Chapter 5
Elara’s heart pounded as a few lords exchanged glances, as though Aoife’s name carried its own set of complications. The amber-braided female made a dismissive gesture. “Bring her.”
At the acknowledgment—proof of his sister’s life—Elara felt Reynnar’s pulse jump beneath the veneer of control. A guard opened a side door, and Aoife appeared—hair loose and wind-tangled, cheeks flushed from cold or fury, eyes cutting sweeps through the hall.
And when she saw Reynnar—
She didn’t hesitate. In three strides, she was across the floor, colliding with him hard enough to steal his breath.
Reynnar caught her, arms locking around her with almost brutal force—then his eyes closed, just for a moment.
Aoife held on tight before pulling back, fingers digging into his shoulders, searching his face.
“You absolute bastard,” she whispered, and the words were affectionate in the way only siblings could manage.
Reynnar’s mouth twitched. “Fi.”
She struck his shoulder once—a sharp punctuation—then turned and seized Elara too, pulling her in with surprising strength. Elara stiffened on instinct, then forced herself to ease. Aoife’s embrace smelled of smoke and mountain air, of the frankincense burning in the plaza.
“Are you hurt?” Aoife demanded, her gaze snapping to Elara’s bandaged hand.
“Kynra,” Reynnar muttered.
Elara shook her head. “I’m fine.”
Aoife’s attention cut back to Reynnar. “You let her catch a spear?”
“She moved before I could.”
Aoife clicked her tongue, then turned back toward the Concord, her posture shifting into something performative—chin lifted, shoulders back, the look of someone who knew how to stand in a hall like this and not be swallowed by it.
Ciarán watched them with narrowed eyes. “Aoife,” he said, “this is not a forum for further testimony. You were summoned solely to reunite with your kin and to finalize arrangements for your removal.”
Elara ground her teeth. They had already heard Aoife’s account—heard it, weighed it, and still forced Reynnar to retell his own, only to discard them both. They weren’t even pretending at ignorance. This was willful. Blatant refusal.
Aoife laughed, the sound bright and utterly unafraid.
“I will not be escorted out of Cruithneach, not before word reaches the Ellylldan crown about the manner of my welcome.” Her gaze swept the tiers, bold as a thrown gauntlet.
“How Turlaith patrols, eager to prove their zeal, dragged me into these halls as though I were a criminal. All for crossing land already bleeding toward war.”
Ciarán’s expression tightened. “War?”
“Yes,” Aoife said, sharp as flint. “War. The sort you insist cannot touch you because you live inside a mountain.” Her mouth curved, humorless.
“I have been here for hours. I have not been offered water, food, a bath, or a healer. I find it remarkable that Sídhe who pride themselves on moral authority show so little interest in practicing it.”
She turned then, briefly, to Reynnar—something unspoken passing between them. “Whatever treaty exists between our kin and theirs,” she said, “it does not hold once you are on their soil.”
A shiver ran through Elara, not from cold but from the Concord’s displeasure that gathered like pressure in a sealed chamber—contained, but rising.
Reynnar let out a slow, weary breath and turned from Aoife.
“Is this how the Turlaith honor their sacred bonds,” he asked, “turning blades on those who seek shelter?” His gaze swept the tiers—molten amber raking over them.
“Your own kin stood among us across the veil—they survived chains and iron rings and the slow work of starvation. They bled beside us. Will you deny them aid as well? Or is suffering only tolerable when it belongs to those beyond your borders?”
A lord in the third tier leaned forward. “We are not beholden to your dramatics, Ellylldan,” he said. “The treaty is old. Its language is—”
“Clear,” Reynnar cut in. “It was signed in root and stone. It names sanctuary. It names food. It names healing. It names passage. Invoke your laws if you must, but do not pretend you cannot read your own agreements when it inconveniences you.”
Elara’s pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out the murmured voices around her.
Somewhere beyond these walls, thousands of survivors waited in the forest—cold, hungry, exhausted, and afraid.
