Chapter 23 #2
“You asked me earlier if I’d ever depleted my magic.
I haven’t thought about that night in years, and I’ve never suspected it had anything to do with magic.
But I remember how desperate I was, and then we were free.
” I shrug. “I was a child. Children don’t think about what’s possible.
I got the mare out, and Iain found me curled on the ground unconscious with her standing over me.
It was days before I was strong enough to get out of bed. ”
Chyr stares down at his hands. They’re splayed on his thighs, the graceful fingers slightly weathered. “I know what it feels like to empty myself, but I’m Siorai, so I can’t die from it. That wouldn’t apply to you.”
“How do I know I’m using too much?” I ask.
“Stop when it hurts. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?” Chyr catches my chin in his fingers and tips my face so that I have to look at him. “You’re terrifying. Even if you learn your limits, I’ve no doubt you’ll push yourself past them.”
The hold of his fingers is gentle, and his eyes slip down to my lips. Heat from the fire warms the air between us.
Then Chyr drops his hand and shakes his head. Pivoting back to the fire, he turns the rabbit on the spit. “You asked about the Veilstones, and the truth is, I don’t know. How did you learn the trick with the sword? Did someone teach you?”
“I’m starting to wonder if it might have been a Whisperwraith.”
Chyr’s brows shoot up. “Why?”
“My grandmother had healing magic, but that was easy to pass off as knowledge of herbs and salves. The Sun King would have killed her if anyone had known, and my father made me swear never to show anyone what I could do.” My heart squeezes at the memory, at the reminder that he’s gone, and I close my eyes a moment before continuing.
“And the Whisperwraith?”
I sigh. “My younger brothers liked to torment me with their wooden swords when they began their training. Until then, we’d done everything together.
Then suddenly I was a girl and they were men, and I was supposed to treat them with respect.
I wanted to learn to fight back, but no one would give me a sword of my own. ”
“So you made one for yourself. Something told you that you could.”
It makes me smile that he understands. “Not only did I have a sword, but I had it whenever I needed it—and no one knew it was there. It took me months to learn the trick, and it felt like I was pulling shards of glass through my veins. But it was worth it. The look on my brothers’ faces when they trapped me—I made them both bleed a little, and they never tried it again. ”
The memory doesn’t bring the wave of satisfaction it used to before they died.
Chyr catches my hand and threads his fingers with mine. His grip is careful; the Veilstones hum faintly against my skin.
“Does it still hurt when you use magic?”
“There are moments when it doesn’t hurt,” I say, “I thought maybe that was because of the Veilstones.”
“Whatever Siorai blood you’ve inherited must recognise them. But the magic you had before—was it harder after Vheara came?”
I nod, and the small crease between Chyr’s brows deepens. He pauses to pull the rabbit from the fire and checks it before sliding it back to roast again. Fat falls into the fire with a pop. A thread of smoke curls upward.
Chyr finally shifts around to face me. “The Veilstones were made to give us access to our magic while we’re here. But the runesmiths wouldn’t have known any descendants of the Riders would still have enough magic to use them.”
I huddle deeper into the warm plaid that’s trapped my body heat, thinking of the Veilstone that Chyr left at Dunhaelic. Thinking of possibilities.
“I’ve seen you use air and fire magic and jump from one place to another,” I say. “And create illusions. What other types of magic are there?”
Chyr raises his head, shadows from the fire playing across his skin, and he studies me more closely. I force myself not to look away.
“All Siorai can shadow-walk, work illusions, and do basic mind-tricks—change perception, shape dreams and memories, plant suggestions or compulsions—”
“The things the Compact outlawed.”
Chyr’s sigh is barely audible. “Some of them. More powerful Siorai can work with one or two of the elements. The way you do.” He casts a quick look at me. “I’ve seen you move the earth, and your sword magic is probably tied to earth magic, too. I suspect you can also work with water.”
My heart gives a dull thump. “Earth is all I know to reach for.”
“Healing is more of a water magic. We can try experimenting when you’re feeling stronger. That and using the Veilstones, since you’ve been doing that anyway.”
There’s no inflection in the way he says the words, but heat floods my cheeks. “You said the Veilstones were made for you—but there must have been something similar back when the Riders were consorts for the Cailleach Queens.”
