Chapter 7 #2
During the utter panic of the Spring Court collapsing, we had acted quickly to get as many people to safety as possible.
I had not had the presence of mind to reconsider delivering them to our enemies, and now I had no doubt Riordan would have already begun hunting them down.
He would know that I was coming for him, and he would not want my agents hiding among his own people.
Nuala stood as I closed the link with my brother rider, and she went to the fire where I could hear water starting to boil. I watched as she began using the dried remains of Ichor of Airmid to make tea.
“This should help,” she said once she returned with the ceramic cup, placing it in my hands before she settled on the floor next to the couch again.
“You did not seem familiar with fey herbs,” I recalled a little warily as I scented the potency of the drink.
“I am not. Carrick measured it before he left.”
I hummed and sipped the medicinal tea, relishing the warmth it put in my stomach.
“What can I do?” she asked after a moment of silence, and I closed my eyes as I considered.
“We have too many enemies. You cannot see the ones in the Vale, so I need you to focus on the ones you can see here in Autumn and in Summer Court.”
Nuala began to nod, but then her eyes widened with a sudden realization.
“Do you remember how my vision of the Fuath was also being blocked somehow?” she reminded me, and my breath caught. It felt almost as if my stomach had been hollowed out as I turned to look down at her.
“It was… blinding white,” I recalled.
“Just like the Sylvan,” she confirmed with a nod.
The tea she’d given me had not begun to dull the pain and stiffness in my body, but I ignored my discomfort and shoved the blanket off my legs to stand.
I almost tripped over éadrom who had curled up right next to the couch with one wing stretched out across the room.
He merely raised his wolven head to look at me with that expression of tentative concern that had been in his eyes for weeks now, as I began pacing behind the couch.
“So… the Sylvan have been interfering with the Fuath here in the Autumn Court? That seems unlikely.”
Nuala tilted her head thoughtfully.
“It is possible that someone from the Vale is extending their influence between realms. Depending on the magic, it could be acting like an unintentional conduit that carries the shield of the Sylvan into Autumn. Or perhaps it was intentional to redirect the shield and block their meddling here from me as well,” she mused slowly.
I stopped pacing as I considered this suggestion.
“Intentional or not, this means that someone is actively interfering with the Fuath, and that is why they have been behaving so strangely. This is why they seem determined to target my people above others in Autumn,” I growled, my free fist clenching so hard it shook against my thigh.
It was all I could do to stop myself from throwing my cup of tea across the room as I recalled just how many of the aes sídhe had been killed.
Because someone was distracting me.
“I saw power over the Fuath becoming yours, and that vision has not changed,” she assured me.
A magic that is not yours shall become a part of you to give you what you need. I remembered her cryptic words. They kept me up as I tried to unravel their meaning.
But it was the reminder of her Sight that made me pause again, my mind swerving in a new direction. I was sure to turn to see her reaction before I spoke.
“When you saw the Spring Court collapsing, you were not looking into any fire. And there was a strange mark upon your forehead,” I recalled, trying to keep my voice gentle in spite of my rising suspicions.
Nuala looked shocked, and her hand rose impulsively as if she would touch her head before she changed her mind and folded her hands carefully in her lap instead.
“What did it mean?” I asked her insistantly.
“I… had forgotten about that. It is a rune of power from the Dagda,” she revealed, lifting her chin to hold my stare unflinchingly. Those mismatching eyes of blue and amber were truly breathtaking.
“The Dagda,” I repeated the name of a fire god that her people must worship.
“I knew since I was a child that I would be chosen to become the next High Priestess of my coven. My visions are still clearest in flames, but sometimes the crucial ones come to me directly from the Dagda. Like…” Her eyes darted away, her confidence seeming to waver as she ran her lower lip between her teeth.
“Like when worlds are collapsing or when… I saw you for the first time.”
“You… are the rightful High Priestess of your coven?” I confirmed in shock.
“I am,” she said with a nod.
“But then… Why did they imprison you? Why were monsters allowed to hurt you?” I demanded a little more sharply than I intended.