They were not an army. They were a scattered, battered remnant.
And here, in this echoing bowl of stone, the Concord debated whether they were worth a cup of water.
A murmur swept the tiers. A rustle of outrage. Until Kynra stepped forward with measured calm. She did not look at Reynnar.
“The treaty’s rites will be observed,” Kynra continued.
“The Brannocs will be given water and food. Bathing springs will be opened to them. Healers will be summoned. They will be granted rest. You may debate among yourselves until the next thaw if you wish, but you will not do so at the expense of treaty law.”
Elara blinked, her gaze darting—quick and careful—to Reynnar.
He had gone completely still, eyes locked on Kynra with a wariness that felt older than the past few hours.
Something flickered between them—recognition, not friendly or warm, but weighted with history.
Like blades that had crossed once and still remembered the sound.
They had known each other’s names in the forest.
That was not nothing.
The lords exchanged glances, a ripple of reluctant assent passing through them before one gave a dismissive wave.
Guards moved forward, and the smaller door set into the great stone slabs opened once more.
They were ushered from the chamber into the hall beyond.
Elara drew in a breath, only then feeling the ache in her shoulders from how long she’d held them tense.
They turned a corner—and stopped short.
Caelion stood in the corridor ahead, half-shadowed by a flickering torch.
He looked different outside the Pit’s grime and iron: hair pale as frost, eyes a crystalline blue that caught the mineral glow and threw it back.
His posture had that otherworldly stillness that still gave Elara goosebumps, but his gaze softened the moment he saw them.
Reynnar crossed the short distance and clasped Caelion’s forearm, pulling him in.
“You’ve looked better.”
“Missed you too.” Reynnar’s mouth curved faintly.
Caelion’s gaze shifted to Elara, something complicated flickering across his face. He inclined his head. “Tank yeh.”
Elara’s cheeks burned as Reynnar barked a laugh.
Caelion blinked. “What?”
Reynnar shook his head. “That’s not—” He glanced at her. “This is Eilíara.”
She scratched carefully near the edge of her bandage as if she could smooth away embarrassment the way one erased an itch. Sídhe customs were a minefield. She’d learned the hard way.
Caelion’s mouth twitched—the closest thing to a smile she’d ever seen on him. “Ah.”
Aoife looked between them, but Reynnar waved her off. “Long story.”
“Eilíara,” Caelion corrected carefully, like he was setting something in its proper place before making a small gesture in a motion she didn’t understand: fingers spread, palm angled outward briefly, then drawn back to the heart.
She glanced at Reynnar in silent question.
“This is our gesture of thanks,” he murmured. “It is not given lightly. It is a sign of deep respect.” A pause. “And recognition.”
Elara offered Caelion a small, wistful smile, tucking the gesture away like a note in the margin of a book she meant to reread later. Do that back when it’s right. Try not to get it wrong.
Kynra appeared at the far end of the corridor, her stride crisp and unhurried. “Let’s go,” she said, as if nothing of consequence had transpired in the Concord at all. “You’ll receive what’s owed.”
They followed her along a narrow path that curved down the mountainside, away from the city’s carved grandeur.
The sound of the thoroughfares faded behind them.
The air grew warmer, wetter. Steam threaded through low stone walls ahead, drifting in ribbons that made the evening light look broken.
Voices rose in unison: gather supplies, fetch healers, bring food, prepare the springs.
It was all so efficient, so terribly ordinary after what had just passed.
Elara’s hands tightened at her sides as the Turlaith guards dissolved into motion.
A mineral tang of sulfur and iron caught at the back of her throat as their path opened up to a terrace of tiered pools cradled in stone, their surfaces rippling with heat.
Without hesitation, Reynnar, Caelion, and Aoife stripped off their ragged clothes, shedding the grime and horror of the Pit.
Turlaith emerged from the trees with armfuls of roots and herbs—yucca, soapwort, and others Elara didn’t recognize—used to cleanse wounds.
