Chapter 37 HEART OF THE TITHRIALL #2
My promise did absolutely nothing to warm her frosty expression.
It was not until her attention shifted to Ornella as my friend returned to my side that she seemed to thaw.
And the sight of the maternal warmth flooding her face as she cupped Ornella’s face felt like it pinched inside of me.
Just as it did when Nell leaned into the woman’s hold like it was giving her strength.
It was clear that Sage’s family had become Nell’s too, and it invoked as much jealousy in me as it did happiness for my friend.
Sage’s mother stepped away, and Ornella gave a quick nod to the others, a woman and a man with two children, before she turned to face Rian. His calculative expression was replaced by a smile that was unexpectedly tender.
“You can do this. I know you can bring him home,” Rian reassured her.
“I know,” she responded with a raised chin that was much more characteristic of her.
Seemingly pleased by her confidence, Rian cleared the way to the tree while Ornella tried to take my arm back from Ciaran. But he did not release me, which made her glance up at where he stood just behind me.
“Try not to fuck it all up,” he instructed playfully.
“Fuck off, Ciaran,” she growled before tugging on my arm more forcefully to free it from him. Then she pulled me up to the tree and put her hand on its trunk. I swore the whole thing shivered, which caused a fresh cascade of those shimmering purple petals to fall.
I was briefly distracted by the breathtaking spectacle, lifting my eyes up to watch. But I thought I saw Ornella tuck something into her pocket in my periphery.
She put both hands on the tree, and I watched in awe as the tree seemed to perk up.
More flowers bloomed and more petals fell.
But even more astonishing was the way the trunk peeled open to reveal a vibrant purple core inside the tree.
And I instinctively knew I was looking at the heart of the Tithriall itself, exposed and bleeding its vaporous essence into the air around us.
And before I was finished marvelling, Ornella had taken my arm again and pulled me through the purple rift.
The sensation of moving between worlds through the Tithriall was so different from the portal that Riordan had brought me through.
Instead of a pressure that squeezed me breathless, it felt as if I had imploded.
Every molecule buzzed and hummed, totally free as they shot through the ley lines.
And then all at once, every one of them snapped back together again, leaving me feeling stunted and heavy in my own body as I stumbled over silver bracken.
I bent over my knees to catch my breath, sparing just a quick glance to confirm that we were in the Silver Moor. The craggy hills and meadows covered in silver bracken and trees draped in silvery moss were unmistakable.
I reached immediately for my connection to Riordan, hoping I could reach him now that I was back in the Vale. But whatever they had done to prevent me from accessing my magic and bonds was still in effect in the Vale. It had to be the vine bracelets Nell had left around my wrists.
“Lead on, and do not fuck with me, Amira. Ciaran will happily take it out on your griffin,” Nell threatened as she moved up behind me.
I had no intention of leading her astray, my guilt over Sage demanded atonement, so I merely nodded at her in agreement.
Although the ease with which she threatened me was terribly jarring.
Perhaps I should not have been surprised since she’d never tried to hide her viciousness, but I had never expected to become her target.
I straightened and turned around to face the woodland, surprised that there was no sign of the portal she would have created in a tree trunk. She must have closed it.
We were silent for a long time while she followed me under the trees.
Moving through the thick underbrush was so much easier this time since the foliage seemed intent on moving out of her way.
Even the sprites were kinder to Nell as they began to land all over her.
They didn’t even try to bite her when she swatted at them in annoyance.
They merely flew away with peels of tinkling laughter and settled in the branches above to watch.
They seemed completely enamoured of her despite her abuse of them, but they were still too wary of me to even land on me.
“Ugh! Go find a glade somewhere to frolic and leave me alone already!” Ornella finally shouted at them.
The sprites gave wild shrieks of laughter again before they finally scattered into the forest, and then the quiet descended on us once more.
“They were much nicer to you than they were to us when we came through,” I told her, hoping to strike up a conversation with her.
“Good,” was all she responded with, and it took some time before I worked up the courage to speak again.
“You are still my friend—” I began, slowing my steps so I could walk beside her instead of ahead of her.
“Whatever friendship we had is over,” she cut me off, shoving my back to keep me moving forward, and the denunciation knifed through me ruthlessly.
“Please believe that I never meant to hurt you—”
“It does not matter. You did,” she insisted, her voice clearly forced through her teeth with anger.
“Sage is… everything to me. You are right to be afraid of what Rian can do to Riordan and his kingdom. But you cannot even fathom the monster I will become if Sage has been hurt. You have devastated me beyond all possible recompense, and I will not hesitate to return the anguish to you tenfold if Sage is not returned to me.”
I had no idea how to reply to such a chilling promise. Especially when my skin crawled with the instinctive certainty that she was telling me the truth.
So I decided to hold my tongue.
Orion
Amira had been gone for several hours, and I was pretty sure I was going out of my mind.
I would have normally dealt with such anxiety by bruising and splitting open my knuckles on a practice dummy.
But all I could do in that tent with my limbs bound was stew over the conversation with the Autumn Prince.
I agonized over Amira’s safety and how Riordan would react to Rian’s demands.
And of course I stared at the unblemished circles on my forearms where my brands had once been…
Gone. Those vile markings were gone. I was free for the first time in my adult life, and it felt surreal. I was still not perfectly convinced that this was not a strange dream from which I would soon wake in heartbreak.
“What are you doing here?” demanded the female orc who was on guard duty. She had been sitting at the table playing a solitary card game and had not bothered to even try and engage with me.
I glanced up to see who she was talking to and nearly failed to control my reaction when I saw a familiar face.
Uruk, our Autumn Court spy, was standing just inside the curtained doorway of my prison tent.
Riordan clearly had not wasted any time sending the orc to snoop around and locate us in the camp.
Which meant my king would be coming for us sooner than I would have anticipated, and the warning from Rian was being disregarded.
“Sorry,” Uruk blurted, doing a good job of looking lost as he glanced around the tent in confusion. “I was sent for clean blankets, and I thought they said to come—”
“They are in the back of the mess hall with the rest of the supplies! Sweet Elements, you lot that come from the Raveina Mountains sure are dense!” the female berated.
“Sorry!” Uruk mumbled, bumbling around in the door of the tent in a way that was so unlike him it could only be intentional. He was using the opportunity to look at me and all around the tent more fully. “Were there not two?” he dared to ask the ornery guard who sighed harshly.
“What?” she snipped at him as she turned away from her solitary game of cards once more.
“I saw they brought back two! Just want to make sure one didn’t get away on you,” he tried to explain himself.
“She did not get away on me! They took her away for some kind of a mission. I don’t know, but you need to get out of here! You are not supposed to be in here without authorization from the riders!” she reminded him.
“Right! Sorry. See you soon,” he added a little more seriously when he met my eyes briefly before he finally ducked out of the tent.