Chapter 29 REFUSE TO COMPROMISE #2
“Your anger is understandable, but this is not the time or the place,” Ciaran reminded me calmly.
“Fuck you,” I snarled, although I knew he was right. Rian already had a gargantuan task ahead of him without me causing a huge scene before he even got to the yurt.
“You are welcome,” Ciaran smirked in response.
“Ornella!” cried a familiar voice before I could retort, and it had the effect of snapping me back to reality.
I turned toward her just in time for Asha to crush me in a hug that felt like it ground my whole world to a halt.
“Oh, thank the gods! I was hoping you would be here,” she murmured into my shoulder.
She had not meant to twist a knife in me, but I was all too conscious of the fact that I had stayed far away from Sage’s family. That decision had been weighing on my mind more and more every day until the regret had set in, but by then it had seemed much too late.
I clenched her back as grief and guilt fused together in a horrible maelstrom inside me. I tried to breathe through it and buried my head in her shoulder to inhale the scents of herbs and campfire smoke that lingered on her cloak. The familiar smells that reminded me of Sage.
She leaned away after a moment, her hands reaching up to cup my face, and she looked at me hard with eyes so familiar that it immediately made me feel untethered.
“Oh, child,” she breathed, seeing through me the way that I had feared she would be able to.
“I am alright,” I tried to insist, but my voice trembled and betrayed me utterly.
“No. You are not. Neither am I,” she assured me with a sympathetic smile that did not reach those purple eyes.
Tears were suddenly spilling over my lashes without any warning, but I quickly wiped them. I had not gone a single damned day without crying, but this would be the first time I cried in front of people since the first day.
Carrick appeared behind Asha looking much too gaunt and sleep deprived.
He did not say anything, merely drew me into his arms and held me until my trembling stopped.
With a kiss on the top of my head, he released me and put an arm around Asha before they turned toward the males beside me. Ciaran bowed deeply to Asha as usual.
“Do we know anything more?” she asked hopefully.
“No. But Rian does have a plan to force the griffins to tell us how to get to where he is,” Ciaran told her.
“How long?” Carrick wanted to know.
“We leave tomorrow,” Ciaran answered with a glance down at me.
“You are going too?” Asha asked me nervously.
“I would be even if I were not the only one who can get close enough to our mark,” I said, and Carrick reached out to squeeze my hand as he breathed in deeply.
“Come back to us, Ornella. You are family to us too. No matter what, we cannot lose you as well.”
His words were some of the most beautiful that were ever uttered to me.
I just did not have the heart to tell him that if we could not bring Sage back, then I knew I would lose all sense of purpose.
After five hundred years of such heartache and solitude, I had finally found what I hadn’t even realized I was looking for my whole life.
And now I would not live without him.
I felt a prickle of worry coming down the bond from Pyrope and quickly muted our connection to hide my dark thoughts from her.
The link to her was getting stronger, and it felt natural to leave it open once I allowed it to take form in my mind.
More and more frequently, I found myself reaching for her unconsciously when heartache threatened to overwhelm me in the quiet moments.
“How is Rian?” Carrick asked as he blinked away the emotion that was threatening to overwhelm him.
I winced and glanced at Ciaran and Darragh who both looked equally uncertain. “Well…” I hedged.
Thankfully, a hush fell upon the yurt so suddenly that we all turned toward the front.
The aes sídhe moved out of the way as Rian strode into the tent with clipped steps toward the war table and the other Sua.
I saw Asha and Carrick share a concerned look, which meant his mood was as obvious to them as it was to us.
Ciaran tugged on my arm to get my attention and then jerked his head for me to follow as he and Darragh made their way to our leader.
“Thank you for coming,” Rian called out, silencing the whispers that had been rising in volume since his arrival. He met each of our eyes as we reached the front ranks and gave us a nod of acknowledgment.
“It did not sound as if we would be allowed to refuse,” commented Imogen Firebane, Sua of the Aes Rurrinn.
“No, you are right,” Rian assured her without an ounce of apology or trace of humility when he met her eyes.
“What is wrong?” whispered Carrick who had come up behind me along with Asha. I could tell that the other aes sídhe also shared his shock at Rian’s uncharacteristic lack of deference. Even Imogen blinked at him before her lip curled with indignation, but Rian ignored her.
“You were told to stop using the teine ceangal to speak with one another, and I can confirm now that the reason is that the fifth stone was compromised. The Fuath had it in their possession after they destroyed Aes Navu—”
“That is impossible! The Fuath would not even know what it was and certainly would not be able to use it!” interrupted Imogen. She gave a sneer that suggested she found Rian’s intellect lacking for thinking otherwise.
“If you will refrain from interrupting me, I will gladly continue to explain,” Rian replied coldly, drawing many murmurs from the crowd. Imogen looked like she wanted to respond, but Rian continued seamlessly.
“The Fuath are a tool that is being used to distract me from my goals of finding the Autumn Queen. That is why all their tactics and magic have been so uncharacteristic. It is why we have underestimated them,” Rian explained significantly as he met Imogen’s angry eyes.
He braced his palms on the war table and held her gaze in a silent challenge until she looked away in frustration.
“How do you know this?” Asha asked, brushing my shoulder on her way to stand before Rian.
“Nuala,” he said simply, and I rolled my eyes when the whispers were renewed through the room.
