“You need to keep interacting with your armour as often as you think about it. Keep attempting to summon it to you,” he instructed me as he formed a portal.
I nodded in agreement, relieved that we were finally done and I might get the chance to have a nap before we had to leave for Mionlach. But it was not Sage’s tent that we arrived in when we stepped through the portal.
“Why are we—” I began to ask Ciaran, but he strode by me and into the main room of Rian’s yurt where Nuala was curled up on the couch. She looked very comfortable under a knittedblanket with several pillows propping her up from behind and a book of illustrations in her lap.
Rian’s white vargr, Éadrom, was as big as the couch. He lay on the floor in front of her while Darragh paced behind like an animal trapped in a cage. I had never seen him so agitated before, and an upset dragon was perhaps the most terrifying thing I could imagine. But it was still the stranger in the yurt who captivated my attention.
She was even shorter than me and was almost as wide as she was tall. She was dressed in a voluminous brown robe that was embroidered with gold and tied in the front with long gold tassels. Her khaki skin was wizened and sun weathered with brown sunspots on her bulbous nose. Her thick brown hair was streaked in grey and braided into one elaborate plait over one square shoulder. Her ears were long and severely pointed, bobbing with each of her movements as she unpacked a bag onto the table that had been placed in the middle of the room. Tufts of dark hair grew out of her ears and nostrils, and she shuffled around on enormous feet.
She was a gnome, a relative of dwarves that was even more cantankerous with sharp little teeth and a penchant for precious metals. She was covering the table with vials and tins of what I thought might be makeup.
“Where is Rian?” I asked Nuala as I glanced enviously toward his bedchamber. If he had been allowed to sleep all day after we were up all damned night—
“Meeting with his generals,” she answered me as she leaned down to stroke Éadrom soothingly. The vargr was watching the little gnome with rapt green eyes.
“I will keep you apprised of what I find,” Darragh said to Ciaran abruptly and opened a portal without a further explanation. But before he could go, Ciaran stopped him with an open palm that was held out expectantly.
Darragh glared at the offending hand before he sighed and grudgingly removed the fat coin purse from his belt. Hecollected a few óir and dropped money into Ciaran’s waiting palm. Then he pushed a grinning Ciaran out of his way and stepped into the open portal.
“What was that for?” I asked Ciaran suspiciously as he tucked his prize into a pocket in his pants.
“Darragh did not think I could convince you to run,” he explained with a glint of mischief in his eyes.
“You… Youbeton me?” I hissed, and Ciaran grunted in confirmation as he rattled the coins in his pocket.
I was not sure how to respond. My initial reaction was to throttle him, but there was something disarming about that impish grin he sported. He smiled so infrequently in my presence that I decided to contain my violence.
“Where did he go?” I demanded, and his brows rose as if he were surprised to get away with teasing me.
“To ensure the Fuath have not moved from their camp at Aes Suri,” he explained. “He has been flying over them every few hours for the last couple of days.”
A fact I would probably know if I was actually part of the mental conversations the riders seemed to be having almost constantly during the day.
“He seemed agitated. Was he that upset by losing your stupid little bet?” I added crustily.
I was surprised when the gnome gave a cackling laugh. “Dragons do not like gnomes,” she rasped.
“I see… So why are we here?” I redirected my gaze to Ciaran again.
“Rian brought Edyna here to help us prepare for the… party tonight,” explained Nuala this time. She glanced at the gnome with about as much enthusiasm as I felt.
I began racking my brain for any excuse to get out of this predicament. The last thing that I wanted to do was to put myself at the mercy of a gnome!
“Good luck!” Ciaran announced with another smirk as he began to step away from me.
“Traitor!” I hissed, which only made him laugh again before he backed through his portal.
Godsdammit! I wanted to tell them all to just fuck off and let me have a couple hours of sleep before this stupid party in Mionlach. My magic had finally begun to return, which helped me feel better, but I still would have much preferred getting sleep over primping. I would have been perfectly happy to roll out of bed and go to the party with unkempt hair and sleepy eyes in a few hours.
I was also a bit intimidated by the prospect of spending this time alone with Nuala, although I would never admit that to anyone aloud. And it was not only because I was no good at making friends or that each of our one-on-one interactions so far had all felt a bit stunted and awkward. Although that might have been because she was not good at making friends either. But the even more intimidating factor I was most anxious about was the witch’s Sight.
I had already decided I would get Sage back, and there was nothing that would stand in my way. I didnotwant to be told it was not my fate to ever see my mate again.
I turned back to the room and found Edyna watching me with narrowed yellow eyes as if she knew that I was trying to think of an escape from the situation.
“My dress is back in my—”
“It was fetched,” she croaked and then jabbed a long knobby finger toward a chair that had been pulled up to the table. The message was clear.Sit down.Shut up.
