Chapter 9
Elara leaned against the stone balustrade, cold cutting through her borrowed clothes as she watched Cruithneach’s streets far below.
Sound rose—music braided with laughter, boots striking stone, voices lifted too loud to be anything but celebration.
Firelight flickered across balconies and arches, gilding the Turlaith in copper and gold as they danced.
A festival, perhaps. Or the indulgence of safety, rare enough to be savored when it appeared.
A cold gust funneled through the mountain, and Elara twined her fingers through the frigid air, welcoming the sting that followed.
The chill kept her awake. She lifted the bottle and took a cautious sip.
Regretted it immediately. The Sídhe spirit burned all the way down—stronger than any human liquor she’d ever tasted.
Honey-sweet at first, deceptively so, before the heat followed, clawing through her throat and settling like fire in her chest. She winced, swallowed again on instinct, and exhaled slowly through her nose.
Curse it all.
She took another drink anyway.
Behind her, the doors to the balcony stood open, warm light spilling out from her chamber.
Aoife and Caelion’s voices drifted through it in low conversation—strategy, likely, or speculation, or the careful stitching-together of plans meant to hold until morning.
Elara had tried to stay. Had only made it a full minute before the walls had begun to close in.
She didn’t want to hear any more about all the ways in which the plan could go wrong.
So, she’d stood, muttered something about air, and Reynnar had followed without comment. He’d taken her back down into the city, into a different alehouse nearby where the ceiling dripped condensation and the floor thrummed faintly with music from below.
He hadn’t asked what she wanted. Just reached behind the counter, grabbed two bottles, and left without looking back.
“The strongest,” she’d said on the way back.
“This,” he’d replied, handing her one.
Elara tipped the bottle again, the glass cool against her fingers, and took a longer swallow this time.
The burn followed—inevitable—but so did the warmth, spreading outward, loosening her nerves.
Her head fell forward as she closed her eyes, breathing through the noise, the cold, the heat in her veins.
Images kept surfacing unbidden: the Concord’s tiered chamber and their stares; Kynra’s grip on her arm; Reynnar standing bare and furious beneath the trees.
Aoife’s sharp smile. Caelion’s gratitude.
Ivan.
She tightened her grip on the bottle until the glass pressed hard into her palm.
Another drink. Another flare of heat to drown it all out—the memory, the kiss, the taste of him and copper on her tongue.
She had given Ivan her blood. Had thought, for sure, that it would be enough.
That she had finally cracked the code, read between the lines just right, unraveled the mystery of him.
But it had not saved him. Perhaps it never could have.
The realization settled with brutal clarity.
Elara sucked in a breath. The burn in her throat had nothing to do with the drink this time. She swallowed another mouthful as if it might cauterize the ache, but it only layered heat on top of it—pressing it harder against her lungs.
She had tried.
That, at least, was true.
My soul for hers. The phrase still made her stomach twist. A pact with death—needless, reckless, and utterly characteristic of Ivan.
He hadn’t meant harm; he’d simply been sentimental to the point of foolishness, too eager to sacrifice himself.
He might have saved them both, had he paused to think for longer than five seconds.
Fury prickled behind her eyes, but she pushed it back.
Perhaps Sybil’s cryptic, maddening ramblings had confused him as thoroughly as they had her.
It was the only explanation she had left, and the only thing keeping her from staying furious with him forever.
She dragged a hand down her face and drank again. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring—didn’t know how many Sídhe were still missing, or whether the Concord would truly move—but tonight, at least, she could stand here and attempt to drown out the full measure of it. Even if it burned.
Footsteps approached behind her.
Elara didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. Reynnar stopped at her back, leaning against the stone, facing the palace instead of her. He said nothing. Still, she felt his guarded attention settle on the pallor of her face, the slack grip on her bottle.
They had not spoken about it.
The Draoth Cara.
What it truly was. What it meant. What it had already altered beyond repair.
There had been no space for questions. No quiet moment to take stock.
