Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
CAIRN
“What do you mean, summon my own steed?”
“Face forward. You’re going to fall off.”
She has Selveryn’s mane in one hand and is half-twisted around, glaring up at me.
“You can’t say something like that and then just … just tell me to turn around.”
“Eyes front.”
“I am not turning around until you explain what you mean.”
“Then you’re in for a very uncomfortable ride.”
I touch my heels to Selveryn’s flanks and send him into a trot. Alleria’s hand flies out to clutch the front of my tunic as the change in rhythm almost unseats her from her position.
“Cairn!”
“Face the road.”
She makes a sound somewhere between a huff and a curse, and turns with such force her braid slaps across my chest. Half of her hair has come loose. My fingers twitch with the urge to touch it.
“You don’t get to drop something like that, and then refuse to explain.”
“I can’t? When did we make that rule?”
She makes that sound again, and the cold inside me eases a fraction. The tension in my jaw loosens.
“Why say anything at all if you’re not willing to explain it?”
“I never said that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m simply not willing to explain it right now.”
She inhales loudly through her nose. One corner of my mouth lifts, and the rage I've carried since the mage finally banks back down.
The road beyond the barracks vanishes altogether as the earth tilts down into the cupped hollow that gives the Vale its name. A crow lifts out of a tree as we pass, cawing in protest at being disturbed. Selveryn’s ear flicks in its direction, and he snorts, tossing his head.
He’s as restless as I am. The muscles beneath my thighs tighten and release in small ripples, as he moves forward. I reach past Alleria to rest a palm against his neck.
“Easy.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Alleria’s voice is hushed, as though she can sense the magic in the air that’s humming through me … through all of us.
“It’s the Seal. Can you feel it?” The residue of the magic rose through Selveryn the moment we crossed into the valley, threading up into me through every point of contact.
“I … there’s something in the air. It feels a little like the energy before a storm hits.”
“That’s right. It’s seeped into everything here. Three centuries have passed and the ground still hasn’t forgotten what happened here.”
From where we are, it looks like any other wild valley. A dip in the land, a stream cutting a line through trees thick enough to hide anything. Oak trees reach for the sky where the pike lines stood. A stand of birches cover the ground where the mortal cavalry waited.
Centuries of growth have hidden the truth, but I can feel what lies beneath the soil. It’s visible in the places where nothing grows. The places where blood was spilled and bodies fell.
Down the Nightwild bond, every thread pulls tight at once. Vel’s spine snaps taut, her steed dancing a half-step sideways. Therin’s thread blazes hot enough to burn. The rest hits me in a single wave—grief and fury, braided together, at the first full sight of the ground where we lost everything.
For half a second, the sounds of battle ring in my ears—the clash of swords, the screams of the dying, and the chanting of mages—then it's gone.
I turn to Therin. His gaze is fixed forward, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“Go ahead and find somewhere to camp.”
His head snaps sideways and his eyes narrow on me. I arch an eyebrow.
“Fine.” He touches his heels to Kaethros’ flanks, and surges forward down the hill.
Alleria looks back at me over her shoulder, frowning. “What was that about?”
“He needs something to focus on that isn’t how many of our kind died here.”
Therin is waiting for us at the base of the hill leading into the valley proper. With a jerk of his chin, he leads us to a secluded area at the edge of the treeline where a ring of rowan trees form a natural shelter, and the stream is close enough to give us access to fresh water.
I dismount and lift Alleria down, stepping back the moment her boots touch the ground. Selveryn stamps once, then dissolves.
“Stay with the others.”
I turn away before she can say a word. Caelum and Serath are helping Brael off his steed as I pass by. His face is gray, but his teeth flash in a smile.
“Eldráfn, please tell them to be gentle with me. I’m a delicate creature.”
I help them move him closer to the ring of trees, so he can rest his back against one of the trunks.
“You’re as delicate as a battering ram. I need you whole. One loss was enough.”
I nod to Serath and step back, giving her and Caelum room to work.
She places both palms to his ribs, and a glow emanates from beneath them, spreading across his skin.
Brael’s head tips back against the bark.
Every muscle in his body locks for a heartbeat before he lets out a long breath, and goes limp.
“Do you need me for anything more?”
Caelum shakes his head. “We will have him good as new soon.”
The cold I haven’t been able to dismiss since killing the mage spreads, bringing with it the rage that has been banked inside me. I keep walking until I’m through the trees, my eyes scanning the landscape.
But I’m not seeing how the Vale looks now, I’m seeing how it looked then.
The sky was the color of wet slate. The mages’ chanting was already audible across the open ground when we broke from the trees.
I had Selveryn at a flat run before the pikes finished setting.
The first arrow buried itself a hand’s width from his left foreleg.
The second hissed past my ear close enough that I felt the wind from it.
The pike line shattered at the impact of my charge.
I was cutting before my second blade was fully formed.
I keep walking until I reach the place where Selveryn dissolved beneath me and I hit the ground already running, replaying every strike of my blade in my head.
When I reach the edge of the circle where the mages cast their spell I stop. I almost reached it back then. A few more paces and I’d have been able to run them through. But I wasn’t fast enough. And Underhill was gone between one stride and the next.
The mages died screaming under my blades for what they’d done.
