34. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
We slipped into the night, the vast courtyard stretching wide beneath lantern light and cold stars. The air carried smoke and night-flowers, ribbons of shadow pooling across cobblestones.
We walked in silence. His stride was easy. Mine was careful. I fixed my eyes on the carved hedges, the marble fountains, and blooms that glowed faint in the dark. Fairy-tale impossible—but for all the perfection, there was an even heavier weight behind it.
My mind was full enough to render me silent. Scáthae’s stare. Caedmon’s power. Mairenn’s schemes. Tairngire’s secrets.
Always his secrets.
I had touched another divine tonight and seen blood.
Stood in a hall of half-born and felt their wonder.
Wonder at me, though I had done nothing to deserve it other than be an enigma they’d never been permitted to know.
I'd been given an opportunity by a goddess, to train with weapons and to fight.
My dream come true—and yet a sense of unease coiled deep within.
The silence was relentless in its emptiness. Tairngire moved in it naturally, while it only made my mind louder.
His voice cut sharp through the night. “What did you see?”
I startled, his words dragging me from my unhelpful thoughts. I cleared my throat. “You know I can’t say.”
A low chuckle rumbled from his chest, full of dark amusement. “You conquer beasts, and yet you’re still bound to that sacred purpose,” he said rolling his eyes, like centuries of tradition were nothing more than a joke to him. But something else probed beneath the mockery.
I clenched my fists. “It isn’t a jest, Tairngire. It’s what I am. All I’ve ever been allowed to be. So forgive me if I’m unsettled by the potential consequences of breaking further rules under the eyes of Caerthannas.”
Okay, so that wasn’t a full truth, and he probably knew it.
I was constantly breaking rules. I wasn't sure why I was so attached to my dreaded station, perhaps because there was safety in familiarity…
in complacency, and that was a particular little fact I didn't want to admit out loud.
It felt too much like a weakness, and I'd been raised to burn those out.
His eyes slid my way, glinting faint in the lanternlight, undecipherable as always.
"Hmm," he hummed in response, narrowing his eyes.
Then, he turned his head back to the path ahead and continued to walk without further words, like he knew my answer was lacking and didn't care to push the issue further.
Well, that was a first.
“Why drag me on this dreadful walk anyway?” I eventually muttered.
He didn’t look at me. Instead, he gestured lazily to the courtyard—the fountains spilling moonlight, ivy climbing the stone. “Scenery,” he said with a shrug. “Mortals like this sort of thing, yes?”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “Scenery,” I repeated flatly. “You pulled me from a feast with the War Goddess for…scenery?”
His eyes flicked knowingly to mine. “Better than watching half-born stumble through their cups, is it not?”
I huffed at that. I couldn’t deny the castle’s beauty, even if it did seem unnatural.
We walked on in silence for awhile, only broken only by the fountains’ whisper. The air was perfect. Familiar, grounding—like rainstorms back in Anamcroí.
Finally, I drew a breath. “It’s strange,” I admitted. “Here I feel more alive than I ever did at home. Like I might have a chance at something beyond temples and Sight.”
He didn’t answer, just listened with his arms crossed lazily behind his back. And somehow, that was worse than him letting loose all the barbs on his tongue.
I followed his gaze to the courtyard where half-born sparred under moonlight, steel ringing sharp through the night. These ones wasted no time on feasts. They bled, trained, fought.
“Mairenn told me things,” I said, the words tumbling.
“About her bond. Serving the king. Training beside her mother. Everyone here seems proud of their bonds. Like they want them. That’s not what I’ve read.
Not what I’ve been told to believe.” I shook my head.
“I was taught bonds are only chains. That desire is corruption. That duty is salvation. And yet here…bonds look like something else entirely. Like…power.”
I glanced at him, heat pooling in my stomach. “Is it always like this in Cindraloch, or just because she’s here? Because Scáthae has her hand in everything?”
“I brought you here because it is like that. Scáthae steadies these parts of Cindraloch. Those she sires carry their bonds with pride. That balance is rare among the divine, Little Seer. Rarer than you think.”
I nodded, his words solidifying a truth. “That’s what Mairenn said.”
His head turned, eyes narrowing. “And what else did the war-born tell you?”
