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“Will you really send for their aid?”
Rion nodded. “As soon as we reach Ruadhán, I’ll tell Arianna about them and she’ll send for their rescue.”
“Arianna?"
“The Divine,” he clarified.
She lifted a brow. “You’re on a first name basis with the queen?” Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “Are you Brónach’s ambassador?”
“No,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully. “I’m . . . no one important.”
Her voice was like ice. “You should try telling a better lie.” His gaze snapped up at her tone and Rion prayed she wouldn’t lunge at him again. He was certain Kaylee’s sleeping form was the only thing keeping her rooted down.
Rion didn’t have the strength for another fight. His wounds had clotted, but his body had also begun to stiffen since he’d sat down. Eimear continued. “Everyone who is allowed within the walls of Ruadhán is important.” Her eyes narrowed. “I deserve to know who I’m traveling with and why he was locked up in that hellish place.” Demanding. Intimidating. Determined. Just like Saoirse.
But what could he tell her? He wasn’t ready to face the truth.
“I-I helped guard her. The Divine, I mean. Or I did.”
“What does that mean?”
Rion shook his head and lowered his voice. “It means she might never forgive me.”
Eimear was silent for so long that Rion dared to glance her way. He found something akin to sympathy in her eyes. “You love her.”
Something caught in his throat and he rushed to blink away the tears. “More than anything.”
Silence again. The rain increased, coming down in sheets now. Rion watched the water trickle past in a groove that had formed over the years.
“How old is she?”
“Eighteen.”
“Niall only mentioned her appearance recently. Why didn’t she go to them sooner?”
“She didn’t want to be found.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “She was young and didn’t know what she wanted from the world yet.”
His mother digested the information for a while. He felt his eyes drift shut, but Eimear’s voice jolted him awake again. “Is she Lillian’s daughter?”
The name struck a chord in him. Of course his mother had known Lillian. Their countries had been allies after all, but Arianna and Ellie hadn’t been born until long after his mother’s disappearance.
Rion nodded. “She had two daughters. The younger is sixteen.”
“Had?”
His jaw clenched. “She passed a decade ago, right before the war.”
“What war?”
“The one between Brónach and Móirín.”
Eimear opened her mouth to ask another question, then closed it again. “There’s a lot I need to relearn about the world."
The way she studied the rain had Rion’s heart aching for her. Here he was, having a conversation with his mother, a female who had suffered beyond anything he could even begin to imagine, and she didn’t even know one of her children sat across from her.
