Chapter 19
Graves and Guardians
Flora
I
‘ve never seen a ghost. Can immortals have ghosts? Would they look like this, or are the two haunting figures something else?
It doesn’t seem like the right moment to ask Chyr such questions, so I concentrate on digging up the three swords I buried.
I hand them to him, and he slides the sword with the pommel of yellow crystal into the empty scabbard at his belt, and replaces the swords crossed over his back with those that belonged to the other two Riders.
We bury the Grey’s weapons in the same place, covered with soil and leaves and marked with another rock. Faolan will know where they’re buried in case they’re needed. Then we mount Eira once again.
The Sacred Wood is thick with mist and darkness as we cross the ridge.
It’s senseless to miss Ari and his capricious temper, but as I loosen the reins to let Eira and Bramble pick their way through the roots and slippery moss down to the military road, I can’t help myself.
I miss everyone and everything I’ve lost and left behind, and we haven’t yet left the boundaries of Dunhaelic.
We reach the military road before dawn, when the sky is already growing lighter and the night is at its coldest. The horses send clouds of breath into the air, their hooves crunching on flakes of frost.
I turn west and set Eira into a canter. Chyr’s weight leans heavier against my back.
Maybe it was seeing the grave and the ghosts that took the rest of his strength, but I suspect there simply wasn’t enough reserve in him to travel yet.
His thighs and chest feel too warm against mine, and whenever I shift in the saddle, he exhales as if it costs him.
We have hours to ride before we rest. The time that we remain on Domhnall land will be the safest portion of the journey—and the only chance to ride by daylight. We need to take advantage and cover as much ground as we can.
Once clear of the Sacred Wood, the road slopes downward, and the moor opens wide beneath us. Strangely, it’s here that I feel our departure most.
The story of Lannraig, the seer who came too close to the Veil and let the magic destroy her, warns that magic is a trap. I can’t help feeling that whatever waits for me is already set and baited, and I’m riding towards it like a lamb to the slaughter.
Here, at the end of the Sacred Wood, our path along the military road crosses the betweens. We’re between wood and field, between night and morning, between everything we left burning at Dunhaelic and whatever waits at Muilean.
The nearer of the two Dunhaelic villages appears ahead, nestled against the hillside. A rim of fields lies scattered around it, and I scan them for movement, though ordinarily, it would be too early yet.
I pull Eira to a halt and jump from the saddle.
“You should ride Bramble until we clear the village,” I say to Chyr. “Can you manage?”
He draws himself up as though the question’s an insult. “Do I need an illusion?”
I look up at him. Dressed as a Highlander, astride one of our horses, he’s still unmistakably what he is.
Our warriors can be tall and broad, strong from work and battle.
Some wear their hair much like Chyr, shoulder length with the top and sides pulled back into a warrior’s knot.
But physical beauty and the weight of his injuries aside, Chyr is more, as though the extra lifeforce of his immortality is crammed inside him, his strength and magic barely leashed by bone and flesh.
“Can you make yourself look less like…?”
“Less like what? A Siorai? A giant’s spinster aunt?” Chyr asks, sounding almost amused.
“Just less,” I say with a sigh. “The village is one of ours. They’re loyal, but it’s best not to raise any questions.”
I reach for his hand to help him down. He hasn’t mastered the kilt yet, and it rides high on his thighs, revealing lean muscles as he steps down beside me.
“What were those shadows at the grave?” I ask. “Do Siorai have ghosts?”
Chyr sends me a startled glance. “You truly don’t know?”
“The list of what I don’t know could fill the keep. You’ll need to be specific.”
“The shadows were Hallow Keepers. A type of—”
My hands close on the reins, and Eira pulls the bit in protest.
“Hallow Keepers?” I ask. “But all the magical creatures left before the High King of Tirnaeve sealed the doorways.”
Chyr raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “They follow you around, and you haven’t seen them?”
He unclips Bramble’s lead to take her reins while my brain spins in useless circles.
“Shadelings are part of the native magic of Alba Scoria,” he says. “They wouldn’t have survived in Tirnaeve, so Queen Nicnevin—”
“The Cailleach Queen who negotiated the Compact with the High King?”
“Yes. She took responsibility for them, but given the mistrust of magic that came from what Vheara and other Siorai had done, they prefer to remain unseen.”
“The Hallow Keepers knew I saw them.”
