Chapter 24
Time to Choose
Flora
W
e descend towards Glen Fhionain, and shortly before dawn, we find a deep cleft between two outcroppings of granite on the hillside.
Fallen rock overgrown with vegetation overhead creates a deep cavern and protection from the rain.
Better yet, a thicket of birches below hides the entrance, and a nearby stream falls from a natural pool, giving us a sheltered place to bathe.
A pre-dawn silence blankets the glen, and a low-hanging mist dims the glow of the watchfires on the far side of Glen Seil.
The danger is still there, but the moment is peaceful enough that I can almost push it from my mind as I water the horses and let them graze.
Then I steal the first turn to take a bath.
The water is cold but as clear and soothing as moonlight.
It makes me think of the difference between my own magic and Chyr’s, his bright, steady heat against the pale warmth I’m starting to recognise at my core.
The magic I draw from the earth is entirely different—wilder, cooler, grittier, dark and rich with life.
I run my hands through the water, testing it against my skin, searching for a connection to help me understand it.
The magic in the water wants to be understood.
I cup my hands, trying to contain it, then pouring it from one hand to the other.
It wants to spill over and fall back into the pool, but I give it a mental tug to pull it back into my palm.
It almost answers. The potential is there, then pain claws at my veins, reminding me that my magic is still too empty.
Shivering, I wash my hair and wring it out, then rinse my clothes and lay them on a rock out of sight to dry.
The sky is softening to gold and rose across the moors.
The first notes of birdsong sound from the brush.
With the plaid tucked tight around me, hair still dripping down my back, I leave the horses grazing and return to the cavern where Chyr has already built a fire.
Smoke veils the damp air, and the granite floor is cold and rough beneath my feet.
Chyr looks up where he’s crouched by the fire, his eyes gleaming like stars. He steals my breath, and his attention feels like a living force that pulls me towards him with such intensity it’s like a hook sunk into my chest.
His gaze shifts back to the fire, and the pull eases. My breath still comes too fast and shallow, and I concentrate on removing clean clothing from my pack.
“I’ll check your wound when you’re finished bathing,” I warn. “Don’t try to remove the dressing yourself.”
A muscle twitches in his cheek, and he studies me, his jaw clenched, his mouth a harsh slash bracketed by the small silver scar at one corner. But Great Mother, he is beautiful.
His lips part and the sharp line of his jaw softens as if he means to say something, then he shakes his head and turns his back.
Moving with practised efficiency, he strips off the various swords and knives he has strapped to himself and then unpins the plaid from his shoulder and peels off the buff coat and the shirt beneath.
He’s left in nothing but the kilted plaid and the thin bandage wrapped around his chest. The wide expanse of his back tapers from broad shoulders to his narrow waist. My fingers twitch, wanting to trace the long groove of his spine between the ridges of muscle.
He turns and snatches up a spare plaid in one hand and his sword in the other.
Heat flares in his eyes as they meet mine. An answering burn spikes somewhere deep inside me.
Six feet separate us. My throat is dry, and I swallow slowly. Chyr’s chest rises and falls. His attention drops to my lips, and he takes a step.
Then he stills and curses beneath his breath. Striding past me, he leaves the cavern.
My hands shake. I sink cross-legged to the ground, my knees unsteady and the damp plaid puddled around me. I will my heart to slow down, my breath to calm.
Relief and disappointment tangle into a knot beneath my ribs.
I’ve known what Chyr is. I’ve felt the attraction—I’d have needed to be dead not to feel it. Still, it has grown deeper, become more, and when I’m pressed beside him, wrapped in his heat and the hard strength of his arms, I can’t keep pretending that all I want is warmth and comfort.
He comes back faster than I expected, and I’ve made no effort to change my clothes. I’m still slumped on the ground wrapped in nothing but the damp plaid, my hair dripping, and my feet numbed from cold.
If I’m honest with myself, that’s by choice, not neglect.
Chyr crosses the cavern in a rush, then he crouches and tips my chin up. “Are you hurt? What happened?”
I shake my head, the roughened pads of his fingers scraping against my skin. “I was making a decision.”
He rocks back on his heels. “Thank fuck. I don’t think I can take you depleting yourself again.”
