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The trio’s brows lofted again; this time, I had caught Stormbeard’s attention, and he leaned forward. “With your own blood, young one?”

“Yes, my lord. Both arms.”

“Who was your second?”

“I drew my own blade.”

His eyes danced over me with a new respect glittering in their dark depths, his hand absently going back to his beard to stroke at the braids.

“It has been many decades since a Fae has managed to water the tree from their own veins,” murmured Grimhand from the rim of her tea, watching me with both respect and measuring me. However, I wasn’t sure if she was measuring me for battle or for a place in her harem. The Lady Ash Grimhand was renowned for her appetites and her father’s inability to tether her in matrimony.

“It is. Even longer since it has bloomed for anyone.” This was the exact currency I had been hoping to dangle to garner their interest in me as a cause to ingratiate me.

The Samhradh war clans were just that, warriors, and ruled by a single head of the clan. While they were easily bought for battles, what I wanted from them was a rare jewel that could not simply be purchased with the coin of the realm. As a courtier with a despicable reputation and nearly no one in the way of allies, I had to fall back on manipulating their basest of appreciations and something Daróg could never actively strip me of—my respect and renown as a warrior.

The three of them hummed almost in unison, acknowledging the strength of purpose that would have taken and the sacrifice that had to be made. It was not simply bleeding; that was passive. But the war with myself not to collapse, not to give in to the fear of death, and the faith in magic that if I succeeded, I would live. Nothing about bleeding for the throne of Magh Meall was assured or easy. And they knew it.

“So, even with your weapon shattered, you maintain the honor of a warrior.” Stormbeard finally broke the spell of the silence and captured one of the sticky, honeyed fruits, popping it into his mustache-shrouded mouth. “Are you sure you were born of Árus Láigh, and your beloved mother did not tryst with a Samhradh?”

I chuckled. While other Fae may have found this an insult to the memory of my parents, I knew the root of this question was truly one of respect and admiration. The Samhradh did not have bastard children. They did not often marry outside their court. They believed that only their court bore true warriors, and any warrior born outside of their court was automatically at a disadvantage, for even their lowest and least skilled soldier was better than another court’s best.

“Sadly, my lord, my lineage is not in question. My mother was from the Bláth an earraigh and my father the Árus Láigh. Though my spirit has the deep fire nonetheless.” I bowed my head in respect, crossing my bracers over my chest to honor him. “As does my sister.”

Grimhand’s storm-grey eyes cut to her brother in obvious recognition of the shift, but Stormbeard seemed oblivious. “She still lives?” he asked around another fruit.

“As far as I am told, my lord.”

“Bring her to me, Ard Tiarna.” Stormbeard’s attention shifted to his son. “If she is as worthy as her brother, she would make a good match for my son. Perhaps she could teach him the proper way to revere a partner. If not, I have one daughter already, and I like her much more than him; I would be happy to have a second.”

Grimhand snorted a laugh at her brother’s expense, and Mace had the good sense to quietly seem abashed at his father’s rebuke, though it was plain that it was nothing new to him.

“Would that I could, my lord.”

Stormbeard’s regard came back to me, and he leaned forward again, narrowing his gaze on me. “Someone has taken your blood from you?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“And you yet let them live?”

I tilted my head, and the falcon on my shoulder flapped its wings with annoyance at the ever-present flight of the owl above, monitoring our meeting. “I am in no position to find her, my lord. She is held by one of the Samhradh. Should I try to get to her, she will be shot with poison arrows. They move her around the countryside so I cannot trace her. The one time I have reached for her, they nearly murdered my anam cara as retribution. So, I must wait or risk both of their lives.” The lie was easy. I had learned to do it with such grace and aplomb in my years as a courtier, I knew exactly what buttons to press.

A scowling thunderhead overtook Stormbeard’s aged face, and he twisted one of the pewter beads adorning his long beard. Stormbeard was one of the few Fae who wore his age with pride; it was not as unusual within the Samhradh Court in general. After all, a warrior who had lived a long life and was pockmarked with scars was more fearsome than a fresh face. And every wrinkle in his wizened face seemed to configure itself to hold back a storm of rage at the indignity I described so easily.

“Who?” he asked, the single word bearing the deadly edge of the long scimitar unsheathed and on display on the low table before him.

“Lord White Throat,” I said, casually sipping my tea.

Grimhand’s grin cut into her beautiful features like a berserker’s madness, as if it were the exact name she had been hoping for. And I was sure she had. I hadn’t come to the Flintback clan tent by chance, nor with nothing but hope in my pocket. I knew the animosity between the two clans very well.

Where White Throat preferred the battle cries of courtly barbs and games of poison, the Flintback clan was older. A clan with enough songs and tales to keep an entire college of bards busy for a lifetime or more. They were proud warriors, and a warrior’s pride was often the hardest blade they could swing. Hate between the two clans was as old as the rivers that cut through their territories and carved the land up into clan right claims.

“If I find this sister of yours, Ard Tiarna of Árus Láigh, what will you give me? Will it be the hand of your sister?” Stormbeard stroked his beard and watched me from under bushy, greyed brows, waiting for me to make a move that displeased him. “And what keeps me from just finding her and taking her hostage myself?”

I leaned back into the cushion of my pillows and let the silence draw out between us; time could be a negotiation tool as well as hard currency. “I have very little in the way of payment that I could give. My court is shattered. I have no great wealth but the wealth of my own two hands and that of my mind.”

Grimhand, Mace, and Stormbeard all three stilled and watched me as the falcon on my shoulder watched them.

When the tension between us grew thick enough, I played my hand. “I cannot and will not barter the life and safety of my sister for the chains of a marriage she may not want. If she meets Mace and likes him and wishes to join with him, I will not stand in the way, but I will hear that from her own lips.” A forced marriage had been a carefully played test of my knowledge of the values of the Samhradh. If I had agreed to it, I would be subtly telling them I would sell another’s honor for my own gain. Something that was anathema to the Flintback clan’s values. “And you will not take her for yourself because that would be a stain on your honor that even the waters of the Well could not wash free nor the fires of your goddesses’ forges burn away.” Another test. Another show of my understanding of their way of life. Beyond being simple mercenaries, there was so much more to them, and anyone who was in my position, bartering with almost nothing, needed to know that. “I have a few purses of stable magic I have harvested myself that I will give for the knowledge of her whereabouts. But if you bring her to me, if you free her from White Throat safely and without alerting her jailor, I will give you something you can get nowhere else. A prize that will bring honor to your entire clan that no other clan will be able to claim.”