Chapter 33 #2
It was not difficult to figure out where Amira would be later that day since people began lining up to see her as soon as the sun broke over the horizon.
We had donned the silk headscarves of Fásach pixies to prevent Amira from recognizing me while we explored the area.
As we expected, she came with a huge entourage of soldiers, and even the City Guard had increased their presence in the fish market.
So taking her during her little goodwill excursion would be out of the question.
Luckily, despite an abundance of guardians around her, they were not especially restrictive of the area. They were not stopping people, so we were able to walk right into the square where Amira served peasants behind a table.
She looked nice in her pretty cotton dress and simply braided hair.
Which only infuriated me more considering the utter anguish that I had endured since Sage was taken.
How dare she take everything from me, all my sacrifices and then my mate, and then go on as if everything was all right in the fucking world?
My world had ground to a halt because of her.
Ciaran prodded me to divert my attention from staring at her and then guided me away. “Where are we going?”
“We cannot take her with so many witnesses, and she will be there for hours. We might as well find some food and come back to trail her later,” he explained.
“Good plan,” I nodded and followed him when he cut across the street into alleyways that I guessed would get us back to the entertainment district faster.
We moved quickly, keeping to side streets, but I was too consumed in thoughts of my old friend to consider the oddity of Ciaran’s clipped pace and obscure path choices. After a half an hour, I was startled when he suddenly put a calm but insistent hand on my arm without slowing.
“We are being followed,” he informed me so quietly that I almost didn’t hear. “Just act natural.”
His pace and the side streets had been very deliberate choices, I realized, feeling foolish for allowing myself to become so distracted. I might not be able to sense people in the shadows like he could, but I should have noticed how strange he was acting.
“Griffins?” I guessed under my breath.
“No. I think it may be those dryads you befriended the other night,” he admitted, and I frowned, wondering if I’d made a mistake in my judgment of Prince Faolán.
We were nowhere near the entertainment district, which was undoubtedly intentional on Ciaran’s part. We did not want guards drawn to a fight since there was a possibility that some of the griffins might recognize us.
We finally stopped in a crumbling courtyard that might have once been a garden but had since dried out. I looked up at Ciaran curiously, but he seemed content to wait for our stalkers to do something.
“It would be more prudent for you to come out and tell us what you want,” he shouted after a moment.
The silence stretched on again for so long that I began to question Ciaran’s senses.
My eyes darted from one of the arched doors up to the second story balcony above us, but there was no movement, and I couldn’t smell anyone.
Although if it really were dryads following us, then they would be able to cloak their scents.
Someone finally stepped into the courtyard with us, but it was not Prince Faolán. I did not think I recognized the male with long white hair and icy eyes, but I knew without a doubt that he was another Summer dryad.
“What is this sudden influx of dryads?” Ciaran sighed with a shake of his head.
“Who are you?” I called, raising my voice to address the stranger who still stood across the courtyard.
The cruel glint that came into his eyes when he looked at me, clearly insulted by my audacity in addressing him, told me everything that I needed to know about him.
He was Ruadhán. He was here for me.
The male began to move toward us with a deceptively peaceable stroll, but Ciaran turned his head slightly as if he heard something and chuckled.
“Tell your little friends they cannot sneak up on me,” he recommended before facing the approaching dryad.
The stranger cocked his head with intrigue.
“You must be a Shadow Walker. What an advantage it must be to sense your enemies in the dark,” he drawled in a velvet-soft voice that made the hairs rise on my neck.
Suddenly, all I wanted to do was run as the stranger came to a stop in front of us, but I held my ground and quietly erected a shield around me and Ciaran.
I was sure that the dryad would be carrying chuka powder and was not about to let him diffuse our power.
“What do you want?” I snarled, watching closely as he slowly raised his hands to show us he bore no weapons, but I still did not trust him even a little.
“I am merely following orders,” he smirked.
Before I could demand to know exactly whose orders those were, it felt like something stung me as it wrapped around my ankles and squeezed hard. I heard Ciaran hiss in pain as well, but I was too distracted with dread to pay any more attention to him.