“They may have wanted you to, but it’s also possible that your magic is strong enough to see through their concealments the same way Siorai can.”
“And you’ve seen them around me before?”
Chyr’s breath is shallow as he moves to stand at Bramble’s saddle, though he doesn’t try to mount.
“Not Hallow Keepers specifically—various Shadelings at different times. Shade-hounds guarded you in the Woods after I…attacked you, and Twilight Weavers tend your fires. That doesn’t mean they are following you—they may be more constricted in where they live now that Vheara has made it too dangerous for them to use their shortcuts through the Gloaming. ”
The idea that Shadelings have never left Alba Scoria is oddly less shocking than the idea of magical creatures helping me without my knowledge.
I’d like to deny it, but I can’t—I have seen them in the past. Hints and flickers, at least. The shape of a three-fingered hand in the firelight, a shadow that moves when nothing should.
Whispers like intuition. Like my grandmother’s voice.
The stories say Whisperwraiths can do such things.
Even the idea to turn my dagger into a sword to defend myself from my brothers came to me in a whisper. How else would I have known to try?
Chyr leans against the saddle, pinning me with that steady intensity that makes it so hard to look away from him. “They may also be drawn to your magic.”
“Why mine? Why not my grandmother, or a hundred others in my family?”
“Can you be sure they weren’t? Your magic was outlawed. And you did say your grandmothers could heal.”
“One of them. Though now that you mention it, they would both leave offerings of herbs or flowers for the dark folk. Even Morag leaves out saucers of milk and bits of food in the kitchen. That sort of belief has never died.”
“You see?” Chyr grips the saddle, one foot in the stirrup, and his muscles bracing to push off the ground. But he hesitates.
I duck around Eira to help. “I knew you weren’t well enough to leave yet.”
“I’m perfectly capable.”
“If you were, then you’d be in the saddle instead of arguing.”
He huffs as he swings himself up. “I was distracted. I’m crafting a mask to make myself less handsome. Drastic changes take more magic.”
“Try making yourself a little more humble while you’re at it.”
“It’s hard to be humble when you think I’m pretty,” he says, grinning. His voice is still laced with pain, but there’s also that low purr that tightens my breath.
“Don’t do that,” I snap. “And don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”
I glance at him, and he no longer looks like Chyr. The perfection of his features is suddenly carved more roughly, and his skin looks two decades older—harder and more weathered.
He looks mortal and ordinary, which is what I wanted. I find that I don’t like it, and his mouth twitches at the corners as though he knows.
“Don’t forget to change the sword,” I say. “It’s too distinctive.”
“The sword can’t be enchanted, but I’ll keep the pommel hidden.” He twitches the drape of his plaid to cover it.
The village is stirring already, though it’s quieter than usual. Blue peat smoke rises from a handful of chimneys. Hens scuttle through muddy yards, a door bangs, and a dog barks once, then quiets.
Ailean limps in from the nearby field as we approach, wiping his wrinkled, work-roughened hands against the skirt of his plaid.
His eyes flick over Chyr, taking in every weapon and every muscle as well as every feature. “You’ve hired a guard for yourself, is it?”
“For the journey I have to make,” I say. “Did everyone get off safely?”
“Aye, or nearly so.” Ailean turns his attention back to me. “Only a few who’re too stubborn to go are left. Most were happy to follow their wives and bairns to the hills when Faolan came with the message. But it will chafe at them, mind you. They’ll not want to stay away too long.”
I take out a small flask from my pack and hand it to him. “I wanted to bring another supply of the hawthorn and motherwort cordial for your granddaughter’s heart. Morag can make up the rest of what anyone might need.”
“Thank you.” Nodding, Ailean accepts the flask.
“I’ll be gone a couple of weeks, but Morag, Catriona, and Faolan will remain.
Will you make sure the escape tunnel is dug as soon as possible?
You can bring everyone back from the hills once there’s a safe way to get them in as well as out if needed.
We should post lookouts on both ends of the road as well to give ourselves time to get to safety. ”
“I can take care of that. And you want the escape route to run out to the dry moat from the crypt, Faolan said?”
“With some hidden footholds up the side of the dry moat into the thickest part of the woods. Meanwhile, there’s livestock enough, and we have supplies in the storerooms. But warn our people not to be fooled if they see a ruin as they approach—the appearance isn’t what it seems. Faolan will open the gate when he recognises friends. ”