Chapter 27
The firebird roosts on the wreckage of the rampart with its talons hooked over the crumbling stone.
Behind her, a flock of starlings glides as a single cloud of black, their movements as precise and elegant as any dance.
Smears of orange varnish the sky, the clouds no more than thin, wispy nets to catch the light.
A soft breeze rushes in from the sea. The scent of salt comes with it.
“She’s been here all day,” Taliesin explains as we slowly approach the great bird, her orange wings glimmering like the sunset. “No matter what anyone brings her, she won’t move.”
“She came for me,” I say with a certainty I don’t quite understand.
The firebird turns her head at the sound of my voice. Then she answers—low and resonant. A shiver runs through me.
“Maybe she’s choosing you,” Taliesin murmurs.
I slow, glancing up at him. “For what?”
He lifts his shoulder in a shrug. “I suppose that’s what you’ll have to find out.”
I walk the few remaining steps, my boots crushing the damp grass. She opens her wings and spreads them wide, like she’s demonstrating her strength. I hold myself still, not daring to interrupt her. Taliesin pauses a few paces behind.
The firebird opens her beak, and a melodious sound spills out of her.
It rises and falls, cascading through the air, with notes that seem to carry me away to a different place, where loss and grief have no hold.
Tears glaze my eyes as I listen. This is why the Order bans art, and music, and dance.
Because this sound, and the feeling it invokes in me, is far beyond their dominion.
They can control our bodies and our minds, but they can’t control our hearts.
When she’s finished, the firebird slowly lowers her head.
Heart pounding, I extend my hand, my fingers reaching for her like stalks to sunlight.
The firebird leans closer and bumps her head against my hand.
A thrilling rush goes through me. I push up onto my toes to meet her.
Stone crumbles as she tightens her grip on the wall and lowers her head until its level with mine.
“Your name should be Heulwen,” I whisper. “Blessed by the sun.”
I gently run my fingers along her feather-soft neck, and she seems to rumble in contentment.
“What a gorgeous creature,” Taliesin murmurs from over my shoulder.
I look back at him. His gaze is locked on me. And for wild, dangerous moment, I’m sure he’s not referring to the firebird. I think he’s talking about me.
Heat crawls up my neck, and I can’t seem to look away. He edges closer, the powerful lines of his chest pressing against my back. All my nerve-endings seem to ignite, like flint striking dry timber. If I’m not careful, it will catch and consume me. And leave behind nothing but ash.
Us meeting will be the undoing of both of us.
I flinch at the memory of his words, then step away. “I need to tell you something.”
“All right,” he says, grim resignation in his voice. “Let’s get this over with.”
His eyes track me as I climb onto the low, broken rampart and turn to face the sea, wind rustling the loose strands of my dark hair.
Taliesin hoists himself up beside me. He’s silent while I find my words.
How do you tell someone you intended to not only kill him but turn him into a revenant with no free will?
I shudder involuntarily. Oaths are meaningless, but I still wish I could take that one back. I should have never made that kind of promise, especially when, deep down, I knew how wrong it was.
Far too long passes before I speak. So long the sun is nothing more than a dash of pink across the horizon, and the sky at large is an all-consuming darkness. A reflection of my soul, it feels like.
Eventually, I find a place to begin. “The Order sent me to kill you.”
“I know that, Swynwraig,” he says softly.
“Do you know the rest of it?” I ask, daring to look at him. “What else they wanted me to do?”
He searches my gaze, keeping his expression stonily blank. “I have my suspicions. I hope I’m wrong.”
My jaw clenches. “You’re not wrong.”
“Fucking stars, Swynwraig,” he says roughly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Osian did die, like I said, but then I resurrected him. So now they’re experimenting on him. They said if I brought them someone else, they’d let him go.”
“Hmm.” A beat passes. “Would you have done it?
“What?”
“If it meant saving him.”
Yes. The word catches in my throat. I can’t seem to force it out. So instead, I say, “I wouldn’t. Not now.”
His gaze doesn’t soften. “That isn’t what I asked.”
“I didn’t know you then,” I whisper, my heart pounding.
