Chapter Forty-Eight
Aemyra’s boots crunched over the debris underfoot as she walked through the lower town of àird Lasair two weeks later.
For the first time in the ten years she had lived here, Aemyra walked the streets without hiding herself. Her auburn curls cascaded down her back, bejeweled dagger glinting wickedly at her hip, and Fearsolais sheathed between her shoulder blades.
No longer forced to hide her lineage under the hood of a cloak, Aemyra looked upon the destruction and reminded herself that fire cleansed.
This end of the lower town had been hit the hardest during that first bloody battle, and the Covenanters clearly hadn’t thought it a priority to rebuild. Many of the people Aemyra grew up around had been living in squalor.
Aemyra had ordered all able-bodied people to begin clearing the rubble and constructing better homes to replace the ones that had been lost—on the crown’s coin.
The aftermath of the war had been fraught throughout Tìr Teine. Pockets of resurgence had cropped up from Eshader to Moran, and thank Brigid Terrea had immediately returned to Aemyra’s side following the laying.
Aemyra and Terrea had flown to every city, town, and hamlet within Tìr Teine to squash rebellion and remind her people who their queen was.
Dragons had been helpful, but it was Catriona Leuthanach claiming her seat in Fyndhorn who had been the key to settling the non-Dùileach clans. She had assisted Adarian in negotiating a trade deal with Clan Sutherland and had advised making Lorna’s son Cameron the new Laird of Edinbane.
He was fourteen years old, but Aemyra wasn’t going to question the appointment of a gangly teenager when he was so terrified of her dragon he looked inclined to wet himself.
The Leuthanach prisoners were most adept at carpentry, and Aemyra had tasked them with rebuilding Dildain with the incentive of being allowed to construct their own cottages in clan lands of their choosing afterward.
As free men.
Thear had turned his talent for translation to bookkeeping and had been officially appointed royal treasurer. This, alongside gifting Clan Leòmhann Dildain and the surrounding lands, had been enough to keep Laird Lonan appeased and their alliance in place.
It had been a political nightmare, but Aemyra’s territory was as secure as it could be only a fortnight after a war.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Adarian asked, coming to stand by her shoulder as she looked down the street.
Now that her brother was back in the capital, Aemyra had finally worked up the courage to visit their old home.
She hadn’t seen her twin since Draevan’s funeral in Edinbane.
Aemyra and Fiorean had flown south to attend, and the news of Draevan’s sacrifice had spread like wildfire. That last act of the Prince of Penryth had been enough to convince people to support Fiorean as king.
Glad to have her twin home, Aemyra said, “I’ve been putting this off for too long. What’s left will be torn down tomorrow.”
Adarian nodded, the lines of tension around his mouth the only sign that he was struggling as much as Aemyra was.
Entering the charred husk of what had once been their home, Aemyra bent to remove a fallen beam, Adarian pulling aside the heavier posts. Coughing as the disturbed ashes whirled around, Aemyra stepped over the remnants of their front door.
The ghosts of Orlagh, Pàdraig, and Lachlann choked her.
Aemyra made her way to the soot-brushed kitchen cupboards. Pulling until the doors gave way, she rummaged among the remnants of her old life.
The covers of Orlagh’s notebooks were burned and the edges of the pages blackened, but the insides were preserved. Tracing her mother’s letters with her index finger, Aemyra let the tears fall.
Raspberry leaf can be used to encourage a babe forth, but should be used with caution before the mother has completed seven turns of the moon with child.
There were scribbled notes in the margins and several unmentionable stains across the pages.
It was worth more to her than all the jewels in Caisteal Lasair.
“They would be proud of you,” Adarian said. “You freed Tìr Teine. In every city west of the Blackridge Mountains they celebrate the victory of the true queen.”
Toeing the poker on the floor that had also survived the fire, Aemyra sighed. “This doesn’t feel much like victory.”
Adarian crouched beside her. “The Covenanters are gone. The Chosen priests are imprisoned or in hiding. Tìr Teine is safe.”
Aemyra rubbed a hand over her eyes. “They will regroup and return.”
Adarian stiffened. “Then we will be ready for them when they do. Catriona already gave the order for the Savior’s towers east of Fyndhorn to be turned into outposts to guard against that exact eventuality.”
Aemyra sighed wearily. “It will not be enough. Tìr Teine will never be safe if Uisge, ùir, and Adhair are overrun with the Chosen. If we ignore what is happening beyond our borders, we will be sitting ducks when the True Religion comes back for us.”
Adarian frowned. “Then let Terrea’s eggs hatch and her offspring Bond. Create an army of dragons that the Chosen will not dare stand against.”
Her twin conjured a fierce image with his words, and part of Aemyra knew that dragons would be the greatest protection she could offer her territory.
Their sheer size and ferocity was unmatched.
With just three, Aemyra had been able to decimate thousands of Covenanters in Edinbane. With an army of them…
“I will not use the beathaichean for my own ends. They are free to choose their own destiny,” Aemyra said.
The warnings of their history were painfully clear. A hundred dragons had flown to fight in the Fifty Year War—only three had returned.
“But if we want to protect all of Erisocia from the True Religion, we need to be able to leave Tìr Teine,” she continued.
