Chapter 25 #2
She wheels Eira around, her hair whipping like a battle flag as she halts beside me. The mare shakes her head in protest, making the bridle jingle.
“You think I’d give up now?” Flora asks.
“After what the Butcher did at Aknacaery, I’m not leaving you until you are through the doorway, and I can assure myself that you’ll be returning with an army at your back.
I’ve lost my whole family—as have too many others.
Killing Vheara and the Butcher is the only way to redeem the suffering, and the schedule hasn’t changed.
If you want to reach Muilean by Beltane Eve, you can’t afford to waste time getting lost.”
She doesn’t wait for me to reply. Instead, she nudges Eira into a canter and leaves me to follow.
As much as I wish she was wrong, the Riders and I travelled by boat from Muilean after we arrived. The route overland is unfamiliar, and with only five days left to reach the doorway, I don’t have time to make mistakes. If she accepts the risks, I have to let her.
Flora’s pale mare flies like a wraith through the dusk as I chase her, and perhaps I’m lying to myself when I force myself to accept Flora’s choice. I don’t have the right to set boundaries for her.
I can only hope she doesn’t end up regretting that as well. Hope is a stubborn beast and slow to die.
The track along the head of the loch leads past the ruins of a church. The traditional large standing stone guards the entrance, but someone has long since scratched out the crescent moon symbol of the Cailleach, the Great Mother, until even the shape of it is all but gone.
A pair of Hallow Keepers, the silent Shadelings who guard the sacred places, emerge from the shadows of the building and incline their heads as we pass. Flora places her hand to her heart, but she doesn’t look back.
Beyond the church, the windows of the rush-thatched cottages in a small hamlet are starting to light, yellow flickering in one window and then another.
Chickens peck in the gardens, and a Shadehound uncurls itself from the nearest doorstep and trots to meet Flora as she approaches, its feet making no sound on the hard-packed track.
Flora puts a tentative hand out for the hound to sniff, then pats its head while I weave an illusion to mask myself to resemble an elderly human male. Flora and the Shadehound watch me with identical expressions of mild amusement.
“Do I look harmless enough?” I ask.
“As harmless as a man with a magic sword can ever look.”
I arrange a broad section of the great kilt to hide the crystal pommel. Then Flora knocks at the cottage. A young woman answers with a baby on her hip and three boys—none of them more than five or six—peeking around her skirt.
She looks wary as Flora introduces herself and asks where we might buy some food. “It’s only me and the boys here, my lady—and my father Donal. But you’re welcome to share our meal.”
Flora smiles at the children, and they grin back shyly, then one darts forward and tugs at my plaid for attention before his mother pushes him out of the way. Stubbornly, he pauses a short distance away. “Have you seen my father, sir? He was fighting—”
“Hush, wee man. Mind your manners and go play with your brothers,” the woman says, turning back to Flora.
Flora tries to smile. “Your offer is very kind, but we’ve a fair distance to go yet. I hoped we might buy whatever you or your neighbours can spare. I know that’s not much these days.”
The old man stands up from the table where he’s seated. “Won’t be safe for any Domhnall to travel in Ehrugael. Especially you, Lady of Dunhaelic. There’s Cymbeul militia about, and the Butcher himself.”
“The Butcher? Where?” I ask, somewhat sharply.
The old man is missing an arm at the elbow, and he’s younger than I thought at first. I search my memory, trying to place him.
His eyes are a clear blue and sharp. They narrow as he looks me over, then his attention comes to rest on the pommel of my sword.
He starts to drop to his knee at the same moment that I realise the boy tugged the drape of my plaid aside.
I catch his good arm to keep him upright. Our eyes meet, and I give him a small shake of my head. “Have you seen the Butcher yourself?”
The old man studies me a beat too long, and I notice Flora watching us both. Her face has lost all expression.
“He rode through on the way to Gleannadail House, Your—” He swallows visibly.
“Sir. But more militia and the queen’s red-coated peacocks arrive every day.
Too many for Dun Uilleum to hold, so they’re quartering in all the larger houses.
Meanwhile, they thieve and rape, pretending to search for…
the king and his Riders. The Butcher’s offered ￡30,000 in reward—enough for a man to buy most of Ehrugael.
There’s not a Domhnall here who’d take it, though.
You can believe that.” He glances at Flora and gives her a nod.
“Don’t matter what side Domhnalls fight for, we’ll not betray anyone. ”
“Good man,” Flora says. “And what of Alasdair of Gleannadail? Is there news of him and his family?”
The man’s face turns sour. “Red coats took Gleannadail himself and his son to Dun Uilleum in chains. Put his wife and two girls on a boat. Claimed to be taking them to the Tower in Dunfithic.”
The young woman returns with two bundles of oilcloth in time to hear his words. She pauses and looks at her father, then turns to me with her brows raised.
“This is more than I hoped,” Flora says, taking the bundles from her gently. “We’re truly grateful.” She holds a gold coin out.
“We don’t take charity in this house.” The woman draws back, her chin raised. “My husband will be back soon, and my own back is strong.”
“What’s your name?” Flora asks.
“Mairi, my lady.”
