52. Chapter Fifty #2
The cavern thrummed with tension. The air turned at least ten degrees lower.
Eisarnach chanted in the Old Tongue, violet sparks fizzing against the granite wall, but the iron held.
Tairngire’s voice followed, deeper, older, cracking like fire through frost. The mountain shuddered under his words, but the wall refused.
My knees buckled. The spark in my blood roared. The Sight burned until threads blinded me. Then I felt it, a tug in my satchel My hand moved on its own, drawing out the Obsidian Heart. Smoke churned within its black surface, an ember pulsing at its core.
Eisarnach’s grin split wide. “There it is. The stone that chose. It’s calling to its brethren.”
Behind me, Tairngire’s voice turned lethal. “Aurenya. Put it away. Do not let it speak.”
But the stone was already speaking. Wake the Iron Vein. Speak the words. And then, we become whole once more.
My lips parted and I whispered, "What words?”
But I knew them. Just like I'd known the language the woman at the funeral pyre in Morhaven was speaking to me. I wasn't sure how it was possible, but I could feel the words climbing up my throat. And I knew what they meant…
Smoke coiled through my mind, syllables carved from before the realms split. My chest seared with them, my tongue aching to release.
Tairngire’s hand clamped on my shoulder.“Aurenya what are you doing? Stop this at once, it will consume you—”
I thought he'd been shouting…but the voices drowned him out to a low whisper.
The stone rose above my palm, binding me to its essence. I opened my mouth and the Old Tongue spilled free. The cavern split with sound. The wall was screaming with a thousand voices.
Or was that me?
Silver threads of light swam across my vision, so bright that I could have been looking directly into the Godhead's gaze. It hurt, everything hurt…
The heart seared in my palm, too hot to hold, but I couldn’t let go.
The words tore from me in a cry, and the wall split open with a thunderous crack.
Shards of stone exploded outward, dust shimmering with silver and gold.
And beyond the breach, the Iron Vein pulsed.
Rivers of molten fire threaded through rock, glowing like it was the beating heart of Cindraloch itself. I collapsed to my knees.
The Obsidian Heart cooled in my hand. Eisarnach’s laugh rang delighted. “Fascinating.”
Tairngire’s growl cut through it, raw with fury. "Shut the fuck up.”
Before I could get up, Tairngire was already there lifting me into his arms, and for once, I didn't fight him.
"Are you alright?" he whispered, concern marring his perfect features.
I had the sudden urge to reach out and sweep my thumb over his furrowed brows, and that strange sense of familiar comfort washed over me as I watched his face soften under my touch. I quirked my lips up in a half-smile. "They'll get stuck that way if you keep doing that."
Tairngire cocked his head to the side and studied me with that scrutinizing look, the one he often wore when he had questions he didn't want to ask.
Eisarnach cleared his throat, breaking me from my trance. "Right, if you two are quite finished with…whatever the fuck that was, we have work to do."
Tairngire grunted and put me down, refusing to meet my eyes again. I turned and narrowed my gaze on Eisarnach, who was busy attempting to coax the Vein upward with quick, glowing spells. Reluctantly, iron shards twisted free until they hardened into a jagged red heart.
Eisarnach gestured toward me. “This would be your opportunity to take it, darling,” he murmured easily, though his eyes burned with unrestrained hunger as he looked at the cursed rock. My hands shook as I slid the Iron Vein into the satchel Branwyn had stitched for me.
“Do not let it touch the Obsidian Heart,” Tairngire snapped behind me. “If they meet, they will speak, and you are not yet ready for their words.”
I barely had time to decipher what that could mean before sound rippled through the chamber—ragged and wicked.
Laughter.
Inky shadows curled around the cavern until an impossibly large man stepped from them clad in blackened steel. His eyes glowed ember-red, cruel and unyielding, pits into some endless furnace. His smile was all teeth.
A god.
My every instinct screamed at me: abort mission, run far away, don't look back.
Two more men followed, shadows made flesh. One was broad and scarred, with a grin splitting his brutal face. The other was leaner, pale eyes like cracked ice. His throat was marred by an old, jagged wound.
They flanked him like hunting dogs.
I knew who this was, though I'd never seen him before…there was no mistaking it.
Eisarnach’s grin faltered. “Well butter me up and fuck me sideways…it’s been awhile, Neit.”
Neit. The God of War. The one who sired Saorla’s beloved before calling him to his death in battle.
And he was carved from obsidian—face all sharp edges, cheekbones like blades, jaw set with a soldier’s cruelty. His dark hair was swept back into a knot at the back of his head. An ashen cast clung to his skin, as though the Underworld had soaked into his very flesh.
