Chapter 6 Walk the Shadow
Walk the Shadow
Chyr
M
oss crackles beneath me, hard with frost where the sun never reaches. Cold seeps through my clothes, and through the shallow breaths I drag into my lungs, pressing into the raw ache across my chest.
Every heartbeat drives guilt and shame deeper into my bones, piling atop the regrets I already carry.
The woman bound my wounds when she had every reason to let me die. She risked herself, risked her people, to help me. I repaid her by pinning her to the earth like an enemy whom I needed—wanted—to punish.
Cruelty is a game in my family, but I swore I would be better.
The three Veilstone rings lie sunken in the moss where she threw them, and General Mora’s letter rests against my hand, moisture seeping into a corner of the parchment. Her words echo in my mind: “If you’re well enough to attack me…”
Thinking she had stolen from me felt like a personal betrayal, and I don’t particularly want to examine that. Whether it’s the fever or something about the woman herself, I’m not behaving rationally.
Worse yet, I felt her become aware of me, and a part of me wanted her to respond. Though not with fear. Never fear.
She’s back on the horse and riding towards the road. I see her in flashes: the fire of her copper-gold hair, the dark shimmer of her stallion’s coat, blacker than the shadows.
My ribs scream, and my vision narrows as I pick up the rings and the letter. I drag myself to my feet.
“Wait!” My voice cracks. “Please.”
She doesn’t turn.
Two smudges of grey trail behind her, revealed when they block out trees and vanishing again in the open spaces. Long-legged, lean, and forged of twilight, the Shadehounds who growled at me earlier trot like docile pets behind her, ghosting silently through the bracken.
Shadehounds, for Pit’s sake.
I’ve only seen a few glimpses of the magical creatures since we arrived from Tirnaeve.
Like all the various Shadelings who occupy the shadows in Alba Scoria, Shadehounds are careful not to draw attention, yet these responded to the woman’s fear, ready to leap at me for hurting her.
Their snarls exposed their fangs, and the silver-moonlight rings around their eyes turned cold with threat.
She paid them no attention, as if they weren’t even there.
And that tremor of earth she summoned to throw me off her? Even in Tirnaeve, where the air is thick with magic, only a handful of the strongest Siorai can bend the earth to do their bidding.
Who—what—is this woman? Where does such magic come from?
With no strength left, I gamble the last dregs of my magical reserves to shadow-walk.
Choosing a patch of darkness ahead of her, I fling myself into it across the distance.
It’s like treading through a bog, my feet mired where I stand, the here of my location clutching, sucking, squeezing at me as I try to move my body there only to get stuck in between.
Shadow-walking, like illusion work, is innate to all Siorai. My affinity for air magic makes my ability to walk the shadows even stronger, but now even this smallest pulse of magic threatens to rip me in two pieces.
I tighten my fist around the Veilstone rings and pull hard at the power flowing through them. With the added seals the Raven witch placed on the doorways through the Veil, there’s barely a trickle available, and as depleted as I am, I’ve too little magic left in my blood to attract it to me.
The effort heats the stones, but they never grow hot the way they should. I can only pray the magic they give me will be enough.
I keep pulling, and finally, the tension rooting me to the ground near the ridge releases with a pop. Landing in the shadows thirty yards above the road, I stagger out into the path of the woman’s stallion.
The beast rears and lashes out with his forelegs. The Shadehounds leap forward, their low growls felt as much as heard—vibrations in the air.
I evade the stallion’s hooves and turn to stare the Shadehounds down.
Their magic is different from mine, but they can sense what I am.
Even so, their lips curl back, noses wrinkling as they expose their fangs.
Then they back away two steps and sink to their haunches.
The coarse grey fur tipped with shadows makes them seem less present, and those uncanny moonlit eyes watch my every motion.
The woman fights to control her horse. “Get out of my way,” she says. “And I thought you said you were out of magic. Or was that another lie?”
“Please,” I say. “I owe you an apology—many apologies—if you’ll spare me a moment.”
“I was trying to help you,” she says, her voice clipped with anger. “If anyone else had found those things on you, you would never have gotten them back.”
“I’m not trying to excuse myself, but when I woke and you were gone—when I discovered what you’d taken—it felt as though you’d stripped me of the only pieces of myself I had left. But I jumped to conclusions and attacked you without giving you a chance to defend yourself.”
“I don’t need you to give me anything. I make my own chances.”
She wants to be angry, but there’s something more vulnerable than accusatory in the self-protective set of her shoulders.
Whenever I think I can’t feel more shame, there’s always a deeper level.
“I’m sorry.” There’s nothing more that I can say.
What I’ve done to her is only the latest proof of how I’ve failed. I’ve given her reason to fear me as much as she fears the Greys.
“Did you read the letter?” I ask because I have no choice. If Vheara learns what General Mora wrote, any chance of getting help from Tirnaeve could vanish.
The woman stiffens in the saddle, and the stallion shifts beneath her. The Shadehounds bristle. “I won’t apologise for reading,” she says. “I have people to protect.”
“Of course, but you said this was Domhnall land. If so, we’re on the same side, and you can understand how important—”
“I am not on any side that includes an Ever. This is Dunhaelic land. My father was High Chief of all the Domhnall, and he supported the queen until your side slaughtered him on the battlefield. The smaller Domhnall branches, including two of my own brothers, broke with him to support your king. Now most of their warriors are dead as well. We’ve lost too much to your war already, so do not dare to ask for more. ”
The Shadehounds rise at her anger, growling low. Breathing hard, the woman glares down at me from the stallion’s back. Her slender body looks too small to hold such courage and defiance.
