5. Veyka

Cyara was cooking. I opted not to spoil everyone's appetite by describing what I'd found in the woods. It did not change anything, not really. The facts all remained the same as they had an hour ago, a day ago, a fortnight ago.

But I could not sit and stare at the fire for another evening. I couldn't even bring myself to do the mundane chores that had been my salvation these past weeks. I needed something more.

I drew the twin curved rapiers from across my back as I walked past Lyrena, sharpening the dagger she'd gifted to Isolde. I'd yet to see the white faerie wield it, though I doubted those claws were merely for show.

"Spar. Now," I said without pause.

I could feel the weight of glances being exchanged behind me, but I did not acknowledge them. I heard Lyrena stand, hand off the knife, then the soft hiss of her sword sliding from its sheath.

"Magic?" she asked casually, her feet moving with quiet grace to the opposite side of the small area she'd been using to train.

"Blood and blades."

The oval of stomped down grass was only six or seven yards long. A few yards wide. That close, the fighting would be all quick, sharp movements. No room for sweeping approaches. We'd be close enough to scent each other's sweat. Good. That was exactly what I needed.

I did not even wait for her to fully turn back before launching myself forward.

Lyrena met me easily, anticipating my approach, a lazy smile climbing her face as she parried the twin blades. She forced them down with her bigger, wider sword, swinging for my stomach.

I danced out of her way, using the momentum to cut upward with one rapier while I brought the other in from the side.

"Tsk, tsk," Lyrena clicked with her tongue. She deflected the blade at her ribs with her sword, then caught my other hand unprotected—chopping her hand down hard on my wrist. The rapier fell from my hand, landing noiselessly on the grass. Before I could reach down, Lyrena had kicked it away. "You aren't going easy on me, are you?"

Good. Lyrena understood what I needed.

I didn't have to reach for my magic. This power—the ability to kill and maim with blades and my body—this I'd mastered long before that glowing ember of magic awoke inside of me. I did not need to rapiers to defeat her. I probably could have managed without a blade at all.

I gave myself fully to the exertion. Let the sweat sliding down between my breasts give me that extra bit of lubrication to move faster. I used the narrow field to work Lyrena to the side, stunting her movements with the longer, wider blade. I could see the frustration in her eyes—she wanted to beat me, to prove to herself that she was fully healed.

But I was not ready to lose. I knocked the sword from her hand.

Lyrena made no move to retrieve it. She pinned me with her bright eyes, narrowed slightly over her perfectly straight, patrician nose. "What happened?"

I grinned wickedly. But the ice inside of me did not thaw. Not even the tiniest crack as I smirked. "I want to see if you've fully recovered."

Lyrena's eyes darted to the sword a yard away on the ground. I followed her gaze. I stretched that smile wider across my face as I tossed aside my rapier, leaving us with only our bare hands.

A slight tick marred her otherwise perfect cheek. "Planning something, Veyka?"

I winked. "Trying to decide the best way to hand your ass to you." Then I moved.

She thought I was going to leap, to use my height and my powerful thighs to tackle her to the ground. But she misjudged. I dove at her legs instead, the knees she'd made the mistake of locking. She went down hard and fast.

She drove her fist up into my gut, swinging her other hand for my windpipe. But I was on top of her and I weighed more. I used every pound to my advantage. Knees on either shoulder, one hand on either side of her head, I could have snapped her neck in a second.

I held the position for one long breath; long enough for both of us to recognize the truth. Then I rolled off of her and offered her a hand up.

She took it, her lovely face caught halfway between a grin and grimace.

We collected our weapons and dropped onto our respective seats at the campfire. I chugged the entire contents of my canteen, as well as the lukewarm tea in the special cup that Osheen had fashioned for me when we first arrived in the human realm. It now seemed a lifetime ago.

I pulled out the flask of aural I'd been keeping at the bottom of my pack for months.

No one spoke.

I took a deep draw, savoring the burn of the amber spirit down my throat. I let my eyes close, let my world center on the sensations in my body. The heat spreading into my stomach from the aural, the tingling in my muscles from the exertion… discrete, tangible things that I could focus on without repercussion or implication.

Even with my eyes closed, I felt the shift in the camp. There was the slight crunching of the frozen grass as Lyrena adjusted her seat. Isolde's claws clicked together like they did when she was nervous. Which meant the heavy feeling of eyes upon me was coming from one copper-haired female.

"Lyrena is fully recovered," Cyara said. It may have been staged as an observation, but there wasn't an ounce of neutrality in it.