Eisarnach gestured lazily at the pale-eyed man standing next to Neit. “Scarred throat, pale eyes, bored expression. You must be Caibre.” His hand shifted toward the brutish one. “And Murchadh, his charming brother.”
My blood ran cold.
Neit's gaze snapped to me, weighing me as if I were nothing more than meat for slaughter. “The Seer of the Seven Realms.” His smile was serpentine, practiced. “You burn brighter than expected. No wonder the Old Gods keep you chained.”
The satchels at my side seared hotter. I swore I could hear the Iron Vein screaming inside my head. The Obsidian Heart vibrated, like they were trying to touch. Like they wanted to speak, wanted me to hear them.
My head pounded. “How—how did you get in here?” My voice rasped. “The wards—”
“Brittle things,” Neit cut in, smooth. “Arrogant webs. And webs break, especially when one has…allies inside.”
My fear collided with my anger in a hot pool in my stomach. Betrayal. Someone within these walls had opened the gates to allow War God and Friends in.
Eisarnach whistled low. "So the King of Ash's cronies slide straight through the Phantom Queen’s defenses. Bold move, War God. She won’t be pleased."
Neit ignored him, his deadened eyes locked on me. They reminded me so much of Brannach’s. “The Seer carries what belongs to me.” His chin tipped toward the satchels. “Hand them over.”
Tairngire moved in front of me and chuckled darkly. It wasn't the seductive one I'd come to know, but a dangerous sound I'd never heard from him.
“So the great Warbringer shows himself,” he drawled, “reduced to kneeling for scraps at the Ash King’s table. Tell me, Neit, do you beg on both knees, or does he make you crawl?”
I froze.
Kneeling. Tairngire had never spoken of his past, but I’d remember the High Priestess’s story—the weight of forced submission to the Old Gods. He’d carried it like iron shackles no one else could see. And now he spit the word at Neit like a curse, as though it hadn’t broken him too.
Fate was cruel that way, binding even the strongest to the knees they swore they’d never bend. In that moment, I understood why someone might dream of unraveling the Weave entirely. To end it all. To cut every thread of Fate from existence.
But I also understood that if Fate ceased to exist, the Weave itself would shatter. It wasn't a choice that I could make.
Neit’s gaze went molten. “Careful, forest cur. You burn, and everything you touch burns with you. The Seer will learn that soon enough.”
“Better to burn than rot in rusted chains,” Tairngire said, stepping forward, all wild, untamed fire. “You call yourself War God, yet you chose to bow. You bend. You break. Nothing but a leashed dog. Just like his mortal wolves.”
The ground trembled. Neit's shadows slid in close with drawn steel, their eyes brimming with bloodlust. The air thrummed with hatred pulled taut between gods who had bled too long on opposite sides of the same Fate.
“Try me,” Tairngire said, eyes alight. “And I’ll show your bastard sons what a true God of War looks like.”
My pulse hammered. What is he hiding from me?
What chains still cling to him? The questions burned louder than the clash of their voices.
The memory of Tairngire promising to give me answers after securing the Iron Vein crashed through me like a tidal wave.
And now I was watching him stand-off with the very god I never wanted to come across.
Neit’s eyes cut to me, then back to Tairngire. “Tell me, Stagborn, does she know your greatest weakness?” His cruel eyes trailed over me, ruthless in their descent. It was enough to make me want to vomit.
“Desire weakens even the strongest of men. It opens a door worse than any wound,” a beat, and his voice turned colder. “Love. That’s always been your downfall.”
The cavern seemed to exhale frost.
What?
Tairngire’s laugh rolled out low, serrated.
“Is that the best you could come up with? You reek of desperation, Neit. Clutching brood after brood, measuring strength in sons chained to your side while you murder their sisters.” He scoffed.
“A brood doesn’t make you strong. It makes you afraid to stand alone.
Do your sons know what you forced their mothers to do? Why they stand?"
Tairngire spit on the ground at the scorned War God's feet. "You disgust me, Neit.”
Wait…murdered their sisters?
Neit bared his teeth. “You think yourself so righteous, Tairngire. And what does that make you? A god who refused to sire? A hollow tree with deep roots, broken with no fruit. Revered now, forgotten when you wither. You are weak. The Tuatha's greatest mistake."
“I don’t need heirs to prove my worth,” Tairngire growled, predator-still. “I have always needed only myself. And still, you limp back to your master bloodied, every time we meet.”