Chapter 29
“It doesn’t matter,” Aoife said. Her voice was quiet but steady. “I’ll stay here. At least the staff and the villagers will be safe from you.”
Halverton grinned. “Safe? How do you figure that? I will call for reinforcements from Eldross. Every last one of them will regret siding with you.” He didn’t look at the staff as he spoke.
It was Aoife’s turn to smile. “And how do you plan to control them in the meantime?” She asked. “Do you think these are the only soldiers who hate you?”
Norin and Kian moved subtly, no longer flanking the door, no longer hiding in the shadows. Kian’s muscles were taut, jaw tense, eyes red as he stopped beside Wiren.
Halverton scoffed. “You have three men. I have a troop outside who are loyal to me.”
“Look how you repay us,” Kian’s voice cracked through the air. “Lugh was loyal, and you shot him like a dog.”
“Who?” Halverton blinked.
Kian lunged. Norin and Wiren grabbed him, holding him back, but the rage in Kian’s shouts filled the hall. Halverton stumbled as he backed away, eyes wide.
Aoife seized the moment. “Do you think the Morran men will fight for you after that? After they saw the omens? After they saw you?” She stepped closer, voice hardening.
Halverton growled deep in his throat. “The empire knows how to deal with traitors. They will send reinforcements within the week.” He straightened as he said it, regaining his composure. He glared at her, nostrils flaring. “You and your little friends will be crushed.”
He stepped closer. Behind her, she heard the shifting of bodies. She lifted a hand slightly, stilling them. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Not yet.
She understood then why he had stepped closer. He wanted to watch her face as his words landed.
“Dromdara will be as nothing to what we do here.”
Aoife smiled softly at him. Halverton’s eyes darted around the room as though he might have missed something.
“How do you plan to send word to Eldross?” she asked, “without anyone to carry your letter?”
He straightened, trying to recover his authority. “I will go myself.” He snapped. “I will return with an army.”
Aoife smiled faintly. “How are you going to do that when you can’t even leave the estate?”
He frowned, brows knitting together. “What?”
“You haven’t noticed, have you?” she said. “When’s the last time you left the grounds?”
Halverton backed away from her, colour draining from his face.
“It was the day you brought me here,” she said softly. “You swore you wouldn’t leave until you fell in love.”
“I made no such oath,” he protested.
“Oh, but you did. When you gave your blood to the Sheedar.”
There were hushed mutterings behind her.
He gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “You cannot leave because you believe you cannot. And because I will not let you. There is no magic here, only rules. And I make them.”
“Then go,” Aoife said simply. “You’ve tried, remember.”
She saw the moment it dawned on him that she was right.
“I am not trapped,” he snapped, crossing the hall to the sideboard and putting more space between them. “I did not make any oath. Even if I did, it is all nonsense superstition.”
She shook her head. “You’ll never leave this estate.”
For a heartbeat, he said nothing. His hand shook as he reached for the decanter. He didn’t bother with a glass, just raised the bottle and drank.
When he lowered it, he looked at her over the rim. The stare was hard. Calculating. He shook his head once, as if rejecting something he didn’t want to see, and drank again. She could see something shifting beneath the surface as the truth hit him in waves, and pride turned into fear.
He slammed the bottle down and stormed towards the doors, yanking them open. Eoin tumbled inside, wide-eyed. Halverton shoved the boy aside and stormed down the front steps, Wiren close behind.
Aoife ran after him, stopping briefly to see that Eoin was all right, catching a glimpse of her dagger in the boy’s hand. “Put that away,” she snapped, harsher than necessary, but too full of fear to be gentle.
Her skirts were heavy around her legs as she dashed down the stairs, the staff close behind.
She reached the balustrade; Cormac was hanging limply from the post, his back a mass of torn flesh.
The air stank of blood and sweat. The soldier wielding the lash paused between blows, slow and deliberate.
Whether he drew it out from cruelty or reluctance, Aoife couldn’t tell.
Halverton reached the bottom of the steps and turned, voice cutting through the chaos. “Kill them all!”
Villagers’ screams rent the air. The staff froze where they were on the steps. Soldiers raised their rifles or swords, hands tightening on grips and triggers.
“Stand down! Drop your weapons!” Wiren shouted.
Halverton was already gone, striding across the grass, coat flaring behind him, not waiting to see his orders carried out.
The soldiers froze, some with their weapons on the villagers, some aiming at the staff, and others at their own. They looked to Wiren.