I didn't open my eyes. "Seems like it."

She cleared her throat. Such a delicate sound, for a female with more balls than most of the males in Annwyn. "We ought to discuss the implications."

The weight of two eyes became six.

I opened my own. Surveyed the three females arrayed around me, each powerful in their own way, each motivated by their own perceptions.

One glance, and I knew I was late to the party. "It seems like you've already been discussing them."

None of them bothered to deny it. Only Isolde averted her eyes, the white orbs dropping to her lap where she appeared to be knitting something on her long claws. The faerie never ceased to amaze me with her accomplishments.

But Lyrena held my gaze, her smile turned grim. Set. Ready for a battle.

I half expected to see the harpy when I turned to face Cyara. But she was as calm as ever. Her gray tunic and pants were freshly laundered, neatly pinned into place with the leather harness she'd fashioned to wear atop them, similar to the one I sported. Mine held weapons. Hers had several smaller pockets for needles and cooking knives and who knew what else.

A flick of her wrist, and a carefully wrapped leather roll appeared from the pocket of her cloak.

"I've plotted it out on the maps," Cyara said as she tugged loose the twine that held the leather roll in place. Leather to protect the delicate paper of the maps that were revealed. I recognized the sprawling continent, even at a distance. But Cyara was not looking at the maps. She was looking directly at me as she said, "Eilean Gayl is not far."

Not far? I laughed aloud—a cold, mirthless sound that matched the state of my heart. "Eilean Gayl is in Annwyn."

But she was not cowed. She'd never been intimidated by me. I'd often thought that was why Arthur had chosen her as my chief handmaiden. What had once seemed an asset made the aural turn to poison in my stomach as she continued, "Indeed. But it lays north of the Spine, on the banks of a great lake. Almost exactly where we are now."

"In another realm." I could feel my temper rising. My voice was steady, but it would not stay there. The ice inside of me was cracking.

"And you are a queen who can move between realms as easily as the rest of us walk from one room to another," Cyara countered. She never raised her voice, never needed to. But I was escalating for the both of us.

I slid to my feet. "And what will the rest of you do, Cyara? I doubt either of you," I jerked my head toward Lyrena, what remained of my Goldstone guards, "Would be content to wait here."

Cyara's wings twitched, her throat bobbing. "Take us with you."

She did not have to reach for her wrist for me to know what was going through her mind. The first time I'd used my void power to take someone with me, just from one side of the room to the other, I'd severed her hand from her body. Ripped her into pieces.

"Do you have a death wish?" I breathed.

She tensed, the crumple of those maps she'd protected filling both of our pointed ears. She inhaled slowly and then spoke on the exhale. "I wish to serve Annwyn."

"And I am the High Queen of Annwyn. Which means you serve me," I ground out, advancing one step.

Cyara did not flinch. She held my eyes with her turquoise ones, her wings tucking in tight to her body. "I only want what is best for my kingdom."

"That sounds a hell of a lot like the justification that Gawayn used when he slaughtered Cyara and Charis."

I hated myself the moment the words left my mouth. But I could not take them back. Worse, I was not sure I wanted to. They'd hit their mark, Cyara dropping the maps on the ground, her wings drooping.

The fire to my left leapt, flames reaching toward the sky, spiraling up above my head. Her flames, then. They crackled for several long seconds before settling. She picked up the maps, rolling them carefully and tucking them away.

I needed to walk away before I said or did something worse. It was my fault that my mate was near death, and I was just as surely going to destroy my closest friendship. But I could not move. Could not give in. Could not see past the collision of feelings and attempts to ice over them inside of my body.

Cyara straightened, her wings pristine as they arched over her head. "We cannot stay here forever. Are you at least considering what we will do if—"

I exploded.

"Of course, I have been thinking about it! You are so fond of reminding me that I am High Queen of Annwyn. As if I could ever forget it. As if every beat of my heart, I do not know what that means. Annwyn is meant to be ruled by us—two of us. Arran and me, a balance of elementals and terrestrials. I was never meant to do it alone!"

I'm not fit to do it alone.

I did not want to know if my friends heard the words I was too afraid to speak.

I turned my back on all of them, taking another gulp of aural before throwing it down in the dirt beside my pack.

"It does not matter how close we are to Eilean Gayl," I said to no one… everyone. To myself. "I am not leaving Arran."

I disappeared into the falling darkness, my body craving release. But I was no longer hungry for food.