I’d been expecting an attack directly from the dryad, but the sleeping nettle had grown quietly out of the earth at our feet.
The plant was also known as the chuka vine, and it was from its poisoned barbs that the chuka powder was created.
Its paralytic effects were not quite as potent directly from the source, since dryads distilled it to make it much stronger, but it still muted my power.
“What—” Ciaran gaped, lifting his hands to stare at them in confusion when his fire would not come to burn away the nettle.
“It is a chuka vine! Your magic is gone!” I choked at him as I quickly unsheathed the sword at my hip to slice through the plant. I growled as its barbs were dislodged.
Ciaran raised furious eyes to the stranger and reached over his shoulders to retrieve the dual blades on his back. One of them whirled through the nettle around his legs before he pointed it at the dryad.
“You are dead,” Ciaran snarled, but the dryad merely tsked at him.
“I am not here for you, Shadow Walker. Lower your weapons, and you will not be harmed,” he swore.
“You really think I am just going to let you take her?” Ciaran scoffed and widened his stance into a battle-ready position next to me. “I don’t need magic to kill you.”
“Is she truly worth all this trouble?” the dryad asked, and I had the sense he didn’t think I was. I wondered if he was in disagreement with whoever had sent him.
Ciaran did not need to answer. His aggressive posture was telling enough. Part of me was tempted to tell him to go and make sure to get Amira to Rian. But I knew all too well what awaited me in the Rowan Wood, and I had no intentions of going back there alive.
The dryad sighed when he saw that Ciaran would not be deterred. “Very well then,” he said with a careless but elegant flick of his hand like he was swatting a fly.
Four other male dryads stepped out of the shadows at the edges of the courtyard.
“Should have called my armour,” Ciaran noted as he shifted behind me so we were back-to-back.
“You can’t do it now?” I verified over my shoulder without taking my eyes off the males who began to circle our position. One of them winked and blew a kiss at me, and I thought he seemed a little familiar.
“None of my power works,” Ciaran admitted.
I knew from experience with chuka that I would still be able to do some limited shapeshifting. Most females were permitted the use of just enough magic to clothe and feed themselves and nothing more.
The dryads moved at once, coming at us in a flurry of weapons and vines that erupted from the earth at our feet to try and snag our limbs.
And I was immensely thankful that Ciaran had dragged me out of bed every morning to train with him.
I easily intercepted the short bone blades that swiped for me with my dominant hand while cutting vines away with the claws on my other.
“At least they are not nearly as powerful as you are,” Ciaran called, making me laugh in the middle of a parry.
My weapon twirled around my assailant’s sword just the way Ciaran had taught me so the momentum of the sweep made the male lose his grip.
The blade fell into the sand, and he scowled at me as he backed up so his companion could take his place in front of me.
It was that vaguely familiar male who had winked at me so suggestively.
“Wow, Ciaran!” I said between swings. “That might… be the nicest thing… you have ever… said to me!”
I heard Ciaran laugh as I disarmed the second male and kicked his knee before he was able to recover from the shock of losing his sword. He shouted out in pain and clenched his leg as he tumbled into the dirt.
I pressed the tip of my blade against his throat to keep him down as I realized that they were not as intimidating as I remembered.
Of course, I hadn’t learned to fight until after I fled from the Rowan Wood, so males could always overpower me physically while my power was repressed.
But despite their penchant for cruelty, dryads ultimately were creatures of leisure and not warriors.
The exception, of course, were the Tiarnaí and their warbands who had to train extensively to fend off their rivals.
But the average male had little need for physical prowess, which meant that even my skills were superior to theirs.
Which only enraged me more because how dare these snivelling little cockroaches bind my natural strength and then call me their lesser?
“Who sent you?” I demanded, and he scoffed at me.
“I do not answer to you!” he spat.
I was moving over him before I had thought about it, kneeing him in the groin and then squatting above him with my blade fully across his throat.
“Who?” I demanded with all my pent-up rage.
I gave him a moment to recover after my knee left him gasping, but eventually he was sneering at me again.