Chapter 28 #2
“Flora!” Chyr’s shout echoes over the water. “Wait. Stop, for the love of—”
A horse’s scream cuts across the words, a high-pitched squeal of terror. I turn and slip in the muck. My arms flail in an effort to regain my balance.
Chyr has followed me into the bog—no regard for his own safety. Or Bramble’s. My heart twists and leaps into my throat as I see her hind legs sinking. Water and clumps of peat churn around her. Her forelegs flail for solid ground that isn’t there. She’s panicking, her eyes rimmed white in fear.
Chyr throws himself from the saddle and catches the noseband of her bridle. He sinks to his hips in muck.
My heart plummets. I channel the magic around me and reach deep into the earth to lift the ground beneath them. The bog boils, and moonlight smears the moving water.
Raising the ground is harder across the distance. Yet the thought of losing them, of failing…I can’t give up.
“Steady, Bramble.” Chyr’s voice strains. “Steady—”
She twists, foam-flecked muscles rippling. The move knocks Chyr aside. He falls, and water closes above his head.
Someone screams—no, I am screaming.
I search inside myself for calm, and I push an enormous wave of it at Eira. Even Then I’m not sure I can trust her not to move.
“Stay here, sweet girl. Don’t budge a hoof. I swear I’ll come back to get you.”
I run back along the trail I’ve built to save Chyr. But his head breaks the surface. He gasps, coughs, sucks in air, and swims a few strokes towards Bramble.
He glances back at me, wild-eyed defiance warring in his expression with something that looks like shame. “Help the mare,” he says. “I’m safe.”
He won’t be safe if he tries to pull himself up on anything that isn’t solid. But Bramble screams as water reaches her hindquarters. Her legs are mired too deep to move.
I send the last of my magic out beneath her, searching for anything solid I can use to firm the ground under her feet.
Wild magic swirls around me, an enormous living force that’s begging for me to use it. Only I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do.
Bramble screams again, the water nearly to the top of her hindquarters. Her front legs are almost floating while the bog drags her hind end under.
Panic washes through me, clogging my throat and wrapping around my heart like a cold, hard fist.
I ignore what my mind tells me—that the earth is too far under Bramble, that I can’t help her. I only know I must. Letting the wild force around me flow, I drag the ground up inch by inch.
Water churns and separates around Bramble’s hindquarters, and they finally break the surface.
She’s still flailing. I croon to her as I make a trail for myself back to the bit of solid ground where Chyr had stood beside her.
“Hush, lovely girl. Stay quiet, love. I’m here.”
I grasp her bridle and lay my other hand on her neck in reassurance. I’ve no calm inside me to give her, and the ember of Siorai magic is cooling. I reach for the Veilstone and pull. The ring warms in my bodice, but not nearly enough. I give Bramble everything that I have left.
Chyr is still in the water, but he isn’t sinking.
I stroke Bramble’s nose and scratch at the spot she likes beneath her mane. At the same time, I keep building up the ground beneath her.
Water and flecks of peat sluice off her flanks. Her struggles weaken. I count her breaths against my own until she’s steady, until I can see her hocks rising, then her knees and ankles sluicing water.
When she’s free, I nudge her backwards. Her muscles bunch. Pushing back against the muck is easier than trying to pull herself free. I get her back to the solid footing of the path I made earlier.
I take a closer look at Chyr. I want to be angry when I see him.
Mainly, I just feel relief.
All of this, Chyr coming after me, putting Bramble in danger—all of that is down to me not having had the courage to face my shame. To face him. To trust him.
“Stand, Bramble.” I leave her with a last pat on the shoulder.
Testing every step, I retrace my path to where Chyr has pulled himself up to his elbows.
The ground rolls from under him when he tries to climb up. He clasps the hand I offer him, his palm wet and slippery. He puts one foot on the path as I pull, but I’m doing little more than steadying him.
He pauses with his hands on his knees, his shoulders shaking. He’s soaked and shivering. His breath comes in ragged gusts, his entire body trembling with effort. I can’t help remembering when his wound was bleeding, and I was afraid that he would die.
That’s not true anymore. The force of him, the magic that rolls through him and crackles along his skin…A shudder rocks me as he straightens. His eyes burn gold, boring into mine.
“Why did you run from me?” he asks.
Is it hurt or anger that fuels the question? I can’t tell. Maybe both. I don’t know the answer. There are so many reasons, and I want to admit to none of them. Yet my cowardice doesn’t excuse me from telling him the truth.
“I woke up in the cavern, wondering how I could marry anyone who wouldn’t give me as much of himself as you had.
Someone who wouldn’t see me as an equal.
Despite being an Ever and a Rider, you never made me feel that I was less—until I discovered everything between us had been a lie.
Then I overheard the Riders talking, and they made no effort to hide their contempt for humans. For me.”