We hadn’t spoken about her coven or her family since she killed the men who were responsible for the bulk of her suffering during her confinement.
I’d thought I was being sensitive to her situation in allowing her to decide if she wanted to confide in me.
I’d trusted that the Tithriall must have brought us together for good reason.
But it was clear that had been naive, and I should have been asking her more questions.
I was no expert on witch covens, but even I knew they had immense reverence for High Priests and Priestesses. So whatever Nuala had done to warrant her imprisonment would have had to be a severe crime.
“When I tried to tell my father about what the Dagda had shown me, he said a girl could never lead the coven. Everyone said I was insane, and they began doing their best to beat me into submission. Many of the old scars that Ornella healed for me were inflicted when I was just a child. Before I was ever imprisoned,” she advised me, making my jaw clench in disgust with her coven.
“All because you’re female?” I verified in confusion, and she inclined her head in confirmation.
“I was sure they would relent once their god spurned my brother in favour of marking me, but they did not,” she continued coolly. “They immediately locked me up in that prison where I waited twenty years for you.”
“For twenty years,” I repeated in horror. I had known it was a long time but twenty years? It may have been the blink of an eye to an immortal like me, but for her it was a quarter of her expected lifetime. “For being female?”
I simply could not fathom that when my own people revered our females. But perhaps the males of her people were much like the fey monarchs who desperately clung to power that they knew no longer belonged to them.
“They thought my brother should have been chosen,” Nuala insisted, becoming impatient. “And I suppose they were right to fear me since I will destroy the coven.”
My brows rose as I realized the deeper significance of what she intended to do to her people.
“Perhaps I am mistaken, but I always thought that the High Priestess of a witch coven was chosen to guide and protect the coven,” I hedged.
“Do not misunderstand me, I will help you do as you desire with them,” I reassured when she frowned.
“Just as long as you know that it is not my expectation for you to go against your god. The coven will suffer along with the rest of humankind when I bring war to their world. You need not taint your conscience with the blood of all those—”
“Innocents?” Nuala guessed with a flash of some sharp emotion behind the ice that rapidly formed in her eyes.
I’d been about to reference all the lives she had been chosen to protect, but I decided to stay quiet. I wanted to offer her the space to share what was making her so raw.
“I suppose you meant all the children,” she continued eventually and shook her head as if disappointed in me.
“But it was the other children who first began taunting me so mercilessly that I cried myself to sleep at night. It was children who would tell my father lies about me just to get me punished ever more harshly. It was children who banded together to attack me and made me terrified to go anywhere in the coven alone. It was children who laughed while I lay bleeding and crying and clutching my broken bones at their feet. And it was those same children who grew into the men who became my living nightmares.”
Her voice was so ripe with anger and hatred that it sent ripples of warning down my spine, but I was not afraid of her rage. It whispered to the same wrathful flames that were simmering so hot within me, and after several heavy heartbeats, I went to kneel calmly before her.
Nuala continued to glare distrustfully at me until she seemed to perceive the understanding and compassion in my eyes. Her defensive anger began to slowly soften until her shoulders had slumped.
“Any one of them could have helped me,” she insisted, her voice straining with her heartbreak. “Any one of them could have come to see me. To speak to me. To make sure I was not left alone in the darkness. I could have forgiven them all if just one of them had brought me a candle!”
The rawness of her anguish made me reach for her, forcing my fingers into her tight fists so I could interlace them with hers. Her skin felt too hot as if her pain was a living thing burning inside of her.
“There is nothing innocent remaining in that place. Not to me,” Nuala hissed through her teeth.
“Those who stood by are as guilty as the ones who drew my blood. They may as well have taken a blade to my skin with their own hands! And the children are tainted by cruelty that will only fester in them if they are allowed to live—”
“That does not mean you must be the one responsible for purging them when your god made you their—”
“They do not deserve any sympathy!” Nuala protested in frustration, and her hands began to steam in my grip as her fire magic flared inside her. She tried to turn away in shame at her outburst, but I released her hand to snatch her jaw and forced her to look at me again.