Ivan had shoved them through the gate with blood still on his hands and desperation in his eyes, and the world had simply…
kept moving. Crisis layered atop crisis, revelation piled onto survival.
She wasn’t certain she could speak about it yet—even to Reynnar.
Especially to Reynnar. Her thoughts were still racing, struggling to organize themselves around truths too large to sit neatly in the mind.
Ether. Draoth. Not forces of nature, not gifts bestowed by distant gods, but something living. Something taken.
Her throat worked.
Ivan had wielded four elements.
Four different souls, torn from four different Sídhe.
Even if it had not been his choice—it didn’t matter.
Because she would rather die than siphon the life from anyone.
Would rather die than be complicit in the enslavement, the torture, the abuse—the systematic, ruthless draining of an entire people.
Osin and his followers—what they had done, what they were still doing—it was beyond cruelty.
It was unfathomable. How many knew? How many had seen fragments of the truth and turned away, dismissed it as rumor or necessary evil or someone else’s responsibility?
How many had decided it didn’t touch them closely enough to warrant intervention?
And how many—worse still—had simply not cared?
Reynnar shifted beside her, then cleared his throat. “You planning to share?”
The question landed lightly—almost normal—and it broke the spiral. Elara smiled and held out the bottle without looking. She turned just in time to see him tip it back and drain the last of it in a single, unrepentant swallow.
“What—why?” she wheezed, shoving at his shoulder as he straightened, mouth slick with honeyed fire and absolutely no remorse.
“You’ve had enough.”
“I have not.”
He only nodded toward her cheeks. “You have.”
Elara groaned and let herself slide back against the wall to the ground, pressing her overheated skin to the cool stone. Reynnar followed a moment later, settling beside her. He reached into his pocket, produced a small metal flask, and held it out.
“Drink this instead.”
She blinked at the flask, then at him. He wasn’t scolding her.
Wasn’t taking anything away. Just…offering an alternative.
That distinction mattered more than she expected.
She twisted the cap free and took a cautious swallow.
The taste surprised her—spiced, yes, but no heat.
It didn’t flare through her veins so much as spread outward, a gentle unfurling that eased the tightness behind her eyes.
Her shoulders dropped an inch. The knot of thoughts she’d been worrying like a loose thread slowed.
It felt like relief. That was…unexpected.
She handed the flask back. “That’s unfairly good.”
Reynnar tipped it back for a drink of his own, watching her over the rim. “It does what it’s meant to.”
“And what’s that?”
“Remind you how it feels to be all right.”
She hummed thoughtfully, leaning back against the stone. “That’s remarkably considerate for alcohol.”
He snorted. “Most brewers don’t care how you feel after. Just that you don’t feel anything during.” His gaze flicked to the empty bottle she’d surrendered earlier. “Which, if I’m guessing correctly, was the objective.”
“Yes,” she said without shame. “Temporary obliteration.”
He studied her then. Not with concern, exactly. With attention. The kind that cataloged without prying. It made her fingers curl briefly against her knee. For reasons she didn’t understand, she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. So she held out her hand again, palm up.
The gesture drew a low chuckle from him. Whatever tension had crept in loosened as he set the flask back into her waiting hand. She took a smaller sip, passed it over, and leaned into the stone, breathing through the calm it left behind.
Reynnar drank. His posture stayed loose—but beneath it, there was a tightening. A brief hitch that slipped past the walls they’d both built. A pulse of unease that wasn’t hers.
Elara turned toward him fully. “What is it?”
His mouth twitched. He looked wrong-footed—recalibrating.
As though whatever he’d felt had surprised him as much as it had her.
He sighed, then finally met her gaze. “I know we’ve been…
moving,” he said, gesturing toward the city—the forest. “Making plans since the moment we arrived. But I don’t want to assume anything when it comes to you. ”
Elara frowned. Reynnar didn’t hesitate. Not like this.
His throat bobbed, his jaw flexing. “I’d like you to be by…” He exhaled, like the words were caught in his throat.