Adarian raised his eyebrows. “You wish for me to be an envoy then.”
“For a start,” Aemyra said, daring to speak her theories aloud to someone other than Fiorean.
When she was finished, her twin’s sapphire eyes were wide, his jaw slack.
“Is that even possible?” he asked.
She continued rifling through cupboards.
“I don’t know, but we will continue experimenting with combined magic and see what we end up with.
Eilidh is recovering well and assisting Thear in the caisteal library, and I’m certain Queen Lissandrea had to have kept a record of how the treaty wall was erected.
If she put it up, we can certainly bring it down. ”
For two hundred years the territories of Erisocia had been separated by magic, the most powerful Bonded Dùileach prevented from ever uniting because their beathaichean could not cross the border. It had allowed the Chosen unprecedented power.
Aemyra was beginning to realize that she wasn’t the only Daercathian queen to have made mistakes.
“Are you sure?” Adarian asked. “To undo such ancient magic…I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“We didn’t know where to begin with the antidote either,” Aemyra said with a small smile, nudging her brother affectionately.
The creation of the antidote during the battle had hardly been inconspicuous, and rumors had been flying up and down the territory about what the queen and king might be able to do together.
Most seemed to believe it was simply a new way to harness fire; thankfully no one was muttering about spirit magic having returned.
Aemyra had offered Bronwyn rooms in Caisteal Lasair, with a retinue of servants and her own apothecary, but the crone had refused with a cackle.
Aemyra suspected Bronwyn rather liked forcing a queen to come to her.
“So if you wish to use me as an envoy, I am not destined to have an egg ceremony?” Adarian asked, a hint of a joke in his voice as he pulled open a small chest.
Aemyra looked through the charred ruins of the room that had once been their living space. “Lachlann would be furious if I forbid you from ever trying, but not yet.”
She had read their little brother stories of Queen Aesandra and the crimson Rhyian, the princess Isobeìl and silver Sylthria, and the ferocious she-dragon Uabhainn, who Aemyra was now certain had to be related to Terrea.
Wild as the wind and fierce as the flames they possessed, every corner of Tìr Teine touched by dragons who grew to be as large as Kolreath.
It was a time of the almost forgotten past, and one Aemyra had the possibility of bringing into the future.
“What’s this?” Adarian asked, reaching into Orlagh’s jewelry box.
Their mother had hardly ever donned more than studs in her earlobes, but there were a few nicer pieces she would wear to weddings.
But neither of them recognized this necklace.
It was made of two smooth stones, one a brownish-red carnelian, the other a white crystal.
Placing the journal carefully on the splintered table, Aemyra pulled the necklace from Adarian’s grasp and noticed the thistle stamped into the delicate iron holding the two stones together.
A gemstone and a crystal.
Her heart was thundering as Adarian smoothed out the scroll that had been nestled beside it.
“She can’t have known,” Aemyra whispered, running her thumb over the stones, sensing no magic inside.
The twins’ eyes roved over the parchment, finding a scribbled design and a few hasty notes just like in the journal.
Healing and protection.
Pendants or amulets?
“She was the Healer on High on the Sunset Isle,” Adarian muttered. “Perhaps she discovered something before we moved here.”
“And kept it secret all this time?” Aemyra asked.
Getting to her feet, she looked around their home, wishing she could have one last conversation with those they had lost.
Placing the necklace into the deep pocket of her cloak, Aemyra picked up Orlagh’s journal and turned to Adarian.
“This only confirms what I already know to be true. There are larger powers at play,” she said.
Adarian got to his feet and squared his shoulders. “How soon do you want me to leave?” he asked.
“As soon as possible. The griffin clans of Tìr Adhair have been fighting among themselves for too long. Perhaps we can finally unite them if we give them something worth fighting against.”
Adarian’s cheeks flushed and he shifted his feet. “So there won’t be time for a royal wedding first?” he asked.
Knowing Adarian had been waiting to tell her, Aemyra smiled. “So Laoise has officially asked you then?”
The flush of his cheeks spread to his neck.
“Our people will be buoyed by a royal wedding. Once things begin to settle down, rejoicing at your union will bring them together,” Aemyra replied, eyeing her brother seriously.
“You once said you would never accept a proposal until you had something to give a woman, but you were the only one who could not see that you were always enough, even as a blacksmith.”
She pulled him into a hug, understanding the emotion he struggled to put into words as his arms tightened around her.
“Will we be allowed to pick the date?” Adarian asked, pulling away. “Or have you chosen that for us too?”
“When you return from Tìr Adhair, after my coronation,” Aemyra replied.
“I want to give you a celebration worthy of a Daercathian prince, and the royal treasury needs time to recover from this war.” She nudged him to lighten the mood.
“I’m glad you told me now—Laoise can have her pick of the crown jewels before I have to flog them all to pay for these repairs. ”
Finally, they let themselves laugh.
It felt wrong to be happy after all that had happened—but what had all those people died for if not to allow those who had survived to feel joy? Orlagh, Pàdraig, and Lachlann would always be with them, wherever they went.
“Come, there is nothing left for us here,” Aemyra said, leaving the ghosts of her loved ones behind and going in search of the people she now called family.