Chapter Seventeen #2
Starving people will turn on the nobles—and if this is like the last uprising, the nobles will turn to the Cymrean fighters burning the grain in the first place, hiring them as mercenaries to protect their estates from riots.
There would be a small army of Cymreans right here on our isle, one that the High Queen could turn against us as soon as it suits her.
The picture that comes together in my mind is horrifying. “They’re making sure we’re too weak and poor to fight back when they annex us.”
Wolf’s eyes flicker over my face. “Yes. But there are more of us than you know about.” He offers the words without me having to ask for them. “And not just in Dyfflin. Fang—the mage you met at the house—think of her like…” His mouth twists. “Our general.”
He shifts then, moving quickly behind me so his chest is a hair’s width away from brushing against the sensitive curve of my spine.
Every nerve in my body lights up.
Wolf reaches around us to point to one of the tapestries on the wall in front of me.
I swallow, trying to focus on the painstakingly stitched details.
A map, I realize with a jolt.
It’s Eireann.
“No good army puts all their people in one place.” He trails a long, callused finger over the faded greens and blacks marking out the rugged edges of the shape of our isle.
Dyfflin is marked with an embroidered crown in the southeast, and I realize it’s so old, so neglected, that no one’s bothered to correct the inaccuracies on the rest of the map.
Old Ones, who made this?
The lines marking out the estates of the Seven Families are wrong. It shows three of them, not the two there really are, on the western coast. Still, I study the dark, shimmering rivers stitched along the paths connecting the estates with our city, Dyfflin, and the other Wells.
Even the crown stitched over Dyfflin is wrong—there are three spikes rising up from the golden band instead of the two on the crowns that the High King and Prince Cashel wear.
One for Berach the Cunning, the first High King.
One for his only son, their ancestor.
Wolf draws his finger up the western coast slowly, as if lingering, then up to where the isle meets the wide expanse of the Sea of Serpents. Tiny black sewn beasts with wings fly over the sea between Eireann and the Málmar Islands.
Talon’s words rise in my mind.
Wolf isn’t technically our leader.
And he might not answer, but I have to ask. “If that mage is your general, what does that make you?” The words feel too loud in the stillness between us.
“What she wishes I was? Or what I am?” Wolf’s hand draws back, no longer tracing the lines along the tapestry even as he stays close at my back.
When I don’t answer, he shakes his head, his hand ghosting a featherlight touch down the length of my arm.
I shiver at the heat trailing in its wake.
“I’m her knife in the dark.” We’re so close that I feel the muscles across his chest go taut at the words. “Scared?”
Tension straddles a blade’s edge in his words.
I can tell—he expects me to be. And maybe I should… just like I should tell him to move farther away from me. There’s no need for him to be this close, or for me to let him.
But I can’t bring myself to do it.
“I watched my mother’s body rot on the Black Quay,” I say softly, the words heavy between us.
“I watched every temple she loved burn to the ground and saw more blood run from them than I ever thought possible.” I shake my head and feel the catch of his breath where his jaw almost brushes my hair.
As if he can’t bring himself to pull away either.
“It takes a lot more than you to scare me.”
His hand tracing down my arm stills. “Is she the one who taught you to read ogham?”
My muscles turn to stone.
He draws his hand back but doesn’t step away.
Dread is an instinct. My breath forms a faint puff in the chilled temple air, and I draw in a slow, steadying lungful. The truth can’t hurt her now.
“She was,” I whisper, and squeeze my eyes shut for a long moment.
I don’t think it’s possible to ever truly be free of a loss like this one. My hand finds the silver chain around my neck, drawing out the delicate triple knot at its end. The faint power in it tingles against my fingers.
Wolf’s breathing quickens at the sight of it.
I don’t know what makes me offer any more to Wolf of all people. The ache in my chest is pressure, though—and speaking about her creates just enough space for me to breathe a little easier.
This first real exchange between us is a spell, weaving a dangerous haze around me.
It’s achingly easy to let myself believe that—maybe—this is progress.
“She still believed, even after the High King banished the Martyr and the mages. That magic was still worth fighting to save, even if there wasn’t a single drop left in the Wells. And they killed her for it.”