I remember her father and her brothers. They fought in two different battles, on two different sides, but their characters were much the same.
All three had an excess of pride and too little strength and common sense.
I recall the old chief riding onto the field beside his men, the scarlet flag of the Domhnall Clan flapping in the wind, and the gold script around the crest bearing the ancient title of the Cailleach Queens who were chosen from among Clan Domhnall’s strongest women:
Reuhldar un Tisooill
Sovereign of the World
That’s one more piece of the puzzle falling into place.
This small, fierce woman on the back of the stallion bears the blood of the ancient warriors of the Great Mother goddess.
The Cailleach Queens of Alba Scoria wielded the power of earth and rain and wind and water, sovereign magic gifted to them by the land itself.
To the shame of all my people, Fionn came through the Veil from Tirnaeve and murdered the last queen.
Then he slaughtered her daughters, her nieces, and every other Domhnall woman the land and the Great Mother might have chosen to reclaim the throne so he could call himself the Sun King.
Then as if that wasn’t damage enough, he outlawed magic, forbade women from the chiefships, replaced their religion, and drove the High Chiefs from their sacred isles into these distant Highlands.
Apparently, he didn’t snuff their magic out entirely, though.
That revelation sparks the first glimmer of satisfaction I’ve felt in longer than I care to think. It explains why this woman’s power feels like Siorai magic but also something else.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, and more words scratch at my tongue, eager to be spoken.
If my oaths would let me, I would tell her that death was too easy a punishment for Fionn and that Vheara deserves far worse. I would admit that no son of Fionn’s deserves any sort of throne, much less one bought in betrayal and blood.
The oathbands etched around my biceps snarl at me for even daring to think such things. Cold sears through the runes and into my blood, freezing me from within. Then comes the flash of heat and the pain that hits like a thousand knives slashing through my veins, reminding me of my reality.
Right or wrong doesn’t matter in my world. My loyalty is bound to my king by promises I can’t break.
I can’t say any of that, though the woman deserves to know it. The Tirnaeve I believed in—the Tirnaeve of honour and justice—is a myth.
My vision narrows again, darkness pressing in. I’m not sure if it’s the oathbands or the wound in my chest, but I grip the nearest tree, fighting to keep my legs from buckling.
The woman scowls at me. “You’re bleeding again.”
Her Shadehounds whine softly, and one inches closer.
I glance down at my chest. Blood blooms red on the white linen, spreading slowly.
“It’s fine.” I shake my head.
“What I did was no more than a stopgap measure. Your wound needs deeper cleaning and many layers of stitching. There’s also some sort of infection or poison—” The sentence hangs as though she isn’t sure how to end it.
Her scent comes to me as I draw in a deeper breath, and when she tilts her face to look up at me, I think how it would feel to hold her.
I have no right to think such things, but the sting of loneliness is sharper as death approaches.
The Riders are the closest thing to a true family I have ever had.
Watching Tuirse and Oran die, being left behind in these woods, it feels too much like my childhood spent in beautiful rooms empty of warmth or kindness.
Maybe that’s what draws me to this woman. A need for connection after all the blood and sorrow of the past twelve months. But maybe that’s only part of it.
The woman is studying the spreading stain of blood on the bandage around my chest. A small dimple forms at the corner of her mouth as she frowns in thought.
“Will you be able to ride if I help you into the saddle behind me?” she asks.
I nod, though I’m not certain how well that will work. The stallion is a magnificent beast, but hardly steady in temper.
“You can lean on me. We won’t go far.” She steps beside me and slips her arm around my waist.
I suck in a ragged breath.
“Did I hurt you?” she asks.
“Not at all. But we should probably introduce ourselves if we’re going to share a saddle.”
“It’s not that sort of ride,” she snaps, then she blushes as she realises what she’s said and how it sounds.
I bite back a laugh. “My name is Cóirneach. My true name, but to my friends, I’m Chyr.”
I can never be what she would call a friend, but she is helping me.
If I can’t be as honest with her as I would wish—as honest as she deserves—then I can at least be honest with the name I give her.
My true name is the one thing I have that’s mine alone.
A small measure of recompense for all the things I am oath-bound not to say.
Her lips part, and she swallows, a flicker of caution passing through her. She suspects a trap.
“It doesn’t have to be your true name,” I add more gently. “All I need is something to call you. I swear on my sword, on my honour, and the Father of Light, I won’t use it to betray you. Compelling humans violates the Compact between Tirnaeve and Alba Scoria.”
Her chin tips up and her eyes bore into me with disdain. “The Compact has been dead since the murder of our last true queen.”
“The Compact isn’t dead. Not to the Riders. Our oaths still bind us to uphold it, and none of the crimes Fionn or Vheara committed—that Vheara continues to commit—can change that. We’re still bound to stop her.”
She studies me as though she’d like to pull the truth out through my entrails.
I’ll hold her eyes for as long as she likes. I will uphold every clause in the Compact, not because I fear eternal punishment in the Pit, but because I still believe in honour.
Whatever this woman sees in me eventually seems to reassure her. Her shoulders drop a fraction as some of her tension rolls away. “My name is Flora,” she says. “And my clan is Domhnall—as you know already.”
Among mortals, a name is a seemingly simple thing. From this woman, now, it feels like a gift, a small bit of absolution I don’t deserve.
Flora means flower, but like her flame-coloured hair paired with those cool grey eyes, the name is a contradiction. There’s nothing soft or flowery about Flora Domhnall. She’s a rose with daggers disguised as thorns, quietly fierce.
It’s the contradictions that make her so intriguing.