Page 29 of The Crown of Moonlight

If I can make an Ever afraid, then what am I becoming?

The Evers are the monsters our children are taught to fear.

Worse yet, I don’t know if what I did helped Chyr at all.

Pulling myself away from the wall, I nearly turn back to demand that he tell me exactly how he’s feeling.

Then I think of the fear in his eyes,and I can’t.

He’s alive—for now.I feel deflated and cold inside from using so much magic, but I have other responsibilities that cannot wait.

By the time the last of the herds are scattered and I’ve seen the women and children from Dunhaelic away to safety, the moon sails high overhead.

The keep looks even more beautiful than usual as I cross the bridge.Moonlight silvers the towers and battlements and catches on the furrows of the unsown fields.For now, it’s still safe and undisturbed.

Faolan opens the gate, and I dismount beside him.I’ve always thought him young for his age, but now he shows every one of the years he’s lived.

“All right, lass?”he asks.

“I hope it will be,” I say.

He nods slowly.“And Iain and the horses will be fine, whatever comes, especially with your Rab for company.That’s one worry you can put out of your head.”

I squeeze his arm and leave him standing at the gate, watching the darkness along the road.I doubt he’ll sleep much before tomorrow.

It feels strange not to have Rab come bounding up to greet me as I cross the empty courtyard, Bramble’s hoofbeats echoing off the stone, but that’s how it’s been since this terrible war began.Our losses pile up, one after another, in a series of good-byes that never get easier.

I’ve so few of my family left to love.How could I bear to lose anyone else?Especially if the deaths are because of my own decisions.My own failures.

Chapter 14

Embroidery and Smoke

Chyr

I

‘m slow to wake.Damp clothing—bloody embarrassing clothing—clings to my skin beneath equally damp bedsheets in an unfamiliar canopied bed.Father of Curses, the Riders would never let me hear the end of it if they saw me like this.The thought brings sharp pain, a reminder that Oran and Tuirse are gone, and the Riders are forever changed without them.

The smoke is a sour bite of damp turf and thatch mingled with the bitterness of green vegetation and the fatty metallic stench of slaughtered animals burning.It seeps through the windows and creeps through small fissures in the walls, leaving a raw ache in my throat.

Vheara’s soldiers are moving closer.

I’d hoped to stop them.Hoped to keep Vheara and her Butcher from exacting more revenge.Instead, I’m useless and—may the Pit take me—wearing a woman’s nightdress.

I push myself upright and stumble to the window.A greasy smudge hangs over the horizon, a soot-tinged shroud dragging across the eastward hills.

Waiting for the inevitable dizziness that comes when I move, I realise that my fever has broken, or just about.Even my chest feels less as if Flora had filled it with hot coals before she stitched it closed.

Whatever healing magic she worked yesterday has wrought a miracle—I feel a thousand times better than I did before her help.Better even than I did last night when she changed the bandages after she returned to the keep.For the first time in days, the familiar warmth of magic simmers in my veins again, faint but present, now that what little the Veilstones draw to me through Vheara’s seals isn’t all being siphoned away for healing.

I’ll take it, but I don’t understand it.

A small skill for healing isn’t uncommon among Siorai.But anyone with a true affinity is called to become a priest, and the improvement Flora has given me would be enough to make any temple proud.I saw her confusion, though, as if what she achieved surprised her as much as it astonished me.As if it scared her.

Hunched like an old woman, I pick up the borrowed dress laid across the chair.It’s a cage made of fabric, and I loathe it with the light of a hundred suns.But with Vheara’s soldiers approaching, Flora shouldn’t need to worry about my disguise.

If Flora can face the possible destruction of her home and family, surely I can be strong enough to wear a dress.That said, trying to fasten the bodice laces without dislodging the sheep fleece “bosom” proves harder than it seems.