My mind conjures imaginings of what her end must’ve been like.
Each one feels like a blade carving up the pieces of my heart that I’ve worked so damn hard to hold together.
I flinch at the memories of the uprising: of the screams, of clashing swords, of the sound of altars shattering and the smell of scorched incense in the temples my mother dedicated herself to, even over all my father’s warnings.
There was nothing left of them to rummage through after that day.
Nothing but memories, and nightmares, and a lullaby I can’t even fully remember.
“And you…,” Wolf murmurs, drawing the hair back from my shoulders. My cheeks flush. “Would you fight? If there was even a drop of magic left in the Wells?”
It’s a pointless question.
It’s reckless and foolish and dangerous, because there is no magic left in them. So the answer is easy to give.
“Yes.”
Solemn stillness settles in the hollow silence of my answer. Wolf’s breath brushes at the back of my neck—there’s no space between us now.
I’ve let myself lean back against him, lured dangerously close by the treason of our whispers.
I curse myself silently and pull away.
Cool air rushes in between us, but the warmth in my cheeks lingers. I turn around and step back, but there’s not enough space. My spine finds the tapestry just as Wolf takes a half step forward and pins me in place with eyes so green I swear they could be mage-fire.
“Thank you.”
The words sound foreign from Wolf’s lips. How many times has he said them—and to who?
The brush of his gaze slips along my jaw, my neck, and the silver chain as I move the charm back beneath my tunic.
“For what?”
His gaze softens almost imperceptibly. “For being honest with me.”
There’s so much more I should ask him.
But for once, being near him feels… easy.
Safe, even though the rational part of my mind knows he is anything but.
Wolf is lethal—in his own words, a knife in the dark.
But being here with him, away from the constant danger in the castle, surrounded by ancient stone and tapestries of all the old stories… it calms me.
He calms me, in a way I can’t even begin to explain.
He makes me want to believe, and to hope. Because all of this plotting and scheming? This is bigger than politics now. I can feel it in my bones.
And it’s not just for me but for all of us.
For the nation we can still be, if we’re willing to stand up and fight.
We lose a part of ourselves when we lose the courage to stand up for what we believe in.
And whether it takes decades or centuries, the part of our souls that aches for something older than us… that part of us never fully goes away.
That’s what Wolf is fighting for.
And it’s what I’ll fight for too.
Wolf’s mask cracks, a sliver of impulsive want slipping through the shadows in his eyes—but it must be just a trick of the dim light. There’s no reason for him to look at me like that, not after how much danger he’s put me in. Not with how much he’s held back from me.
He draws just an inch closer and takes in a slow, deep breath.
Old Ones, this is reckless. But I can’t make myself pull away.
Even as his gaze drops to my lips, and his mouth lowers.
Foolish longing crackles through me. Another half inch, and those lips…
Someone coughs.
Wolf curses, head jerking over his shoulder.
I look up to find Talon leaning against the stone archway by the hidden entrance through the kitchen storage. “Am I interrupting?” There’s a wicked light in their brown eyes. “I can come back.”
Apparently, they would make the worst chaperone in the world.
“You’re not interrupting.” Wolf steps back from me. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear a hint of a flush heats his cheeks too. He runs a hand over his leathers, tugging at his heavy cloak. “We’re done here.”
My eyes flash to his.
There’s no softness in him now. Not even a trace of what’s transpired, as if the whole thing was just in my head. Just the same hard, guarded mask he wore that first night in the safe house.
Old Ones, I’m a fool.
I’m a means to an end for Wolf—a pretty distraction to dangle in front of the prince while the Whisperers plot behind his back and clear his path to the throne.
“Yeah.” I sidestep out from between the wall and Wolf. “We’re done.”
Just as I’m almost out of his reach, one hand catches my wrist.
Wolf’s lip catches at the edge of his teeth, brows caught in a deep furrow. He searches my face, cocking his head like he’s trying to work out a riddle.
The temple’s chilled air steals the heat from my cheeks, and I shake him off, meeting Talon’s too-observant gaze. Their stare holds too many questions, so I ignore it.
“Take me back,” I whisper, and I don’t care if Wolf hears.