“She told me Cindraloch isn’t as balanced as King Caedmon made it seem. That not all kings are kind. That there is darkness here too. Always.” I lifted my chin, bracing.
No mockery this time. Only a short nod. “She’s right. Neit has influence here. His hand is not as gentle as Scáthae’s. I’ve told you as much.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. He’d warned me earlier of Neit’s brutality, of what his houses looked like when he claimed them. But hearing it again, after Mairenn’s warning, pressed heavier.
Without realizing it, we’d wandered into vast gardens. Lanterns hung from branches like captured stars. Their glow spilled over marble paths curving toward a white gazebo wrapped in silver vines. Beyond it stretched a black lake, still and mirror-like, reflecting the sky with perfect stillness.
The forest pressed close around it, wild and vibrant, seemingly untouched. My chest tightened at the sight, wonder breaking past the weight of duty.
When I dared a glance at Tairngire, he wasn’t watching the lake. He was watching me. His gaze lingered, assessing, long enough that I stopped walking. It unsettled me more than his teasing.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, my voice tight. The jeweled embroidery caught every flicker of light, the ridiculous gown pressing in on me with a heaviness only anxiety could cause.
For a moment, he only stood there, arms folded, hair gilded by night. “Because you don’t even know,” he said softly.
“Know what?” I demanded, heat flooding my face.
His eyes traced me, slow and calculating. “The way Aíne’s daughters spun you tonight, Little Seer…you could bring kings to their knees.”
That devastating gaze remained, like I was something he hadn’t expected.
The way he saw me, as if I may be more to him than just the duty I was chained to, more than a weapon for the Old Gods to wield…
I couldn’t handle it. I had to be seeing things, because I knew the truth.
Tairngire was out to use me. Just like the rest of them.
My mouth went dry. I forced my chin higher, clinging to defiance. “Don’t patronize me, Forest God.”
His mouth curved faintly, but he didn’t look away. Desire had no place here, so I forged it into anger like I always did.
“Stop gawking,” I snapped. "I'm not some story for you to unravel, and I'm certainly not here to entertain you."
His mouth twitched. Then he stepped forward, unhurried, a predator closing in. I backed away until my spine hit the carved rail of the gazebo.
“You think I don’t see it?” His voice held a dangerous edge. “The way you try to burn it down. The way you use fire to hide what you don’t want to name?”
I held his stare though every part of me screamed to look away.
There were two sides of myself at war with each other.
The mortal side of me that burned hot, that desired…
more. And the part of me that didn’t trust anyone, let alone this beautiful god, who knew just what to say to evoke the very things I shouldn’t be able to feel.
I continued to cling to my defiance, I had to.
“You see only what you want,” I ground out. “You twist everything—every word—into one of your games.”
He leaned close enough I could feel the warmth rolling off him, forest and steel clinging to his leathers. His green eyes burned, dimmed only by his will. The runes beneath his skin burned faintly as if the bond itself wanted to give him away.
“And yet,” he murmured, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips, “you haven’t told me to step back yet.”
My nails dug into the rail. I detested it. The way he saw through me. The red thread humming with fury and the very thing he knew I wouldn’t name.
I cleared my throat, and pressed harder against the wood at my back. “It seems you’re in danger of being…taken by a mortal. Imagine the scandal. A god of your stature undone by the silly ‘Little Seer’ the temples caged.”
His scoff was low, wrapping me in smoke. “Scandal, or envy?”
I rolled my eyes in response, but my heartbeat faltered when his arm braced above me, caging me in without touching. My breath came out choppy, foreign to even my own ears.
He loomed, close enough that it drew all air from my lungs. “You test the bond. You test lines you don’t even see,” he murmured, eyes flashing verdant flame.
I tilted my chin, refusing to shrink under his gaze. “And you cross them without hesitation. What happens when one finally sets you aflame?”
A supercilious look crossed his face, there and gone in an instant. He shrugged lazily, his signature smirk back in place. “Then perhaps I’ll let it burn.”
His arm stayed above me, his presence overwhelming.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” I said tightly. “I wasn’t aware that gods felt the need to corner mortal women just to feel bigger than them.”
His free hand flexed at his side. “You think this is about feeling bigger?” His eyes dragged down, then up again, deliberately slow. “No, Little Seer. It’s about watching prey bristle when caught.”