“She is sorry. They want to meet,” I summed up with a roll of my eyes that let him know how I felt about it.
Ciaran grunted in agreement.
“Tell me what happened with those dryads last night,” he bade me, and I sobered quickly at the reminder of all that I had learned from Prince Faolán.
“They came here from the Oak Wood in Sumarra on a kind of… Rite,” I began, shaking my head in disbelief. The thought of young dryads being encouraged to leave their tribe was unfathomable to me. “I had heard of them before, but I did not know they were ruled by queens.”
Ciaran was silent for some time, his brows pinched as he processed this astonishing revelation.
“My father was not educating me in anything, and he certainly would not have wanted us to know about a clan where females rule,” I continued thoughtfully. “But I just don’t know howtheydidn’t know aboutusif they are so damned worldly. My father’s name is spoken with fear. Surely they have heard about him?”
“Is it? Or is that what you were told?” he pointed out.
“The Foraoise elves I lived with feared him.”
“They presumably had proximity to the Rowan Wood, but perhaps his name is not as far reaching beyond your homeland as he would have had you believe. Or perhaps he intentionally stayed beneath the notice of other tribes for fear of retaliation if they knew what he was doing.”
I almost dismissed such an outlandish idea right away, but then I hesitated. It was almost impossible to imagine my fatherbeing afraid of anyone, especially not females. And yet, I had come to realize over the centuries that he reallyhadfeared me. He had feared my unfettered power so much that he risked alienating the Tiarnaí just to gain control of me! Because despite what he liked to proclaim, unbound femaleswerestronger than males. So if he had been so afraid of my potential to topple the society that he so painstakingly built to cage me, then how would he feel about entiretribesof unbound females?
“So does this mean some of your kind are actually… nice people?” Ciaran asked with feigned astonishment.
I scowled and punched him in the arm, but he merely laughed as he got off my bed to return to his own.
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 archeddoors 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.