But she already knew how the sentence ended.
By my side.
The realization didn’t comfort her the way it might have once.
She had drawn that line herself—had told him plainly that if he chose hatred, she would not stand beside him in it.
And as far as she could see, nothing about his course had softened.
He was still planning to petition Eamon for men.
Still preparing for war. Whatever shape his resolve had taken, it had not turned away from violence.
She let out a breath, more weary than frustrated.
The problem wasn’t that she couldn’t find the right answer—it was that there wasn’t one anymore.
Not a clean one. Not a choice that didn’t demand payment somewhere else.
Wanting justice didn’t prevent harm; good motives could still produce terrible outcomes.
Whenever she tried to come up with a different solution, her logic kept slipping.
Every answer branched into three more questions, each one morally sound in isolation and impossible in sum.
She understood Reynnar. That was the cruelest part. Had lived some of that pain with him. But she wanted the suffering to end. For the Sídhe trapped and bled dry. For the realms already tilting toward war. For the humans who did not know what their king had built in their name.
For him.
But wanting, she was learning, did not make a thing possible.
Her gaze drifted back to the city, to the lights and laughter and the illusion of peace.
She wondered—quietly, unwilling to say it aloud—whether there was any path forward that didn’t demand something terrible from them all.
Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was exhaustion.
Or maybe it was simply that Reynnar had been sitting there, waiting, long enough that silence began to feel like pressure.
Elara reached for him without thinking. Knotted their fingers together.
He stilled completely. His gaze dropped to their joined hands, then lifted back to her face, something dark and intent settling behind his eyes.
“What is it that you want, Eilíara? I know you had no choice in coming here, and I don’t want to assume you’ll stay.
If you want to go back to Latheria, I will make it happen.
If you want to stay, I’ll find a place for you here. ”
His fingers curled more firmly around hers.
“Tell me what you need,” he said, rougher now. “And it’s done.”
Elara blinked, caught off guard by his words. A few days ago, she hadn’t even let herself think about the after. Hadn’t allowed the possibility to take shape in her mind. She had assumed—maybe even accepted—that there wouldn’t be one for her.
No happy ending.
Her goals had been singular, unwavering.
Free the Sídhe. Save Thane. Kill Osin.
One out of three. That’s all she had managed.
She should be grateful—should be relieved that she had anything to show for all of it.
Fate had never exactly been on her side.
But it still felt like a failure. Ivan’s face burned through her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the memory.
In not making plans for herself, she had forgotten about him.
Hadn’t accounted for what it would mean for him to be exposed.
Her carelessness might have cost him his life.
And she would never forgive him for that—for making her care.
For keeping secrets. For staying so gods-damned distant when all she had wanted—when all she had needed—was the truth.
For believing he could protect her from himself.
As if withholding their past had ever been mercy.
As if loving her from afar had spared either of them.
She opened her eyes, throat tight, pulse thrumming in her ears.
Reynnar was drinking.
Nausea rolled through her then, sudden and stabbing, and she realized it wasn’t her own.
It was his—like he had felt all of her regret, her sadness, her anger, and thought it was meant for him.
Elara shook her head and laughed—because what else was there to do when everything was this fucked?
The sound pulled Reynnar’s pinched gaze to her.
“I’m with you, Rey.”
His eyes sparked at the words.
“There’s nothing for me back in Latheria.”
The lie and the truth in that statement twisted inside her, tightening like a vise around her ribs. She swallowed hard. “Not until we figure out how to stop Osin from stealing your people. Then we stop him. Together.”
Reynnar smiled, his fangs flashing, and she snorted at the deadly glint in his eyes—one that had never scared her. If anything, it had always made her feel safe.
“All right, then,” he murmured, handing her the flask.
She took it and drained the rest in one go, ignoring his half-laughed protest.
Grinning, she handed it back, and before she could think too much about it, he pulled her in, tucking her against him, chin resting lightly on the top of her head.
Her heart stopped. Then restarted.