Dùileach to their deaths.
A commotion sounded behind them.
Katherine was arguing audibly with Draevan about her right to remain on the overlook. Aemyra might have been mistaken given the thickness of her skirts, but it looked like Katherine stomped her foot.
Fiorean smirked. “Draevan looks one step away from throwing my mother over his shoulder.”
With a sigh, Aemyra turned to Nell.
“Please inform the dowager queen that the current queen desires she remain safe for the duration of the battle and would she pretty please go back to camp with Maggie, Catriona, and Elizabeth?”
Grateful for a break from experimenting, Nell hurried off down the slope.
Adarian thumbed his hatchet as they looked down toward Edinbane.
“That’s a lot of Covenanters,” he said, eyeing the regimented lines on the beach.
The city had thick walls, fifty feet high, and more than six thousand fighting soldiers. Gone were the small pouches of dust and vials of liquid, these Covenanters wielded trebuchets filled with enormous clay pots containing chemical agents.
“We still have the dragons,” Fiorean replied.
Astonishing Aemyra, the two men exchanged grins over her head, but she was mentally calculating, making sure everyone was in the right position. With a grimace, she massaged her lower back, her body stiff from travel.
“The dragons are a last resort. Too many Dùileach are imprisoned inside the city, and none of us wants to repeat what Kolreath did in Dildain,” she warned. “The winds are already too strong to risk a fire.”
There was a storm gathering far out at sea, waves lapping hungrily at the shoreline.
“Laird Edouard will have a hard time anchoring in this weather,” Iona muttered, eyes on the tide.
Adarian and Fiorean both scanned the horizon, but Laoise squared her shoulders. “The storm will have increased the swell. My brother will not risk breaking a hull.”
Fiorean stepped closer. “I can fly to Edouard with Aervor, tell him to—”
“No. You remain here,” Aemyra said, her nerves getting the better of her as she gripped Fiorean’s arm. Terrea had been growing ever more restless this last week and her anxieties were bleeding through the Bond to Aemyra.
“Look at them lining up in front of the gates for us. How thoughtful,” Draevan drawled, coming to stand behind them.
He kept a healthy distance from Fiorean, but the two had migrated into stony silence rather than outright threats. It was an improvement.
“Did you handle Katherine?” Aemyra asked.
Draevan’s lip curled, like the thought of handling Katherine was akin to touching horseshit. “She is on her way back to the camp with the princesses and Laird Catriona Leuthanach.”
The way he stressed Catriona’s newly appointed title told Aemyra how little he agreed with the queen’s choice, but at least he had not publicly questioned it.
“I don’t know why they insisted on coming the last few miles. It will be far safer back at the camp anyway,” Laoise said.
Feeling Fiorean’s powerful presence beside her, Aemyra knew exactly why. The princesses felt safest with Fiorean around, the man who had protected them from Alfred for years. Katherine hadn’t wanted to be parted from her son, which Aemyra didn’t blame her for.
Looking down at the promise mark on her palm, Aemyra knew this was but the next step in freeing her territory.
When Alfred was purged from this world, she would breathe easier again.
“Sorcha will look out for them,” Aemyra said confidently. “She rules that camp with an iron fist.”
Maeve was already down the hill with the vanguard, the first to engage the Covenanter forces.
Eyeing the gathering storm, Aemyra fidgeted with her breastplate as she remembered the carnage in àird Lasair. This battle needed to be different.
“Brigid guide us,” she muttered, fingering the mark on her palm.
The words were superfluous. Aemyra already knew what she had to do.
“The waiting is the worst part,” Fiorean said quietly.
“Not all the killing and unnecessary death?” Aemyra retorted.
A small smile. “I’m in control of that. The waiting not so much.”
“Pretty confident in your abilities, husband,” Aemyra said, nudging him fondly. “You can’t control other people’s swords, or the direction in which they swing for you.”
Fiorean shrugged. “No one has bested me yet.”
Lifting an eyebrow, Aemyra held up her dagger, the garnet at eye level to remind him of how she had stolen it from him in the harbor.
“An anomaly,” Fiorean assured her. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so absurdly strong.”
Draevan slunk between them. “Clearly Haedren’s lessons were lacking. The first thing I taught my children was to never underestimate your opponent.”
“I thought it was never turn your back on your enemy?” Aemyra asked.
Draevan eyed Fiorean and changed the angle of his shoulders. “That too.”
With a roll of her eyes, Aemyra fingered the crystal around her neck.
“I pray this will be enough,” she muttered.
Tension stretched between them, the knowledge that one or all of them could be dead in a matter of hours settling on their souls. The smell of vomit and loose shit was already wafting from both sides as soldiers prepared to face battle.
Tenderly, Fiorean took Bronwyn’s brooch from his pocket and clipped it to the end of Aemyra’s braid. His fingers traced the delicate iron.
“Cailleach’s knot. For luck and protection,” he said, pulling her close to press a kiss to the top of her head. “The queen’s guard know the plan. They will get into formation once the Dùileach are gathered in front.”