“She is a Seer. She was able to sense the corruption in the stone at your teine when she was close to it. After an opportunity to examine it, Nuala confirmed that the fifth ceangal stone is in the possession of Her Majesty, Queen Aoibheal.”
The room went silent for a beat before it burst into even more noise as everyone turned to their companions to begin discussing this revelation. I saw Rian heave an exasperated sigh as he stood upright and crossed his arms over his chest to wait while their shock dissipated.
“Our queen is the one using the Fuath to attack us?” Asha verified, quieting the room as everyone waited for him to confirm again. Even she seemed skeptical.
“This is a very hefty accusation, Rian!” warned Eive, the Shadow Banshee and Sua of the Aes Mirr.
“Surely you are not placing all your trust in a witch?” scoffed Imogen. “Shay told us that you brought her into the ravine, but I scarcely believed her! You have always been vocal about your feelings toward witch kind!”
“Yes, we all have some concerns about this witch upon whom you suddenly seem to rely so heavily,” Eive agreed with a firm nod.
“How do you know she is trustworthy?” asked Sassha, the Wolf Maiden and Sua of Aes Lyrra. She still gazed at Rian with that strange mixture of awe and reverence that made me uncomfortable for him.
“I perfectly understand your concerns,” Rian raised his voice to silence the females. “Nuala is a stranger to you, and our people have a long-standing and rightful mistrust for her ancestors. It is not my place to tell you about her experiences, but rest assured, her allegiance is to me.”
“You will excuse me if I maintain a healthy dose of skepticism concerning witches,” Imogen retorted.
“You are welcome to believe as you wish. It matters not to me. But Queen Aoibheal will attack the tribes soon. Darragh brought word just this morning that they have begun mobilizing at Aes Suri,” Rian informed them.
“You did?” I whisper-hissed at Darragh, who stood on the other side of Ciaran, and he confirmed with a nod.
“You do not have proof that it is Aoibheal aside from the word of a witch!” insisted Imogen.
“Be that as it may, the Fuath will strike the tribes again within a week. If Nuala is right, and Aoibheal is directing their attacks against us, then it is likely they know you are in the ravine. She is connected to the stones in your fires through the one she possesses,” Rian insisted.
This got the aes sídhe worked up all over again.
“Just because they are moving, does not mean they are headed toward the ravine!” Imogen argued.
“And is that a gamble that you are willing to make?” demanded Rian impatiently, silencing her and the rest of the room again.
He released a breath and leaned harder over the table as if his next words were already heavy on his shoulders.
“I am needed here now to govern Feura and ensure Nabeene adheres to the peace terms we negotiated. With the Wild Hunt… down a rider, and Ornella unable to be fully initiated because of it, I cannot spare someone to stay with the tribes. We are stretched too thin with this army to manage, two countries to oversee, and wars to make ready for with the Vale. All while we are still trying to locate the monarchs and find a way to reverse the Rot. For this reason, the aes sídhe must come here where I can centralize my position and better protect our people.”
There was a long silence before Imogen suddenly gave a scoffing laugh and looked to her fellow Sua as if she needed to confirm they had heard him too.
“You expect us to come here?” Eive demanded.
“Yes,” said Rian simply without flinching while they all blinked at him.
“You cannot truly expect us to uproot eight thousand people again and bring children here to an army camp?” Imogen sneered.
“You have command of the Wild Hunt, you wield the power of death, and you have an army at your disposal, Rian! Surely, if you cannot manage to fend off this threat with such weapons in your arsenal then we are better off fighting this war on our own!”
A hot prickle of rage raised the hairs at the back of my neck in response to her scathing words, and I had to take a deep breath through my nose.
“This is not all just about the Fuath,” I found myself speaking up, drawing every eye in the tent toward me.
“The Spring Court collapsed because its monarch caused a mass exodus. We saw millions of fey die in seconds, and if Aoibheal were to do the same, you would be too far away for us to do anything. You wouldn’t even know it was happening before it was too late. ”
My point seemed to have made an impact because the Sua were looking at each other in consideration now.
“Ornella is right. You will come here so that the Hunt can better protect the tribes,” Rian insisted.
There was silence, the room properly cowed from the threat of his temper that was very clearly rising. Not even Imogen dared to speak up again.
“You are not yourself, dear Prince,” Sassha noted with concern and pouted. Rian scoffed at her observation.
“I am tired. I have lost much of what is most dear to me and now refuse to compromise on anything more,” Rian assured them. “So I am not asking you to move the tribes here. I am telling you that the aes sídhe are under my protection now,” he clarified.
Imogen looked to Asha as if expecting her to intervene with her nephew. But Sage’s mother was nodding slowly at Rian to indicate that she was in agreement.
“Asha, do not be so foolish as to support this! He is clearly not himself! How do we know the witch has not meddled with his—” Imogen began.
Rian abruptly slammed his hands down on the table so hard that everyone jumped and gasped.
But even more terrifying than his physical reaction were the shadows that burst out of his arms and shoulders to flare around him.
The force of his power erupting made the ground tremble, and the air hissed and wavered with sudden heat.
I knew it was dangerous when both Ciaran and Darragh tensed.
“You’ve said quite enough tonight concerning Nuala and her place with me. I will hear no more poison uttered in her name,” he snarled more furiously than I had ever thought to see him before.
I glanced discreetly up at Ciaran with my brows raised, and he pursed his lips without looking down at me.
Gods help Nuala…