Chapter 14
By the time the next day dragged itself to a close, they had not slowed.
Elara had hoped the pace might ease—that the mountains might spare them a little grace—but this land was pitiless.
Valleys blurred beneath them, pale and indistinct.
Fog pooled in their hollows, a living veil that refused to lift even at midday.
Riding through it felt like moving through the breath of something ancient that had been waiting centuries for someone foolish enough to wander this far north.
The high passes were worse. Wind screamed down from the ridgelines with a fury that felt almost personal. Each step forward became a stubborn negotiation—her against the cold, her resolve against whatever old, indifferent spirits ruled these heights.
Elara kept her shoulders squared and teeth clenched, counting the rise and fall of the mare beneath her instead of the pulse of pain in her shoulder.
The bandage had soaked through again; she could feel the wet-cold of it whenever the horse shifted.
Reynnar had pulled a cloak from his pack and draped it over her without comment, then stayed close enough that his Draoth warmed her, constant as a hand at her back.
Even so, her thoughts felt…slow. Muddled.
As if arriving half a breath late. She ignored it.
Fatigue and frost had a thousand small tricks, and stopping wasn’t an option.
They didn’t speak until the sun was a white smear on the horizon, then a pale coin high overhead.
It was Aoife who broke first. She slowed, hand lifting in a gesture that meant enough.
Her breath came rough, shoulders heaving once before she mastered it.
“We stop before someone drops,” she said. Not a suggestion.
Their steps slowed, then staggered, then finally gave out in a hollow between two leaning stones, where scrub grass bent low and the wind cut less sharply. One by one, packs slid from aching shoulders and struck the ground with dull, exhausted thuds. Bedrolls. Rations. Rope.
Aoife dropped to a knee while Caelion leaned against a boulder, head tipped back, eyes closed. Reynnar lingered a moment longer, scanning the ridges, before his shoulders finally sagged.
“Fire,” he said quietly. “If we can. Food after.”
Aoife nodded. “Water first.”
Elara guided her horse toward a narrow stand of trees at the lip of the rise, where the branches leaned inward, offering the illusion of shelter.
She slid down stiffly and rested her forehead briefly against the horse’s heated neck.
Behind her, fabric rasped. Buckles loosened. Something metallic clicked softly.
Reynnar knelt and rummaged through his pack until he found his waterskin. Straightening, he tossed it to her.
She caught it on instinct, pain flaring white-hot through her shoulder and stabbing down her arm. Her jaw clenched as she bit back a cry.
“Shit. Sorry.” Reynnar moved to her side, guilt pulling tight at his features.
“It’s fine,” she said, already unscrewing the cap.
“On a scale of one to ‘I’m about to pass out,’ where are we?”
She cast him a sidelong glance. “A very dignified four and a half.”
One dark brow arched. “Liar.”
She froze, a flicker of unease curling through her.
Had she really been projecting all her complaints down the bond this entire ride without noticing?
Then again, he hardly needed a bond to see it—anyone with half a brain could tell she was worn thin.
Elara rolled her eyes and took another swallow of water. “I stayed mounted.”
“That’s not the bar,” he grumbled. “The bar is whether you topple out of the saddle when you hit a rut.”
“I will endeavor not to topple.”
Aoife let out a soft, suspiciously well-timed laugh, and Caelion’s attention flicked toward it and away, quick as a fish taking the surface. Aoife gestured for the water, and Elara threw it with impressive accuracy, despite the pain burning through her shoulder.
“See?” she said lightly, meeting Reynnar’s gaze. “Very two out of ten.”
“You keep changing scale,” he said, but the corners of his eyes creased. “Let me see it.”
She shrugged out of her cloak. The bandage Eamon had tied came away with a soft, wet sound that made her stomach turn.
Cold air struck bare skin, and she hissed before she could stop herself.
The wound was an ugly wheel in her shoulder—the puckered entry ringed with angry red, heat rolling off it like a banked stove.
Reynnar swore. His hand hovered, not touching. “I thought Eamon healed you.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “And you believed him? He admitted to tying it up himself before leaving me in that cell. Must have thought positive thinking would do the rest.”
