Before I knew what I was doing, I’d torn off my helm and thrown it to the earth hard enough to shatter the bone if it weren’t magically indestructible. More shadows bled out of the crevices of my armour and began to curl around Nuala as if drawn to her, but she didn’t flitch. She stood in front of me with her chin tilted up in defiance even as my temper rose to unprecedented heights. I couldn’t recall the last time I had allowed myself to feel so much.
No, that was a lie. The last time my emotions got the better of me like this was the day I killed thirty people.
“I am sorry I’m not the male you wanted or expected. But do noteversay I don’t care about you!” I shouted.
More and more shadows were hemorrhaging out of me and into the charged air between us. That normally would have utterly terrified me, but it was like being so close to her had created some sort of forcefield. She was the only place where everything vile and ravenous from inside me could be free and contained all at once.
“But youarethat man! You are just too afraid to fully give him to me,” she insisted with frustration.
“What are you talking about?”
“I am talking about this!” she explained as her hand waved between us through the swelling mist of shadows. “Your pain. Your fears. Yourtruth! It is eating you alive! Can you really not see how it poisons you?” she asked as she shifted to stay in front of me when I tried to turn.
“Look around!” I snapped back, indicating the magic. “Can you really not see how dangerous I am like this?”
“You are not dangerous! I hate that you think—”
“When I lose control, peopledie. That is what I would call dangerous,” I gritted out.
“Why do you think there is such a disconnect between you and Éadrom?” she asked me, taking me off guard. “Your magic is only like this because you are constantlyat warwith yourself—”
“I have to be when the alternative is to—” I began,turning from her, but she grabbed the riblike pleats of my armour to stop me from walking away.
“No,” she growled. “You are not running away.”
“Let go,” I rumbled furiously.
“Just let me have you! Please!” she cried so suddenly and so brokenly that it drew me up short. “I just… I just want to have you,” she added in a hopeless whisper.
“There is nothing here worth having, Nuala.”
I turned from her stricken expression to face Éadrom who was watching me with sorrowful eyes. I commanded him to fly, to be my eyes in the sky so I could be done with the Fuath, but he flattened his ears and growled.
“Go!” I shouted at him in frustration, and his growl softened into a whine. “Please, just go,” I pleaded.
The vargr huffed at me before he leapt up into the sky, and using his vantage high above, I wiped out the last of the Fuath still near us. I could see with his eyes where the rest of their army assembled to the east, and I knew from Darragh’s updates that we were ready to meet them.
I did not look at Nuala again as I diminished the wall of fire and cast a portal to meet up with our army.
Chapter forty-eight
THE EASTERN FRONT
Ornella
Icould barely believe it as Rian began funnelling magic down the bond to me and the other riders. I had never felt anything like it! The sensation of the magic going straight into my veins was like a drug. Most fey were drained by using so much power so quickly, but Rian was refuelled. Not only that, but even on low power, he had effortlessly created a massivewallof fire. Carrick had once told me that Rian possessed the power to burn the whole world, and I believed it! I just wasn’t sure how long he could continue to wield at that magnitude or whether he ever reached burnout from using so much magic to refuel.
“Are you staying with the aes sídhe out on the field?” asked Sage’s voice, and I turned eagerly toward him.
We had been separated in order to collaborate with the commanders in different sectors of the camp, relaying all communication from the war tent. We had managed to get the army prepared in less than an hour, and now we were overseeing the formation of ranks. Something which I had not thought was important whilst Ciaran was teaching me about it, but I was very glad to understand it now.
I had opted to sit up on Pyrope’s back since my stature made it rather difficult to see over the warriors. This also allowed me to see Sage coming toward me between units of warriors withSerafin on his heels. I had been in almost constant communication with him via our bond, but the sight of him still had a physical effect after how we had claimed one another.
“I will try, but I will likely need to go back and forth between Generals Rajah and Drakja,” I told him as I slid from my mount to be wrapped up in his arms.
There were around three thousand aes sídhe warriors preparing to march with the eastern flank. I knew Rian had assigned them there intentionally since we expected the heaviest attacks to hit the southern ranks. But I was confident that Asha would still find a way to make her warriors useful out on the battlefield.
Sage grunted in acknowledgement as he peppered my face with kisses until I was laughing and squirming.
