Chapter 7
Chapter seven
LAVENDER AND RAIN
Rian
Ileaned against a tree, tipping my head back so the oak’s bark caught tendrils of my hair and tugged on it.
My eyes closed on the canopy of vibrant autumn leaves overhead as I basked in the familiar song of hollowed wood chimes and the babbling of a stream.
I breathed in the comforting aroma of lavender from the garden and a distinctive scent from the coming rain. Allowed it to soothe me.
Home. One that did not exist, and yet it felt so real.
I opened my eyes again, my heart aching with longing as my head turned toward the wall of the log cabin and a background of colourful mountains behind it.
The kitchen window was open at the front, and I heard the woman inside singing with a hauntingly beautiful voice that was at once comforting and unnerving.
The delicious aromas of the fresh bread and butternut squash soup that she was preparing for dinner wafted out to me.
Something tugged at my mind from the waking world and buzzed through my veins with an urgency. A terrible knowing that lurked at the edges of my consciousness like the inevitable shadow of approaching night.
But then the giggle of children reclaimed my attention, and I could not help but smile as I ducked around the oak tree behind which I’d been hiding.
The sun warmed my face as it gleamed brilliantly through the haze of autumn foliage while I crept toward rows of corn in the garden.
There I could clearly see the dirty hems of lavender skirts and the bare feet of two little girls attempting to play a game of hide and seek.
Peals of their laughter rang out when they realized they had been discovered, and I could hear their bare feet pattering across the earth as they ran toward the cabin. The sound of them filled my heart with such joy I could have stayed in that imaginary place forever.
But that was when reality struck me like a venomous snake aiming straight for my heart.
Sage…
The illusion of the cabin was ripped away from me so suddenly that it left me breathless as anguish replaced my tranquility. Merciless wrath swept through my veins like a volcanic eruption, unyielding and unforgiving.
I needed to get my cousin back. I needed to find a way to force the stars themselves to yield him.
And then I was going to destroy Riordan Vasilikós.
The first thing I noticed was a throbbing pain that seemed to envelop my entire body. I tried to stretch out the aching stiffness in my muscles, but even that careful movement pulled an involuntary groan of discomfort from me.
“You’re alright,” whispered a soothing voice from just above me. I felt tentative fingers tracing the outline of my forehead and sweeping back through my hair to my ear.
Nuala.
I noticed her scent, lavender and rain, for the first time. It was strangely familiar and might have been soothing in that anguished moment. But there was nothing that could alleviate the heartache and shame of losing Sage.
And when I felt too much, too deeply, I became even more of a danger to everyone around me than usual.
The realization made me swat her hand, and I almost fell off the couch where I’d been sleeping as I tried to put space between us. My joints protested, aching dully as if my entire body had been stretched.
“You should not touch me when I am not consciously in control of my power! I shouldn’t even be in this camp right now!” I told the startled witch when I realized we were still in my tent at the encampment.
Even my throat was raw from screaming.
I knew I was speaking too sharply, but the fear of what my magic would do to her—along with the entirety of my army around us—terrified me.
Nuala seemed confused and then annoyed with me.
“I have no need to fear your power, Rian DorTìodhlac. Remember?” she reminded me rather sternly.
I glanced down at where she knelt next to the couch in one of the new dresses I had bought with her hair braided over one shoulder.
The mulberry-coloured cotton seemed to highlight her delicate paleness.
It also accented all the hints of burgundy amidst her dark hair and the healthy blush of her full mouth.
I was unnerved by such an unexpected observation and quickly pulled my attention away from her to focus on controlling my power.
I expected it to try and overwhelm me any second as it often did whenever I was emotional, but it felt strangely quiet.
Instead of the monstrous force of a volcano ready to erupt from within, I felt a strange emptiness.
It was not gone, but I realized it must have been all but scalded out of me by the Light of the Sylvan, and it had not yet been replenished.
The hollowness ached with a fierce need to feed and refuel it, but the discomfort of hunger was more manageable than my magic.
“I… I am sorry. I should not have spoken so harshly. Thank you for caring for me,” I acknowledged.