“That’s not quite true, and you know it,” he says, louder now. “You knew me. You just didn’t remember.”
My hands clench around the rampart. “That’s not fair. I was just trying to survive and save the only person who has ever truly loved me.”
His mouth tightens. “And I was merely the cost of that.”
He goes silent for a while. I do, too. Then at last he breaks the strained tension between us, pushing off the rampart and landing on the grass below. His eyes are a fountain of ice as he backs away from me.
“You hate me, don’t you?” I say, my voice cracking.
He flinches, like my words are a strike to his face. “Hatred is not what I feel for you. But it’s difficult to stand here and realize that if things had happened differently, you would have destroyed me for him.”
I shake my head, even as guilt twists in my chest.
“And worse,” he says, quieter. “You said you wouldn’t do it now, but your thoughts are still with him.”
I swallow.
“I don’t know what I am to you,” he says. “And I’m not going to stand here and pretend it doesn’t matter.”
He turns, then vanishes into the ruins’ shadows. I grip the side of the rampart, my chest aching painfully. Deep breaths in, long breaths out. I try to calm the tremors going through me, but it feels like I just opened up my chest, tore out my own heart, and tossed it to the wolves.
Why? I barely know him. He’s nothing to me.
Except that’s not true, is it?
He is more than just an exiled stranger whose power should frighten and disgust me.
We are linked in ways I don’t understand, and knowing I can’t remember makes the raw feeling in my chest so much worse.
It hurts to not know why I hurt. It makes me want to scream and rage at the sky.
Instead, I just pull my knees to my chest and cry.
Once the tears dry up, I spend the next few hours huddled on that broken wall while the cold wind swirls around me. The warmth of the firebird barely registers. Someone’s voice calling for me hardly does, too. All I see, and all I feel, is the deep black horizon before me, swallowing everything.
I fall into a routine over the next few days.
At dawn, I wake, eat my porridge by the fire with Arianell, who tells me stories of the screaming dead she’s encountered over the years.
Afterward, I quietly tend to whatever chore needs doing.
Yesterday, I scrubbed every dish until my hands ached.
Today, I spent the morning mending clothes.
Now, as evening fades into the night, I make my rounds along the perimeter, gathering kindling for the fire.
Gethin walks with me. Whenever there’s an opportunity to escape the main tent, he takes it. He never says why, but I understand.
I’ve seen Taliesin, of course, but he feels as distant as the stars. He’s brought Bryn into the camp now. I suppose he must have decided it was safe.
With a bundle of kindling in my arms, I turn at the final corner and head back toward the fire burning in the distance. Smoke dances in the wind.
As we walk, Gethin gently touches my arm. “I hate what I’m about to say, but I need to ask you for something.”
My steps falter—only for a heartbeat. It’s over too quickly for anyone to notice but me.
I’ve been expecting this, even if I thought it would be Rhian or Gwenydd who brought it up.
The captured prisoner has given up no information, just like I expected.
As little as words mean these days, they always come back to haunt me.
“Anything you need, Gethin,” I say.
“Brioc’s been with the prisoner this evening, trying again to get information from him,” he says quietly.
“Scouts arrived earlier. The king’s army is still in the forest, but Gwenydd overheard a soldier say something about heading to the coast soon.
We need to know if he’s coming here, Angharad.
And we need to know now.” He sighs heavily.
“Rhian’s told Taliesin to come to the tent tonight. Will you help him?”
I swallow hard. “I thought you were opposed to all that.”
“I am.” A flicker of pain goes through his eyes. “But if we don’t get the soldier to talk, this place could be gone tomorrow.”
His voice is rough, and I hear something else beneath his words. Not could be. Will be. If the king’s army comes here, this place won’t survive.
“And the Order’s plan?” I ask. “I assume you’ll want that, too.”
He hesitates. “Of course that matters. But I care more about the people here. If the king’s army has found us, we need to run.”
My grip tightens around the kindling. “I’ll do my best. But you must know the prisoner might still refuse to give you what you want.”
“I’m hoping the ice might convince him otherwise,” he says grimly.
An uneasy feeling sinks between my ribs. The ice might not. But something else would.
