Chapter 3 #2
Dark eyes caught the thin light bleeding through the fog and locked on them.
Instinct screamed run, but there was nowhere left to go as more Sídhe took shape in the haze behind her—silent, armed—closing in from every side.
Her pulse skipped, then steadied. Fear flickered but did not take root.
There was no room for it. Only calculation. Only what came next.
The female wore a sleeveless mantle that fell to her knees, fastened at the collarbone. Black braids were pulled back from her temples, threaded with bone, leaves, and flashes of amber. Her bare arms, inked in swirling lines, flexed as she tightened her grip on the spear
“You carry a curse upon your back, Tuathach.”
Reynnar’s arms tightened around Elara’s legs, but her brow furrowed. The Tírrísh sounded wrong—not unintelligible, but skewed, the rhythm off just enough that she had to strain to follow. The woman’s accent was heavier than Reynnar’s, vowels pulled long, endings clipped short.
And even if she hadn’t, the venom in the Sídhe’s tone said enough.
Tuathach.
It was a slur.
Her jaw locked, fingers sliding toward the dagger at her hip—but she never made it that far.
Steel hissed.
The female’s spear snapped upward between them, the point angling for Reynnar’s chest.
Elara didn’t think. Her hand changed course mid-movement, abandoning the dagger. She lunged for the shaft to knock it aside—
And caught the blade instead.
Metal met skin and bit deep. The shock tore a gasp from her as blood slicked her palm, bright against the spear’s silver, spilling in quick, hot rivulets down its edge.
“Eilíara!”
Reynnar’s voice cracked—panic and fury braided together. He reached for her, but too late. The spear shuddered in her grasp, alive with dark recognition. Draoth surged through her palm, racing up her arm in a burning rush.
She clamped down, fingers tightening, jaw set. She forced the energy to slow—to coil instead of consume—holding it there until the tremor eased and the fire in her veins dimmed to a low, obedient thrum.
Elara lifted her chin and met the Sídhe’s gaze.
The warrior’s brows rose—surprise first, then suspicion. Her eyes followed the thin red line down Elara’s wrist and then slid up, lingering on her ears. Whatever she saw there hardened her expression.
“Let go,” Reynnar said, voice taut. “They will not harm me.”
A lie. She felt it in the jump of his pulse.
His hand closed around her forearm, firm enough to say don’t fight me on this. She wanted to. She didn’t. Slowly, she loosened her grip, wincing as skin tore and the blade slid loose, blood rushing after it.
Reynnar caught her hand before it could fall.
Pressed it flat against his chest.
The female warrior bared her teeth. “Has the old blood in you gone so thin, Reynnar of the Broken Court, that you cannot smell her for what she is?”
Elara’s spine snapped straight, heat rushing to her face. Whatever breath she’d meant to take turned to acid in her lungs. But Reynnar didn’t release her hand. Instead, he pushed it harder against his chest. She almost swore she felt his breath shudder at the feel of it.
“I know exactly what she is, Kynra. And if you value whatever remains of our kinship, you’ll choose your next words carefully.”
Kinship?
A second Sídhe stepped forward. He was broader and heavier in presence, though not in build.
A pale scar cut across his face, disappearing into the edge of his beard.
Chestnut hair, loosely braided, brushed his shoulders as he moved.
Two curved blades rose from sheaths strapped across his back, their pommels inlaid with something shimmering—stone, perhaps, or Draoth caught mid-pulse.
His features betrayed nothing but the slight tilt of his head.
“The blood of Men is forbidden here. It poisons the root. It stirs the dead—”
“Then let the root wither if it cannot tell poison from power,” Reynnar said, not even sparing the male a glance. “She is not what you fear. And I am not so far gone that I would mistake her for anything less than sacred.”
His fingers curled against hers, and Kynra’s face twisted. “You, above all the Sídhe, know the founding laws that bind our realm. Her very presence defiles all that we hold dear.”
Elara’s mind parsed what fragments she could—law…defilement…forbidden.
And before she could stop herself, the words slipped from her tongue—
“Ní mise do namhaid.”
I am not your enemy.
A murmur rippled through the ranks of Sídhe like wind through tall grass. Backs straightened, eyes widened.
Kynra’s head snapped toward her. The stillness in her face was worse than fury. “How,” she breathed, every syllable slicing, “does she know our tongue?”
Reynnar remained utterly still. “Because she is not what she seems.”
Kynra’s expression hardened to stone. “Then she is the ruin our forebears bled to contain.”
A chill slid down Elara’s spine—not just from the Sídhe’s words, but from the whisper of steel unsheathed and the hiss of bowstrings pulled taut, every arrow leveled at her brow.
“Slay it,” breathed Kynra, “and let the forest be cleansed.”
Elara barely registered Reynnar’s movements through the rush of her pulse—the firm hand at her thigh, the touch at her shoulder—as he set her on her feet. His hand lingered only until she found her footing. He stepped forward, placing himself between her and Kynra.
“Say that again,” he said softly, “and I will show you just how much of the old blood still burns in me.”
It felt as though Talamh na Sí stilled. Even the birds had gone silent. And then—something cracked in the air. Not a sound, but a pressure. A pull.
“She walks beside me,” Reynnar said—not to the warrior, but to the forest, to the old things listening. “By my will. And if her blood stirs the dead…” His smile was all predator. “Then let them wake. Not even death itself could bar my path if you threaten her again.”
A tremor ran through Elara, heat blooming where fear had lived only moments before. She had spent so long bracing herself to be defended from—or despite—never like this. His words rippled outward, and the forest seemed to stir in answer.
It began in the dirt.
A shimmer, faint as breath—like coals coaxed back to life, like something long buried remembering how to rise.
The air changed. Sound withdrew, leaving behind a silence that throbbed with heat and pressure and the faint crackle of ash curling through it like breath drawn between teeth.
Reynnar’s Draoth seeped from him in slow coils.
Whatever rose in Reynnar—it commanded.
He was smoke without source. Fire without flame. His power threaded through the trees, through bowstrings and blades, tasting every Sídhe that dared stand ready to strike. Even the earth beneath her seemed to bow before it.
A murmur rippled through the ranks, a collective shudder. And one by one, Reynnar’s power closed around them—an unseen hand at the nape. The nearest warrior faltered, knees buckling before he caught himself. Then another—until, across the line, none were untouched by whatever force he wielded.
His eyes—amber gone molten—swept the trembling line. Wind lifted his hair, stretched his shadow long and strange across the ground. When he did finally speak, the sound carried like thunder.
“I bid Na Spioraid Cloiche to heed my voice. I demand an audience with Eamon, Lord of the Silver Glade.”