Three hundred and twelve years, and now Underhill is so close, I can almost taste it. It’s reaching for me, for us.
I drop to my knees, pressing my palms flat against the earth.
Magic rises to meet me, iron-filled and wrong.
It burns when it touches my skin, but I hold, examining the threads, tasting its form until I understand the shape of it.
It’s a lot simpler than I expected it to be. But that’s where its strength lies.
Eleven points, each one connected to the other, then held together by a twelfth in the center. I trace the working, following the path from beginning to end, learning how to unravel it.
Once I have it fixed in my head, I push to my feet, and turn to meet the woman picking her way across the grass toward me.
“I thought I told you to stay with the others?”
“They’re building fires and shelters. I was in the way.”
I lift one eyebrow. “And who says you’re not in the way now?”
She glances around the valley. “In the way of what? There’s nothing here.”
“Nothing? You are standing in the place where the enslavement of my people started, and you say there is nothing here?” I can’t keep the bite of anger out of my tone.
She flinches, her teeth biting into her lip. I force my temper down. What happened here isn’t her fault, but that of her ancestors’. She is the product of what came from it, not the cause.
“What do you know of Therison Vale? Do your histories teach anything about it?”
She takes a small breath, collecting her thoughts.
“This is where the final stand against the fae horde was made. Hundreds of fae against a thousand of our soldiers. Lord Casric commanded the line. He’d fought the fae for twenty-five years, earning a reputation as one of the most skilled swordsmen to ever live.
He was the one general the king had left who’d never been beaten in the field. His courage saved the kingdom.”
She looks around again. “The Hell-Thorn of the Wild Hunt led the fae charge. He and Casric met somewhere in the Vale and fought. The histories say that Lord Casric held the line for two days and two nights.”
I clench my jaw, resisting the urge to interrupt.
“The fae came at them in waves, and he cut them down by the hundred. When the Hell-Thorn rode at last, Casric met him on horseback with mage-blessed steel. They fought from dawn until the sun was high overhead. Three times the Hell-Thorn struck him down, and three times he rose again.”
Three times. I swallow down a laugh.
“But eventually his humanity was what killed him. Exhaustion made him slower, and the Hell-Thorn pressed the advantage. When at last the Hell-Thorn felled him, Lord Casric the Unbroken was smiling, because he had bought the time the mages needed.”
A harsh laugh breaks free.
She frowns at me. “What?”
“Casric the Unbroken.”
“That’s the name they honored him with afterward.”
“I see. Tell me the rest.”
“There isn’t much more. Casric the Unbroken had also struck a killing blow, and the Hell-Thorn died without being able to stop the mages from completing the great ritual that cut off the fae from their magic.
After that, the fae horde broke. Their magic was destroyed.
They’d lost the Hell-Thorn, and—” Her lips part, and she gapes at me.
I meet her eyes, and I wait.
“Oh my gods.” Her voice has dropped to a whisper. “Hell-Thorn isn’t a title, like King or Lord, passed down through bloodlines … You’re the one who faced Casric. That was you. You were here.”
“I was here.”
Her eyes are wide and fixed on mine. “That means—”
“Casric did not kill me, yes. He’d have been dangerous against other mortals, perhaps, but he was nothing to the Nightwild Guard. And certainly not me. Your Casric the Unbroken was a competent swordsman, at best.”
She’s still gaping at me.
“And I can assure you, Moirthalen, he was not smiling when he died.”
“His sword hangs above the throne in the palace. There is a window in the chapel that depicts his final battle. There are paintings of him in the long gallery.”
“I imagine there are.”
“There’s a celebration day in his honor, to remember his sacrifice.”
“His sacrifice.” I shake my head.
“Yes! He died defending people from—”
“Defending them from what?” My voice turns silky.
Her throat moves as she swallows. “From the fae. From you.”
The bond between us ignites with her horror as everything she’s been taught tilts sideways.
The battle. The celebration days. The histories and songs.
The collars. The cages. The hunt for her birthday.
She’d already been on the path toward understanding what she knew wasn’t the whole truth, but to be faced with the reality of it …
“We are taught that the fae wanted our lands. That they wanted to turn humans into slaves, into playthings.” Her voice is wooden, reciting the version that has clearly been passed down for generations.
“It’s interesting how histories always favor the victor, isn’t it?” I turn to look at the circle where the mages cast their spell. “The truth is always messier than the written records.”
“Then tell me what the truth is.”
I sigh and turn back to face her. “Human magic isn’t natural. It has to be built. That requires rituals and blood and time to prepare. Fae magic is not like that. We think it. It appears. Our only restrictions are how strong we are, what we are, and what court we were born to.”
“Court?”
“That is a story for another time.” Now isn’t the time or place to go into the politics of Underhill. “Your mages learned that fae blood carries our magic within it. And our queens are the strongest of all.”
“What did they do?”
“Mortal mages slipped into Underhill and somehow took one of our queens. The how has been lost over time. But the why? That will never be forgotten. They bled her and trapped the blood in items shaped to carry it. Cut from Stone. Carved Bone. Worked into silver. They emptied everything she was into objects they could use to channel through.”
My mouth twists.
“That is why the war started, Moirthalen. Not the lies your histories tell about fae hunger for mortal lands, or an appetite for human playthings. They took one of ours, and we came for her.”