A muscle jumps at Chyr’s temple, and he closes his eyes a moment as if fighting with himself.
I can’t help pressing the point. “Magic was the reason the Cailleach Queens married Siorai companions in the first place. If sealing the doorways cut off most of the magic that came from Tirnaeve, then the consorts would have been too weak to be useful.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Chyr says the words lightly, and he smiles at me, but there’s still tension in the line of his jaw.
“But there was something—wasn’t there?”
“Flora, I wasn’t much more than a child when Fionn killed the last queen.” Chyr sits back deeper on his haunches, and his jaw tightens.
He takes the rabbit from the spit, his fingers deft on the hot flesh as he lays it down on the oilcloth in which Morag had wrapped our cheese. He doesn’t look at me.
I know he’s hiding something. When he told me that Siorai can’t lie, he warned me that doesn’t mean they tell the truth. I should be angry, but I’ve seen his oathbands, and all those rows of runes that represent promises he has to live by.
“Something other than Veilstones,” I say. “What was it?”
Chyr settles himself beside me, his back to the mitten-shaped rock, and lays the cloth with the rabbit on the ground between us. I can feel the tension that tightens every one of his muscles. His fingers clench, and his voice sounds like gravel when he finally answers.
“Chulainn had a Hollow Crown made when he sealed the doors—similar to the Veilstones but much more powerful.”
My breath hisses as I draw it in. “That’s not in any of the stories.”
Chyr doesn’t look at me, and his expression is carefully blank. “No one but Chulainn and the Anvar’thaine knew what the crown was meant to do.”
His voice sounds strangled on the last words, and tendons stand out in his neck as if someone has pushed a hot poker into the middle of his back. That alone tells me as much as all he’s ever said to me so far.
My heart pounds furiously in my chest. “The Compact was created to make the Cailleach Queens and their descendants powerful enough to protect Alba Scoria against Siorai. Against those like Vheara who came from Tirnaeve to exploit us. But if the consort’s magic was limited to what came through the Hollow Crown, then all of it was a lie. ”
The wind gusts, and the fire blows sparks into the air with a hiss and crackle.
“I can’t answer that,” Chyr says.
His movements are painfully slow as he busies himself tearing off a rabbit leg. He offers it to me without looking at me, which is confirmation in itself.
My blood chills as I think it through. A Veilstone ring swirls on each of his hands, the gold threads of magic dancing like sunbeams through a cloud.
“The Compact was a trick, wasn’t it?” My words are cold, and my hands are numb.
“It let the High King seal off the doorways so no more celestial iron could be brought back to Tirnaeve, but the Siorai blood of the consorts was never meant to strengthen us. It gave the High King more control over us than he’d ever had.
He never gave us a single thing he couldn’t take away. ”
My eyes burn, and my breath comes too fast. I reach for Chyr’s arm and squeeze hard enough that he’s forced to look at me.
“Tell me I’m wrong, Chyr,” I insist. “Say it.”
His eyes have darkened to a brown gold, and his hands are fisted at his sides as if he’s fighting with himself. Slowly, he shakes his head.
His body convulses in wave after wave, muscles straining beneath his skin. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, and his face is as pale as it was when I was carving out his flesh.
Instinct has me reaching to pull his coat open and check his wound. But he catches my hand and pulls it aside.
“The pain is from my oathbands. It has nothing to do with the wound,” he says.
His voice is hoarse, and instead of dropping my hand, he wraps his fingers around mine. We sit in silence while he struggles.
I can see the tremor in his fingers even after the convulsions stop and the muscles in his neck and arms relax. Then he tips his head back against the damp rock, sweat still beading across his brow.
I’ve seen how much pain Chyr can handle without complaining or even letting it show. If the oathbands don’t want him discussing the true reason behind the Compact, that only confirms what I was saying.
The Compact was never equal. Never real.
I need to re-examine every story I’ve ever heard about it—and everything Chyr has told me. It’s time to think more carefully about what he might have been leaving out. What he might have been unable to tell me and why.
Wind sweeps up from the valley, colliding with the rock behind us. It leaves a cold chill that makes me shiver. In the distance, dozens of watchfires bleed red against the darkness.