“Stand down,” he repeated.
It rang out sharp with command.
And for a heartbeat, it worked.
You could see the flicker of doubt, of relief. Shoulders loosened. Fingers faltered on triggers. Half the soldiers relaxed; the other half did not move, caught between conflicting orders.
Alton broke from the steps and sprinted forward with an awkward gait, wrenching the whip from the soldier’s hand. The man stumbled into the line, more startled than resistant, uncertainty flashing across his face.
Aoife followed, the movement instinctive and unstoppable. She raised her hands as she went.
“Stop,” she called. “Please—stop!”
Her voice was too small against the tension.
She reached the bottom of the stairs beside Wiren. Together they faced the armed men.
Most were Morran. Not strangers. Not enemies. Their own.
She stepped forward before she could think better of it, placing herself between them and Cormac.
Alton was already there, cutting him down. The ropes gave way. Cormac collapsed, his weight folding in on itself, and Alton caught him before he struck the stones.
“Lower your weapons,” Wiren commanded again.
The captain stepped forward from the line of his men, shaking his head. “No. Keep them raised. We can’t side with the savages.”
“Your soldiers aren’t going to hurt us,” Aoife said. Her voice grew louder as she spoke. “Because they are us.” She was speaking to the captain, but her eyes were on the Morran soldiers.
And they were looking at her.
The courtyard held its breath.
One man shifted. Another swallowed. A rifle dipped slightly before lowering fully.
It hit the ground, loud in the silence.
Metal struck stone in uneven beats, echoing outward, as more soldiers followed suit. A weight lifted from her chest at each one.
It was working.
A few Eldrossi held firm, faces full of doubt, their fingers tight on the triggers.
Someone flinched.
A shot rang out.
That single sound tore the world open.
For a heartbeat, time stopped, as if the air itself had forgotten how to move. The courtyard erupted. Smoke burst outward in a choking bloom. Men shouted, voices colliding into a shapeless and panicked mass. Steel clashed. Another shot split the air with a sharp crack.
The remaining Eldrossi soldiers turned, not on the crowd, but on their comrades.
Villagers scattered, bodies slamming into one another in blind terror. Boots scraped on stone, hands shoved, someone fell. Gunpowder overwhelmed Aoife’s senses, thick and bitter in her nose, on her tongue, already threaded with copper. The unmistakable taste of blood.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t the plan. No one was meant to die.
“Down!” Clíona gasped, tugging at her dress.
They hit the ground hard behind the balustrade. The stone was cold beneath her palms. A bullet struck the marble above her head with a deafening crack.
Stone exploded.
Fragments sprayed across her cheek, sharp as glass. She flinched, ducking lower, her heart lurching so violently it might tear free of her ribs.
Her ears rang, a high, relentless whine that swallowed everything else. The world became fragments, shadows moving through smoke, the flash of steel, the dull thud of bodies hitting the ground.
She pressed herself flatter against the marble, dragging in a breath that burned all the way down. The air was thick now, heavy with smoke, harder to breathe and impossible to see through.
Where was Cormac?
The thought cut through everything.
She lifted her head an inch, trying to see over the balustrade. The courtyard had dissolved into chaos. Shapes moved in the smoke. She couldn’t tell who was standing, who had fallen, who was—
Another shot cracked.
She jerked back instinctively, her shoulder slamming into the stone. Clíona’s hand clutched at her sleeve, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt.
“Alton—!” Clíona’s voice broke, raw with panic. “Alton!”
Her stomach twisted violently, heat rising in her mouth as she pulled Clíona in tight.
This is my fault.
A heavy impact shuddered through the balustrade, jolting her back to the present. More stone splintered somewhere to her right. Someone cried out, abruptly cut off.
Time stretched, warped. Each second too long, too sharp, as though she were living inside every instant instead of passing through it. Clíona’s hands gripped her arms painfully tight.
Please.
Make it stop.
Who was she pleading with? The Shee never listened.
The noise thinned as gunshots came less frequently. Shouts broke apart into scattered voices. Steel rang once more, distant now.
Silence fell in its wake.
Aoife didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
Her body locked in place, every muscle taut, waiting for the next shot, the next blow.
It didn’t come.
The ringing in her ears faded enough for her to hear the absence of everything else.
No shouting.
No gunfire.
Only the faint crackle of settling debris… and the soft, terrible quiet that followed.
Slowly, she lifted her head.