I hate the hurt that bleeds into my voice.
Chyr’s breath comes hard, and his voice is a rasp. “I’m not them, Flora. You’ve never been a coward, so I don’t believe you ran because Daire and Lorcan indulged in their usual self-absorption. Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“Because what if you are like them? What if even that is a lie between us?”
“Don’t you know me better than that?” Gently, he taps my heart with two fingers. “In here, you know how I feel about you.”
“I know I feel more than it’s safe to feel. You’re the rebel king. You hid that from me because your safety depends on no one knowing. What if the other Riders want to kill me for knowing?”
“I will never let that happen.” There’s no inflection in the words, but the way he says it leaves no doubt.
He traces two fingers up my throat to my chin, then cups my cheek. I want to sink into his warmth. My eyes want to close, but I pull back.
“Are you going to run again?” he asks. “Because if you are, I’m going to need a minute before I can follow you.”
“You don’t need me. Your Riders can get you to Muilean.
And here.” I reach into my bodice and pull the Veilstone ring from between my breasts.
“You’ll need this. Only promise me that when you bring your army back, you’ll treat us better than your father did.
Don’t exploit us the way Tirnaeve always has.
We won’t stand for it this time, so don’t expect to find us weak. ”
“You’re the one who underestimates yourself.
You mistake fear for weakness when it’s no more than a boundary to test your courage.
The compassion you’ve shown me, your honour, intelligence, and refusal to give up no matter the odds, those are all traits Siorai once admired.
In you, I see a reflection of who my people used to be.
You and this war have shown me how far we’ve departed from truth and justice.
We twist both until they’re a hairbreadth from breaking. ”
I search Chyr’s face for evasion or deceit, for distortion. His expression is naked, the tendons standing out from his throat, and pain etched starkly in the lines around his eyes. The silver scar stands out more clearly at the corner of his mouth.
He threads his hands through mine. “You and I—that was truth. A moment out of time I’d lay down my sword to live in forever with you. Whatever happens now, I need you to remember that. You matter. You’re the reason my heart still beats.”
I’m choking on my grief, but I shake my head. “Be careful, Chyr, for all our sakes. And when you get to Muilean, find a way to send Bramble home to me. Don’t let Vheara’s soldiers or the Cymbeul militia take her.”
I turn to leave, but he doesn’t release my hands. “Are you running away?”
“I’m walking,” I whisper, stepping back.
With one sharp tug, he catches me and wraps his arms around me, capturing my mouth in a kiss that starts gently, sweetly. In spite of what I tell myself, I want to kiss him back.
One last kiss.
I give in, and he groans. His hands rake into my braided hair. The kiss deepens, and I’m falling, drowning. The world spins. Heat floods my limbs, boils through my veins, leaves me tingling with every nerve ending alive at once.
Chyr pulls back, and his hands drop to my shoulders. But the heat doesn’t stop.
My whole body catches fire.
The sensation pours through me, agony worse than running out of magic, and the skin across my forehead sizzles as if it’s been branded.
I slap at it, trying to stop it. But I can’t feel anything there.
A green haze flashes across my vision, and all that pain and heat concentrates into narrow points. The reek of the bog rushes at me, far too strong.
My heart lurches into a sprint as if it can outrun whatever’s happening.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Chyr stares, his skin bleached white, a muscle clenched in his jaw. He catches my wrist. “I am so, so sorry.”
“What have you done?” My voice trembles.
His eyes hold such raw sorrow and rage that it makes me stagger. He drops his arm to my waist and holds me up.
“I have failed you in so many ways.” His voice is grim and hoarse.
“I hoped I was wrong—or at least that we could wait until we reached Muilean and Beltane. But I should have found the strength to warn you. And to tell you what I feel for you while there was still a chance that you’d believe me.
I know how important it is to you to choose for yourself.
That’s what I regret more than anything.
I’m sorry that this will take so many choices from you. ”
His finger shakes as he brushes the tip across my forehead precisely where it hurts, and the burn throbs with the thunder of my heart.
A shudder rolls through me. I try to take a breath, but the air is too thin, and it refuses to fill my lungs.
I want to demand that he tell me what he sees.
But I’m afraid I already know. I’m afraid I should have guessed days ago. That deep down, I already suspected.
I can almost hear my grandmother’s voice, hushed against the crackle of the flames in the hearth behind her as she told the story she’d already told us so often that my brothers and I, and every child at Dunhaelic, could repeat the words by heart.
No one ever knew who among the queen’s blood might be chosen.
The land took the Domhnall woman it needed when the time was right, and it marked the new Maiden with a crescent moon on her right shoulder in glowing silver—the Great Mother’s own symbol—so that the Cailleachan would be called to begin the tests.
Three tests and three crowns had to be won before the Maiden could become the Cailleach Queen.