“And they killed Lorcan,” I guessed.
“Eventually. After they had their fun torturing him too. Your father kept your brother’s identity a secret and had him punished in private. But Lorcan was fair game to any male who wanted to participate,” Rian bit out.
I felt my nails biting into my leg as his words brought back flashes of Cathal being tortured. His gorgeous face had been unrecognizable by the time Laisren mounted his severed head on a pike and paraded it through the city.
I shuddered and bent my head over the wine as I tried to breathe through the hate and anguish of that day.
“What happened to Aodhan after?”
Rian released another long slow exhale of smoke into the air in front of him.
“Your father became obsessed with Aodhan producing an heir. I suspect he wanted to get rid of him but hesitated to do it before the bloodline was secure. But your brother continued to refuse hisanam, so your cunt father took the collar off the female and put it on your brother when she came into season.”
“Why would he…” My question trailed off as the vile answer came to me. “So she could force him?” I hissed.
“Aodhan assumed she managed to get herself pregnant the second time she assaulted him and tried to mark him. Your father had him taken out of the city a couple weeks after that to be killed, but he managed to escape.”
I dropped my head into my hands as the sudden urge to cry welled up inside me once again.
“Is that why you said I look like his nightmares?”
“Méabh was your second cousin. From his immediate revulsion upon seeing you, I think you must look alike,” Rian admitted.
The name did in fact sound familiar, but that was not because I would have recognized whatever female babe had been selected for my brother. Dryads did not receive an adult name until we were fully mature, so Aodhan and hisanamwould have been much too young before I fled. But royal lineages were often named for some ancestor, and I recalled several great aunts called Méabh.
“Fuck,” I hissed into my hands, and my body tensed with a potent mixture of disgust and regret as I grasped the reason for my brother’s reaction to me that day.
Rian took my elbow and exerted gentle pressure until my head lifted, and I peered up at him.
“I did not agree to tell you any of this for you to feel badly about it, and I do not blame you for what happened. All I want is for you to know that you saw the absolute worst side of your brother that day. But it was not all of who he was,” he insisted in earnest, and I nodded.
“I believe you.”
Chapter twenty-one
NEVER ANGER A GNOME
Ornella
Iwoke to familiar footsteps and groaned as I covered my throbbing head. I hadwayoverindulged in Rian’s wine andcneasúthe night before. My mouth was dry enough to make me nauseous, and yet the cushion under my cheek was wet from me drooling on it all night. I did not remember falling asleep, but I hadn’t even made it off the cushion I’d been sitting on in the main room. And I could tell that my magic still had not recovered from thechukapowder to absolve myself of the miserable hangover.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
“I see Rian was here,” Ciaran smirked.
He must have knocked over some empty wine bottles because I heard them clink and clatter together.
“What areyoudoing here?” I demanded without lifting my head to look at him. There was no way we were due to leave for Mionlach for hours yet.
“Ensuring you eat,” he said drolly, just as the delicious scent of smoked meat and fresh bread reached me.
“Oh, fuck yes,” I mumbled and dragged myself upright to peer up at where he stood over me with a plate of food in one hand and a waterskin in the other.
Ciaran wrinkled his nose at me, not even bothering to try andmask his disgust as I sat primly so he could put the plate on my lap. I also snatched the water and drank half of it before the cap even hit the floor. I was surprised to taste an herb in the water; something vaguely familiar that I was pretty sure would help my headache.
I wanted to ignore him as I ate, but I could not help keeping an eye on Ciaran as he began to move around Sage’s tent. His mouth flattened and that knot appeared between his brows as he brushed his fingers over the art and wooden instruments from other courts. He probably remembered Sage collecting some of those souvenirs.
“Rian likes to drink and smoke all his problems away,” he cautioned me without meeting my eyes.