His hair is damp and tousled, falling loose around his face. The fire has burned low, turning his eyes to bottomless honey-gold. They linger on mine, pinning me in place.
The edge of his thumb brushes my bottom lip, skims over my cheek. I can’t—I don’t—look away.
He groans and pulls me to my feet. His hand slides to the back of my neck.
I push forward as he leans closer, and our lips crash together.
His teeth nip until my mouth opens, and he dips his tongue inside, coaxing mine to dance.
I run my finger down the hollow of his spine, and he shudders and pulls me closer.
Then just as quickly, he pulls back. “We can’t,” he rasps. “You don’t want this.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
He sets his jaw and shakes his head. I stare at him, but he gives nothing away, and finally I raise my chin and stalk back to retrieve my dagger. He’s standing where I left him, his head bowed.
“I still need to change your dressing,” I remind him.
I’m gentle as I slice through the knot that holds the bandage in place and unwind the layers of cloth—more gentle than I feel. I can’t even say why I’m angry, because he was right to stop me.
Wasn’t he?
I’m not na?ve. I’ve heard women talk as they work together, sharing their burdens and turning their complaints into sly jokes about their husbands. I’m aware that once I’m married, I’ll be lucky if my husband gives a damn about what I want. Or gives me the option to say no to what he wants.
Chyr watches me unwind the strips of linen bound around his chest. There’s a dark hush between breaths when my fingers brush his skin, but bit by bit I’m more certain of my feelings as I touch him.
The final bit of bandage strips away, and I see the wound for the first time since I healed it yesterday.
After his pain earlier and the battle with the Ravenhounds, I expected it to be reopened.
Instead, new red skin stretches the full length of the wound, indented deeply over the worst of the injury.
It’s fully sealed, though, and lower, where the wound was shallower, most of it has faded from pink to silver so that it’s barely visible.
My throat clogs, and my lungs squeeze.
I did that. My hands. My magic.
Too many thoughts crowd my mind at once: how it’s possible, what it means, whether it will last.
But I’m so, so tired of thinking.
I touch the healing skin with my fingertip in case it isn’t real. Chyr sucks in a shaking breath, and I like the power of knowing that I can bring out that reaction. My finger traces the wound lower. He shivers and places his hand over mine to still the movement.
The plaid is wrapped low around his hips, slipping below the sharp angle of his hipbones. Firelight catches on the hard ridges and the trail of gold hair that disappears beneath the wool.
Chyr is so tense that I feel it in his stillness, in the sudden release of the breath he’s been holding.
“There’s no point in keeping this bandaged.” I manage to sound calm. “But now that we can’t see beneath the skin, we can’t know how much the poison is spreading underneath.”
He takes hold of my hand as I step back. “Flora.”
I look up.
“You’ve done more than I asked,” he says. “More than I had any right to expect.”
His eyes are warm, his smile gentle. But I hear the words he isn’t saying, the reminder that all he asked of me was time. Weeks, not forever.
I don’t want to give myself to Ceapaich or Gleanngaradh or any other Domhnall man. I want Dunhaelic in my own right, and I want to keep my people safe. I’m no longer na?ve enough to believe I can have any of those things.
I can’t trust Tirnaeve or the Siorai. I’m as certain of that now as I am that none of us can trust the Raven Queen.
But Chyr is honourable. I believe that. Despite the cold way he was raised, there’s warmth at his core, and the four harsh centuries he’s spent as a Rider haven’t exhausted the well of kindness in him.
He feels the mistakes he makes, and he regrets them, and I’ve come to see that he’s harder on himself than anyone I’ve ever met.
He’s shown loyalty in the way he refused to leave his friends after they died, the way he asked me to help him bury them.
And the way he gave up one of the three Veilstone rings to take care of Dunhaelic and give me peace of mind…
Even if I felt nothing for him, I would admire all of that.
I can’t lie to myself and say that I feel nothing. I feel too much.
My hands tremble, not from fear but from the hunger growing low within me. My life is not my own, and I don’t know what the future brings. Tonight, though, I can have a man I choose.
Chyr shakes his head. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like I want you?”
“Like you might let me have you. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman, and I’m clinging to my last shred of self-control.”
“Then don’t. I want this as much as you do.”
Then his mouth is on mine, and the kiss is punishment and absolution. It’s fire.