Page 26

“Just do it. None. Wed Macha’s daughter to Lady Ever Bright’s bastard. The Dusk’s goddess is missing as it is. They cannot expect a powerful match when even their patron turns her favor from them. As for Sorrow’s son, wed him to”—the voice paused as if in thought—“Árus Aine, the Scythe’s niece. She is weak of mind and weak of talent. Sorrow has and always will be a grasping sycophant. Let him feel that he has won only to realize the Scythe is the only one in that entire house with any sort of power.”

The female voice tutted softly. “That will displease Prince Sorrow greatly.”

“I don’t need him happy. I need him under my boot, and with his house’s power dwindling as magic runs roughshod over their battlements and his sole heir married to a turnip of a wife, he will have no choice but to turn to me to supplement their reserves.”

“You play a dangerous game, Ard Rí.”

“I play a winning game.”

“And if Prince Sorrow ever discovered this? Or any of them?”

The caution in her voice filled the empty space around me.

“That is why I bound you with your own name before we ever embarked on this little venture, Bandrui. By all means, walk outside these temple walls and scream at the top of your lungs what you know. Watch how quickly magic swallows you. Even with it rampaging across the land, it would turn its eye to an oath breaker faster than a wisp can snap. Now, make the proclamations. I have better things to do.”

“As you wish, Majesty . . .”

Chapter 12

Ard Tiarna Emrys of Breacadh an Lae, The Raven of the Dawn

“My Lady Bandrui,” I grunted.

She raised her head from the whispered conversation she was having with the air around Senán’s statue. Her large dark-red eyes widened, owl-like, as if she hadn’t expected me.

I don’t know how she couldn’t have. Every day since I had rushed Cricket to her, I had come. Some I was allowed to see her, some not. Every single day, though, the moment I was relieved of duty by my second-in-command, I would make the long trek through the tunnels feeding directly from the prison level into the network of chambers under the Temple of the Ascended. Often it was late into the night, so late it was almost dawn.

Today was one of those days. I had spent too long going over the petitions for new courtiers to come to court. Each of them required proper investigation, and each needed to be cleared through me. It was laborious, tedious, and an unnecessary tax on my magic.

It had not just been screening of the courtiers, though. That would have taken time but would not have drawn me into the late hours such as this. Tracking the movements of the rampaging, wild magic storms terrorizing the realm, while trying to figure out where to deploy supplemental aid and where to order evacuations, had taken up the most time. Sometimes, it felt like pure luck trying to predict the capricious, chaotic appearance and movements of the storms.

The first one to be born in Magh Meall rose like a dread phoenix from the rubble of the House of Magic. I remember watching in horror as it devoured three warhorses and an entire squadron of my soldiers within moments. They had been there, staring at the rippling waves of dusk-tinted liquid swirling up out of the cracks of the stones one moment. Then, the very next, the liquid struck, and they were gone. Lightning illuminated the bones from within the storm, and as it dissipated, all it left was the scar in the grass where, to this day, scouts report no living thing thrives.

Since then, three had been charging through the countryside permanently with small instances cropping up at random. One was headed toward the battlements of Cailleach’s Keep, one headed toward the Kingswood, and the other, as ever, manifested and dissipated above the ruins of the House of Magic. No one knew if the same storm that was seen riding the air occasionally over the shattered bones that once held it back was the same one born on the day I toppled the House of Magic. But if it were, it was the only stationary one of its kind.

“Has he told you of the magic storm, my lady?” I asked, extending my hand to help her from her kneeling position.

Senán, patron god of the Dúluachair court, god of suffering, mourning, hidden things, deception, and grief, should have known of his court’s plight if none of them did.

“He did. Though I suspect you have not come to hear the whispers of an absent god.”

I gave her a wan, weak smile. She knew me well. “How is she today?”

“I . . .” She began and then looked up to the statue of Ailbhe. She held up a hand to me as she listened to the whispers and back to me.

“What does Ailbhe say? Are they still bent on me marrying into their court?”

“The old lech has given up on that dream. I suspect you know why far better than I.” A clever smirk played across her lips, and she tilted her head, watching me carefully. “They say that you should give her to them.”

I snorted and crossed the mass of my arms over my chest. “And what would they do with her? Hmm?”

She smirked with me and then let the smile fall to our feet. “Before you go in to see her . . . you need to know you are not her first visitor this day.”

My brow twitched in question.

“Please, Raven—”

I heard nothing more as I rushed down the hallway to the storeroom.