Caelion had stepped closer, his gaze narrowing. “Poisoned tip,” he said. “Turlaith trick. Slows healing.”
Her pulse spiked. “I didn’t see any poison.”
“You wouldn’t. They mix it into the binding glue on the arrowhead. Looks like sap.”
“Charming.” Elara swallowed hard. “I do not suppose there are healers hidden in this pass?”
A mischievous spark lit Reynnar’s eyes as his smile edged wider. “I can heal you.”
“Can all Sídhe heal with their Draoth, then?”
That would be…helpful. A hundred bruises and broken bones ago, she would’ve bargained away something precious for power like that.
“That depends,” he said, bending closer. His fingers brushed the fabric near her injury with a care that made her skin tighten. “Small wounds, yes. Superficial things. But something like this… You’ll want someone competent.”
A shiver—half annoyance, half something else—moved through her. She tilted her head enough to meet his eyes, giving him a look as pointed as the pain in her shoulder. “And you’re what, then? A hobbyist?”
His mouth curved, slow and shameless. “Dainty battlefield wounds I can handle.”
“Dainty, huh?”
The faintest gleam of amusement danced in his eyes. “Come on. Let’s find you a seat before you pass out.”
Elara made her way toward the clearing, settling beside Aoife on a broad slab of stone that still held a little warmth from the afternoon sun. Aoife shifted to make room, her gaze flicking over Elara’s shoulder with a mix of concern and poorly disguised curiosity.
“I’ll be right back,” Reynnar said, before slipping past the leaning stones and vanishing into the low scrub beyond the hollow.
Elara exhaled slowly. Now that she’d stopped moving, the world lurched in a way it hadn’t while she was forcing herself forward. The trees seemed to sway a fraction off beat. She closed her eyes and counted to three, waiting for the sickly roll in her stomach to ease.
It mostly did.
“Did it never occur to you to mention that Eamon didn’t actually heal you?”
Elara opened her eyes to find Aoife studying her, then tipped her head back and stared at the paling sky.
“I didn’t want to slow everyone down,” she said.
Then, because the truth had already started, she let it finish.
“And I’m…tired of being a liability. The one bleeding, or needing to be carried out of things.
” Her mouth tightened. “It’s exhausting.
And it does a very good job of reminding me how little I belong. ”
“You want to do something about that, then?”
“Unless you’re about to suggest I sprout fangs or centuries of experience, I’m not sure there’s anything to do.”
Aoife scoffed. “Well, with that level of ambition, I suppose you’re right. Best to accept your tragic fate and lie down in the mud.”
Elara snorted before she could stop herself, the sound puffing into the cold as her breath fogged the air. Aoife’s smile faded. She turned slowly toward the horizon, where the waning sun scattered broken strips of light across the land.
“For a time,” she said quietly, “I thought the worst of it was losing my wings.”
Elara stilled. The wind shifted across the quay, cold enough to sting her eyes. She did not trust herself to speak.
“Your king tore them from me. Left me bleeding out under his throne. I would have died there, but he found Reynnar listened better when my life hung in the balance.” Aoife’s fingers flexed once at her side, as if remembering the feel of the shackles.
“Then he made me watch.” Her gaze flicked briefly toward where Caelion now stood, half-shadowed near the treeline.
“When they did it to the others. Most of them didn’t survive it. ”
Caelion did not turn, but his shoulders stiffened.
“Do you know what that made me? A liability. A weakness. Something that could be used to control the people who cared most about me. I learned very quickly that I was dangerous—not because I was strong, but because I could be hurt.”
She looked back at the setting sun. “Did you know the humans grind our wings down?” she asked, almost idly. “Powder them fine. They use it to polish their metals. Gives it a better shine.”
Elara blinked hard, heat gathering behind her eyes. “Aoife, I—”
“Listen,” she said, turning at last. “I spent years believing that what they did to me meant I was broken. That I would always be something people had to protect. Or hide. Or trade around.” She shook her head once.
“They were wrong. He took what I had, not what I am. You’re tired of being the one who bleeds, of being the one who needs help?
Surviving is not weakness. Needing others is not shameful.
” Her jaw set. “They meant to turn me into dust, something to scatter and forget. I refused. Won’t you? ”
Won’t you?