Some small part of her, not yet buried beneath numbness and bone-deep exhaustion, marveled that such plants thrived both here and in her own world.
She followed their lead, peeling off her clothes until she stood shivering in only her underthings.
Her gaze flicked to Aoife, who had shed everything without hesitation.
Her body was all fluid grace and soft curves, marred only by the fierce scars across her back—marks where Elara could almost imagine wings once unfurled.
Aoife caught her staring and laughed, bright and unashamed, moonlight gilding every line of her as she dove into the steaming pool.
A smile tugged on Elara’s lips as Reynnar stepped closer, eyes sweeping methodically over her. “Let me see,” he murmured, already drawing her hand toward him. He unwrapped the bandage and took in her wound, his frown deepening. “Foolish.”
She rolled her eyes and tried to pull back, but his grip held firm. He was right, of course. She knew she’d been reckless. And yet, whenever he was in danger, reason was always the first thing she lost.
A throat cleared beside her, and she turned to find a Turlaith standing close.
Ink wound across his skin in looping, vine-like patterns that climbed his jaw and throat before disappearing beneath the layers of his clothing—trailing down his arms, vanishing at his wrists as if still searching for soil.
“You require healing?” he said in clipped, harsh Tírrísh.
Elara nodded, and he took her hand. His fingers were cool as his thumb brushed the torn skin. Power stirred—nothing like the violent Draoth she knew. Flesh knit beneath his touch, seamless as woven thread. No heat. No pain. No scar.
She stared.
His gaze fell to her wrist as he released it, lingering on the pale scars that crossed her skin—line after line, climbing higher as if tracing the story written there. It stopped at the mark on her throat.
“Do you want those healed as well?”
Elara went very still. The question took her off guard.
Pain and memory and ownership tangled together, pulling in opposite directions until nothing moved at all.
“No” rose to her lips before any other thought could stop it.
She had to clear her throat and say it again, more evenly, so he would understand.
Reynnar’s treatment took longer. The healer eased the bruising at his throat and closed the old wound in his leg.
One by one, every mark he’d carried from the battle in the Pit—each one Elara had memorized and tended—faded until nothing remained.
When the Turlaith finished, Reynnar murmured his thanks, reached for the yucca and soapwort beside the spring, and offered one to her.
Without a word, he stepped into the water, and she followed.
The heat rose around her like breath, sinking through skin and sinew until the ache she’d carried for days finally began to ease.
She scrubbed herself raw, almost frantic, hands shaking as she worked through her tangled hair.
When she finally moved on, she looked down at her hands.
Dark flecks of blood clung beneath her nails, crusted and stubborn despite all the scrubbing.
The image struck without warning—a dagger buried deep in a chest, the surge of blood flooding her hands as she tore it free.
Osin’s blood.
Her stomach twisted violently, nausea clawing its way up her throat as she fought the sudden, overwhelming urge to be sick. The world narrowed to the red under her fingertips, to the way her breath hitched and refused to come again.
A motion broke through her panic. Caelion knelt beside her, silent, the steam curling between them. In his hand was a strip of soft linen, worn and faintly stained with herbs. He offered it without hesitation, their eyes meeting for the briefest moment.
Her hands trembled as she took the cloth.
She wiped slowly, until the blood lifted from beneath her nails and the water drifted clear.
When she finally looked up, Caelion was still watching her.
There was something in his expression—a kind of aching gentleness, the look of someone who had been there before and remembered how it felt to crawl back out.
He managed a small, sad smile, then turned away. Steam rose around him, softening the harsh lines of the scars across his back. They stood out now that the grime was gone—somehow crueler.
Her throat tightened, tears burning. They would all carry these marks—not just scars on skin, but wounds sunk deep into memory and mind, into the soul itself. Invisible, perhaps, but far worse for it.
Memories they could never outrun.
Perhaps, Elara thought bleakly as Caelion slipped beneath the water, that was Osin’s cruelest mark of all—the kind that never healed.