Nuala nodded, her brows pinched with concern, but I turned away from her again. I inhaled deeply through my nostrils and took a moment to try and orient myself.
The last thing I could remember clearly was Ornella healing me, and then the soothing sound of Nuala’s voice as I lost consciousness on the floor of my tent. She must have had help moving me onto the couch where I now sat stiffly away from her with my mother’s knitted blanket tucked around my legs.
“Sage is—” I bit off my words. Unable to say it aloud.
“If he is still alive then you will get him back.”
“You saw it?” I asked hopefully, but the witch quickly shook her head in regret.
“I cannot see anything of the Vale but blinding white. But I know that you would get him back even if you have to rip the stars from the sky,” she explained.
Yes, I would, which meant the time for negotiation and compromise with Riordan was long gone.
I felt foolish for feeling so much dread over the actions I’d known would need to be taken to win this war for the fey.
No more mercy after this. Not after they destroyed Spring Court and took Sage prisoner.
I would relish the opportunity to unleash the full force of my wrath upon Riordan.
I usually tried not to feel such powerful emotions too deeply, never dwelled in fear or pain or heartache or rage, but with my magic temporarily quieted…
It felt good to feel again. To acknowledge the fear of my failure and the consequences that it would have for all feykind. To revel in a rage that could consume everything in my quest to make the humans, witches, fey monarchs, and griffins pay for their crimes against me and mine.
To embrace both the pain in my body and the crippling heartache of losing the only person I ever truly loved…
Aodhan.
I sucked in a sharp breath as a vicious sensation ripped through me, like I was splitting in half, the anguish so raw and visceral that it made me wince.
éadrom whined from somewhere nearby in the yurt, but I was already breathing through the worst of the emotions and tucking them away.
Feeling grief for the man I failed to love the way he had deserved in life, and avoided mourning in death, was not something I deserved now.
“How long have I been unconscious?” I asked.
“It’s been two days,” Nuala answered, and I cursed at myself under my breath for the lengthy absence.
“How is Ornella? What about Carrick?”
“Ornella is still in her tent. Darragh has been watching over her from afar, just as you asked. Carrick is… He was here with you mostly, but he has not been able to settle or sleep and decided this morning to go for a walk.”
Guilt cut through me at the thought of my poor uncle. The only thing he had asked of me when Sage joined the Wild Hunt was that I would protect his son at all costs. And I had failed him too…
“Ciaran?” I prompted my Seer before I could succumb to the rising sense of failure and shame.
“He took it upon himself to organize the fey that came from the Spring Court and met with your war council this morning to update them on the situation,” Nuala told me.
You met with the war council? I asked Ciaran instantly through our rider bond. The effort to reach him gave me a headache, but I grit my teeth through it.
Good morning to you too, he replied sarcastically.
Normally, I would find his lightheartedness irritating during such a dire situation, but this time I found it was oddly reassuring. Familiar and reliable when all else was slipping out of my control.
Ciaran, I chided him impatiently.
Yes, I met with them. I did not give them all the details about the Sylvan or…
about Sage. I was unsure how much of that you would want them to know.
But I did explain about Balor and the Spring Court, he advised me.
I also arranged to feed and house all of the Spring fey for now, but their magic has already begun to diminish in the cold.
We need to get them to the Spring Quadrant in the Vale, he finished with a disgusted bite in his tone.
I shared his sentiments. The thought of sending Spring fey to the Vale after what Riordan and Balor had done to their home made me feel ill, but it was the only way for them to thrive. There was nowhere else to take them now that their court was destroyed.
I breathed in deep and slow and pressed the heel of my hand against the centre of my bare chest. But there was no alleviating the ache that flared at the thought of all the fey who had perished thanks to the fear and greed of the one male who was supposed to protect them.
Balor would atone. I would make sure of it.
Prepare them to go. Then have Declan disperse them in small groups across the Spring Quadrant, I directed, feeling Ciaran agree. He understood my intention to try and ensure that they would not all be captured at once should the worst happen.