We drop the kindling by the fire before heading into the tents.
Taliesin is already inside with Rhian and Gwenydd.
The back flap is open, the ends tied back to reveal the adjoining space.
Inside, a burly figure slumps against a chair, rope wound tight around his torso.
His head hangs to his chest, and his long, sweat-soaked hair hides his face.
A spray of blood stains the ground beneath him.
So it’s already started then.
I frown. “What have you done?”
“He’s fine,” Gwenydd snaps. “Not that the bastard deserves your concern.”
“He spoke. Brioc didn’t like what he said,” Rhian explains.
My eyes go straight to Taliesin. For the past few days, I’ve avoided giving him more than a passing glance. But I always seem to know where he is—at the edge of the fire, along the perimeter, or in the strategy tent.
He feels distant, and I don’t know how to close the gap, or if I even should.
It’s better this way, I tell myself. We should have walked separate paths from the beginning, the moment I stumbled upon him in the taproom.
Even now, he avoids my gaze as he speaks, his voice low and dangerous. “The prisoner heard you were here and started telling us how he’d kill you the same way he killed his own Swynwraig. He went into excruciating detail.”
All the blood drains from my face. “What?”
“He and his buddies, they killed their Swynwragedd,” Brioc chimes in from the back wall, where he’s wrapping strips of cloth around his bloodied fists.
“Says they conspired against them, tried to get them killed in battle. One lost his leg, you see. Another an eye. The bastard in there nearly died of sepsis. So, they blamed their Swynwragedd for not channelling enough magic-infused strength into them.”
I feel the sudden need to sit down. Instead, I swing my gaze back to Taliesin. That ancient glint is in his eyes again.
“It’s the same story I heard,” he says.
I let out a slow breath as Gwenydd approaches.
“We tried questioning him the normal way,” she says.
“Brioc here tried a bit harder. The bastard refuses to talk about anything to do with the Order’s plans or the army’s moves.
Like you said, he’s trained for this.” She pauses.
“We could try the exile’s ice, or…we could try something else.
Something that would guarantee answers before the king’s army tracks us down. ”
My eyes close. The moment I reminded them of my powers, I knew it would come down to this.
I can feel the weight of the room pressing in around me.
They’re waiting for me to say yes, to use my powers for their own aims, just like the Order.
It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good for.
The only thing anyone has ever wanted from me.
“If I do this,” I say, keeping my voice even, “you need to understand what you’re asking.”
“We’re asking for answers,” Gwenydd insists.
“No,” I say, opening my eyes to meet her gaze with my hard stare. “You’re asking me to kill him.”
Gethin holds up his hands. “Wait, I thought Taliesin was just going use his ice.”
“This plan is better,” Gwenydd says.
“And he doesn’t deserve your mercy,” Rhian says softly from a step behind Gwenydd.
“No, he doesn’t,” I say, fisting my hands. “But it’s not like I’m the queen of death. I don’t know if I can do this without losing myself.”
“Then don’t be the one to do it,” Taliesin says firmly.
I snap my gaze to him, but he’s already striding into the adjacent tent. He doesn’t look at me. His attention is locked on the prisoner, and his eyes have gone dark and hollow. A piercing cold seeps through the tent. And I understand at once what he means to do.
“No,” I say immediately. “That’s not what I—”
But his hand is already rising.
The prisoner lifts his head. His lips curl into a sneer that is hauntingly familiar.
My vision stutters. One moment, I’m looking at an elven man with dishevelled black hair.
The next, the strands are smooth and polished, like any courtier’s, as if he’s seated at a feast in some gilded hall rather than bound to a chair in the heart of his enemy’s camp.
I blink, and the vision vanishes. A dizzying ache settles between my brow.
“Do your worst, exile, but it won’t do you any good,” he growls up at Taliesin. “They know how to kill you now. Her, too.”
That voice…
Taliesin twists his hand sideways. Frost bursts across the prisoner’s chest and splinters outward. He inhales a violent, broken gasp and collapses into the chair, his strength gone all at once, like a puppet whose strings have been severed.
Glassy, unseeing eyes stare accusingly at me.
My heart pounds a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The bastard is dead.