“I’m Flora, please. And I’m paying what the food is worth to us in this moment. You’d do me a kindness to accept it and take your family away from here while you still can. If you can travel as far as Dunhaelic, ask for Faolan and tell him that I sent you.”
Mairi holds out her palm to take the coin, but her father catches her hand to stop her. “We’ll accept no coin for helping either of you,” he says. “But we’ll go to Dunhaelic and find a way to make ourselves useful until you’re home again.”
He shifts his gaze from Flora to me, holding my eyes until I nod.
Flora kisses Mairi on the cheek, then steps back. “I hope you and your boys stay safe, and that your husband and all the Domhnall men will come home soon.”
“Thank you for that, and may the Lord Father save the king,” the old man answers, glancing from Flora back to me. “It’s in my heart to hope that the king knows that every true man in Ehrugael will still stand with him whenever it’s time to fight again.”
Flora drapes the plaid over her head as we return to the horses and put the food away. She’s quiet, her face averted, and no sooner has she swung herself into Eira’s saddle than she kicks the mare into a run and retraces our path back towards the eastern side of the loch.
I push Bramble to follow, my mind racing and only half aware that the Shadehound from the village has picked up a friend and they are both running behind us. We pass the old church at a canter and approach the birch-covered hills that slope down almost to the water.
A heavy drizzle begins, with clouds blotting out the moon. It’s too dark for the pace Flora has set, so I urge Bramble to catch up. Flora refuses to look at me until I reach for Eira’s reins in desperation and pull her to a stop.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I say.
Flora draws her dagger and presses the blade to my wrist until I drop her reins.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” she demands.
My heart thuds heavily. “Tell you what?”
“That you’re the rebel king masquerading as a Rider.”
The oathbands constrict in warning—a brief moment of ice and fire in my veins. I can’t ignore them, but I know Flora won’t betray me. Drawing a deep breath, I search for an answer that they will let me give her.
She stiffens in the saddle with every passing moment I don’t speak. Picking up her mood, Eira paws at the ground, the bit jangling and dripping froth as she works it with her tongue.
“You don’t even have the courtesy to admit it, do you?” Flora snaps. “So much for truth and honour. But at least help me understand. Does a would-be king outrank the Master of the Anvar’thaine in Tirnaeve? What about a messenger? The king’s errand boy?”
The oathbands clench again, and the pain is nothing to the shame. I say the words I’ve already said to Flora too often. Words that won’t change what’s done.
“I’m sorry.”
““Apologies are meaningless. I can understand why you might not have wanted to tell me at the beginning. But after I healed you? Haven’t I proven you can trust me?” Flora’s eyes grow colder.
“The Camhrain sentries recognised you, didn’t they?
You stopped them from saying it aloud, just like you tried to stop Mairi’s father from taking a knee when he recognised your sword. The king’s sword.”
“The Sword of the Anvar’thaine. The Master’s sword.”
“And am I the only fool who doesn’t know the rebel king is the Master of the Anvar’thaine?”
“Does it matter what people call me? I’m still myself. Still king of nothing.”
I want to remind her that she said she knows who I am—regardless of what I am. That’s not fair, though, and I know it.
I should have found a way to tell her I’m oathbound to win the throne. Until this moment, I didn’t know how much her acceptance matters. How much I care that she sees me for myself.
She’s thawed the ice I’d built around my heart and made me dare to feel again.
I hate that I’ve hurt her. That I’ve lost her.
“I wish I had told you. I thought there was too much danger—”
“For me? Or for you?” Flora snaps.
“For both of us.”
Nothing about you being here is safe. Not for a single soul in Alba Scoria.” She nudges Eira closer, until we’re stirrup to stirrup and our knees are touching.
I feel the fury rolling from her. The Shadehounds growl behind us, and the wind rises, rain-soaked and edged with smoke.
“This,” Flora continues fiercely, “this is the exact reason why it’s impossible to trust an Ever.
You don’t lie, but you aren’t honest. Not because you can’t be.
Not because of oaths or promises. Because you won’t tell the truth.
You dole out information like sweets to small children, and you expect us to be grateful for the crumbs. ”
It’s the pain behind Flora’s rage that makes my heart ache.
After Culodur, I swore I wouldn’t drag anyone else into danger for me. That I wouldn’t cause more pain. That vow means as much to me as the oaths that bind me to the Anvar’thaine.
I’ve seen the damage Vheara and I have done to Flora’s people and the others in Alba Scoria. What my father has done to them. Still, the oaths that bind me to my uncle are a leash I cannot shake.
When Flora confronted me in the woods, I was fighting not to have to kill her. I tried to save her, and instead, I’ve taken away nearly everything that she cared about.
““You are the last person I ever wanted to hurt. Please believe that if nothing else.”
“Am I?” she asks too quietly. “Tell me, did you have to bed me to keep your oaths? Or was that just a bonus?” She searches my face for a moment, then nudges her horse forward without waiting for me to answer.
The question echoes, and hearing that cold, dead tone in her voice is when I know that what I’ve done—what I’ve broken—is beyond repair or mending.
I bedded Flora because she burrowed into my heart. Because she’s become a craving. I bedded her in spite of my oaths. But I can’t deny that if what I am starting to hope proves to be true, she will be hurt even more.
And that will break us both.