Shifting her feet, Aemyra looked at the lines of infantry marching onto the sand.
“We should get the cavalry into position. I hate to rush them, but—”
Squinting against the darkening sky, Aemyra saw three phoenix scouts streaking toward them. Led by Sujaron.
Draevan noticed at the same moment. “Did you know Riya was scouting?”
That ominous feeling in Aemyra’s gut spread.
Sujaron descended rapidly to the ground, his crimson feathers rippling with the speed of his flight. He dropped Riya from his claws and the laird hit the ground at a run, her breeches billowing and face like thunder.
“I’m guessing there’s a problem with the fleet,” Draevan muttered.
Aemyra spared a glance for Laoise, whose brown cheeks had paled.
The Iolairean laird skidded to a stop just in front of Aemyra.
“The Balnain fleet is burning,” Riya reported, breathless. “Two miles off shore, there are only a handful of ships left floating.”
“What? How?” Laoise demanded, slipping Adarian’s hold.
Riya looked pityingly at her. “The ùir armada approaches from the east with ships bigger than I have ever seen. They didn’t stand a chance.”
“Take me there,” Laoise demanded, gripping Riya by her plated armor.
With a strength no one of her stature should possess, Riya pushed her away. “You are needed here.”
Already knowing she was asking these women to sacrifice too much, it took Aemyra a moment to realize Draevan had summoned Gealach.
“Where are you going?” Aemyra asked her father, a pit of dread in her stomach as a pair of emerald green wings stretched over the treetops.
“To decimate the ùir armada and give Laird Edouard a fighting chance,” her father said, buckling on his greaves. “I told you not to trust Katherine.”
Fiorean bristled. “This wasn’t my mother’s doing. Alfred will be desperate after we defeated Laird Maryk in Dildain. He will have written to the King of ùir and offered him something in return for aid. I dread to think what.”
“It matters not, because he won’t get it,” Aemyra growled, turning to her father. “Go. Fly swiftly, burn the ships, and return as quickly as the wind can carry you. You are needed here.”
Fear gripped her heart even as she assumed the mantle of queen.
Then she turned to Riya.
“I have already asked too much of you,” Aemyra said, “but I need you to dispatch half of your phoenixes behind Gealach to pluck any survivors from the waves.”
Riya squared her shoulders and took two steps closer to Aemyra. “You would ask my warriors to risk being targeted by the ùir armada, as well as disarm the trebuchets here?”
“Yes,” Aemyra said firmly, more sorry for the order than anyone knew. “You are the only ones who can do this.”
For a moment, she wasn’t sure if Riya was going to punch her.
Instead, the laird bowed slowly, meeting her eye as she rose. “Then do not forget the debt you will owe to my people when this is over.”
With that, Riya took a running jump and was caught by Sujaron.
Aemyra loosed a shaky breath and tried to compartmentalize as her back continued to spasm. Terrea was growing more unsettled through the Bond, and Aemyra tried to shut her out as Gealach descended, his wings struggling with the high winds.
Laoise was crying, Adarian rubbing between her shoulder blades while looking despairingly out at the now-writhing sea.
“How did Alfred know the Balnain fleet was there?” Adarian asked. “Edouard only anchored within sight of the town yesterday, swyfts cannot fly that quickly.”
Laoise turned to Fiorean.
No one said anything, but Aemyra read it in their expressions.
“No.”
“Aemyra.”
“No. Fiorean wouldn’t betray us,” she said adamantly.
Draevan stiffened, but Aemyra didn’t move an inch. “Fiorean will never betray me, or this territory, because he is now King Consort of Tìr Teine.”
Laoise looked completely dumbstruck, but Adarian, far more used to Aemyra’s impulsivity, smiled ruefully.
Aemyra had known what might happen to Fiorean should she die. He would have been an outcast from both sides of the war, a traitor to both the Goddesses and the True Religion.
He would have had no place in the world.
So Aemyra had carved one out for him.
On the flight back to camp they had married in Brigid’s light, in a forgotten temple, just a man and a woman who loved each other.
When Gealach landed heavily, Draevan remained as if made from marble, his green eyes flickering between Fiorean and Aemyra.
Aemyra hardened her heart.
“This is the very last time I will allow anyone to question my husband, your king. We will not win this battle unless we are united in our plan. So do you trust me?” she asked, looking between her twin and her father.
With a stiff bow, Draevan climbed onto Gealach, the emerald dragon tossing his head as thunder rumbled overhead. “With my life,” he replied, almost too quietly to hear.
As Gealach took to the writhing skies, Aemyra turned to her twin.
They had shared a womb, had experienced life and loss together. If there was one person they could always trust, it was each other.
And they both knew it.
Adarian’s sapphire eyes flashed with inner fire as he thumbed his hatchet. Ready to do battle for the queen.
“If this makes me further removed from the throne, I’m all for it,” he finally answered.