“Will he even be able to do such a thing? It would require a great deal of energy to make the altar stir again after all this time,” Ciaran pointed out.
Before I could respond, there was a commotion at the front of the tent. I could see the canvas door was being bumped as Iraj tried to prevent someone from entering.
“My apologies!” cried Iraj just as someone very small burst into the yurt and came running toward me.
It was Sammy, the faun we had sent to the Vale with a letter from Ornella for her friend. I had thought he must have been captured or killed, so I was greatly relieved to see he had managed to return home.
“It is alright,” I reassured Iraj as Sammy skidded to a stop right in front of me. “Sammy, I am glad to see you.”
“Your Highness! I apologize for the delay, but I was takenprisoner!” panted the faun with his usual dramatics. “Is it true about Spring Court and Sage?” he asked with eyes that pleaded for a reassurance I could not give him.
“It is true, Sammy. The Spring Court is gone, and Sage was taken away,” I admitted with a glance at Hügel who appeared grim at the news. He had always liked Sage.
Sammy’s tiny shoulders drooped, and his lip began to quiver while his eyes teared up.
“Are you alright? How did you get free?” I asked in an effort to divert Sammy before he asked questions about my cousin, which I could not answer.
“They just let me go! They did not want me to speak to Lady Amira at first, but I demanded it like you said to!”
“Why did they release you, Sammy?” asked Ciaransuspiciously, and I caught flickers of his shadows darting across the faun’s hooves. I could feel him trying to assess whether there was any foreign magic on the faun.
“For this,” Sammy proclaimed as he produced a neatly folded piece of parchment, which I took despite Ciaran’s warning hiss. “Lady Amira wrote back to Lady Ornella!”
Chapter twenty-nine
REFUSE TO COMPROMISE
Ornella
“I…hate… you!” I panted between the clashes of swords while I tried to fend off Ciaran, but he was just too fast! He gave me another painful swat on my outer thigh with the flat side of his blade when I failed to block him.
I might hate how utterly ruthless he had been with my training, but he was exceptionally talented at many forms of hand-to-hand combat. And he had offered to teach me self-defense so that if I were givenchukaagain, I could protect myself without my magic. I appreciated that more than I could ever allow myself to articulate to him.
“That means I am doing my job,” Ciaran taunted with that arrogant smirk.
It had been several days since Rian took over the city during which I had been shadowing Ciaran and Darragh. We had a wonderful little routine down in which Ciaran practically dragged me out of my bed to train all morning, fed me lunch, and left me at the bathhouse. Darragh took me from there to the city where I had been making myself useful in the deplorable conditions of the city hospitals.
Rian had made it very clear that his takeover needed to dramatically increase the standards of living for the city’s poorest and most numerous inhabitants. I was sure it was because hegenuinely cared, but I could also understand the politics behind making the people welcome him rather than organize against him. Less violence. Less death.
After my afternoon in the city were all themeetings. Rian wanted a complete debrief every night from literally everyone involved. I had to listen to hours of them talking about food supplies, trade routes, border security, taxes, training new recruits, scouting reports, negotiations with Nabeene, and a hundred other things. I would be asked to tell them how many people I’d healed that day and what supplies were required in the hospitals. Then I went back to stifling my yawns and occasionally growing acorns in my palm to flick at Ciaran.
“How was Nuala last night?” Ciaran asked as I caught my breath from our skirmish. He asked it gruffly, as if he didn’t want to, but he asked about her every single day.
“She still is not saying much. She eats and sleeps and does her… meditation thing with the fire. Éadrom never leaves her side,” I advised him.
Ciaran seemed pensive as he whirled the handle of his blade through his fingers with enviable skill.
“Will he really reject her?” I blurted before he could bring up his other favourite topic: Amira’s letter and my intentions with it. I was not yet certain I wanted to read her words before we went to take her captive. There was a part of me that feared it might rock my already-shaky resolve to use her. So I did my best to avoid his questions about the letter that lay unopened under my pillow.
“Rian is stubborn, and he has always had reservations about relationships and commitments,” admitted Ciaran, effortlessly changing the direction of his whirling blade. “Even in long-term relationships like what he had with your brother. I honestly don’t know what he will do.”
Fuck. I could not imagine what I would do if Sage had rejected me. I was not sure if Dowrra mating bonds were similar to those ofanam, but I assumed they were.
“It is just… She is a Seer, and she was so certain that they would be together. Was she so wrong?” I asked him. Because if she could be wrong about something like that, then how could we trust anything she predicted?
Ciaran was pensive as he glanced over at the sundial on the grass to check the time.
“Rian isextremelypossessive,” he began tentatively. “But keeping Nuala close is not the same as committing himself to her,” he pointed out.
