2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A day to pack? Fucking abysmal. Cyril didn't consider herself to be a high-maintenance fae—especially compared to some wives and daughters of rogues and lords she'd met—but Dion had given her little to go off of.

He assured her their accommodations would be a step up from the hostels and hovels they frequented on their travels, but he declined to enlighten her any further, saying she’d just have to wait and see for herself.

Insufferable. Fucking. Arse.

So, she prepared for something in between palatial living and being stuck in the top bunk of a barracks with one of her uncles snoring beneath her. A stack of black pants and neutral blouses, her tried-and-true ensemble, a couple of simple dresses with their awful matching silk shoes, and a small pack of nightclothes, toiletries, and odds and ends.

Her life for the foreseeable future, tucked away into three travel trunks that departed with the porters the previous afternoon. Cyril wasn’t confident in how goods like that held up being phased through anchor stones—a rare fae magic she never understood—but she tried not to dwell on it as she finished securing her saddle and giving her equine companion a slow once over.

The sleek, midnight black mare, Athena—or Attie, Cyril preferred—nosed Cyril's hands with excitement as she swept them up her muzzle, straightening and fussing over the bridle and its fastenings.

Cyril had spent countless hours with Attie from the moment the horse got her wobbly, unwieldy legs beneath her five summers ago. She was as sweet-tempered as horses came, and never faltered during some of the long, arduous runs Cyril put her through on the estate trails.

Two peas in a pod, her uncles always teased, if only for the lengthy black manes they both sported and a mutual love of apples of every variety. A small mercy Dion gave Cyril, assigning her Attie and not one of their many feisty geldings, like the one Rendal struggled with beside her.

No one was particularly pleased to be gathered in the courtyard at dawn—the cool bite of the late-spring morning air made Cyril regret her thinner choice of leathers—but his horse was fucking pissed.

“Dion, you cannot be serious about this,” Rendall groaned as he grappled for the horse’s reins. The horse—Kingston, if Cyril remembered correctly—neighed with petulance as he bucked and stomped out of Ren’s grasp.

Repeatedly.

Bron looked over at her with wild amusement in his eyes before he and Tyr turned their backs, sparing Ren from more of an audience than he already had.

Dion shrugged from where he sat perched atop his horse. “He’s the only one big enough to carry you for this long. It’s not my fault you’re built like a fucking oak.”

What sounded suspiciously like a snort came from the direction of Tyr and Bron.

But Dion wasn’t wrong.

Cyril spent most of her childhood climbing Ren like he was a tree. Even now, at the five and a half feet she made it to, he towered a foot and then some over her.

None of her uncles were small or slight men, not with the often… physical nature of the guild’s work, but Ren was by far the largest rogue at the estate. He was the most frightening, too.

If his looming stature didn’t have someone questioning their decisions, the death lingering in his eyes usually did it. Ren always defended them as being rich like chocolate, which happened to be his favorite food, but they reminded Cyril of the black depths of a well more than anything.

Lucky for her though, Ren was usually the first to cave whenever Cyril needed help with anything. He loved to remind her that he knew he was royally fucked the moment Dion shoved her wailing and fussing newborn self into his arms for the first time, and she didn't utter another sound as long as he carried her around. Apparently, Ren had no choice but to have a soft spot for her after that.

Dion, who trotted back and forth with impatience in front of their struggling group, couldn’t be any further on the spectrum of appearance from Ren. Despite the often brutal environment he worked his way into, her uncle carried a certain air of regality to him that the other Rogues of Helia did not.

Everything from the neat trim of his dark, chestnut hair—always ?longer on the top than the sides—to the immaculate tailoring of the clothes he wore left no doubt he bore his birthright title of Lord of Helia before any other mantle he earned. Dion’s head always sat high on his shoulders, his vocabulary and cadence of speech were that of a well-educated fae, and his list of fine tastes ran long.

A handsome man, in Cyril’s opinion, made even more so by the jagged scar that cut down the right side of his face. A slice of brutality through his regal mask.

The origins of the scar, Cyril never learned, and she spent most of her life being shut down by the residents of the estate whenever she tried to broach the subject. Something cruel happened to him, she figured by now, for the fast-healing body of an ascended fae like himself to bear such terrible marks. Something cruel that Cyril doubted she would ever learn.

With his titles and his legacy with the guild, Cyril could almost admit Dion was a respectable figure to look up to. If only he wasn’t such an overbearing asshole.

Tyr and Ren loved to argue that Cyril and her last living blood relative were just too similar, and knew how to rile each other up in just the right ways, but Cyril begged to differ. Dion treated her like she was a piece of priceless glass, and she did not reciprocate that sentiment with him.

“I didn’t realize the ride was supposed to be a formal affair.” Cyril, finally settled comfortably atop Attie, gestured to the ornate brooch holding Dion’s cloak closed in front of his heart.

The sigil of Helia—a rising sun inlaid with precious stones of warm yellow, red, and orange—was not something he usually wore when they traveled.

Cyril chose a simple metal pin to secure hers, solely for the peace of mind that it wouldn't be lost to the wind when Tyr inevitably raced her to wherever they would camp at night.

Dion raised a single, angular brow at her as he said, “And I did not realize we were on speaking terms again.”

Cyril opened her mouth to fumble something snarky and not fully thought out, but Dion didn’t give her a chance.

“For appearances’ sake, it’s more… palatable if the people of Reykr interpret our arrival as something more diplomatic in intent. A visiting lord is easier to digest than a band of rogues showing up at their doorstep.”

“I see.”

A visiting lord and his band of rogues?

Cyril sighed.

“That—”

“—is a wonderful idea, Uncle Dion? Yes. Thank you, kiddo.” Dion smirked. The arse. “I have your brooch as well. You can have it once we get through the mountains, lest you lose it somewhere in the rift.”

Cyril had no angle to protest that.

She avoided most finery out of a mix of personal taste and the fear she might misplace something priceless.

Again.

Six years since the incident with one of the Rhodea family circlets, and Dion wouldn’t let her live it down.

“Four days until we get to the rift?” Cyril asked, skirting around the business of lost heirlooms.

“Give or take if the weather cooperates. And—” Dion steered his horse around, assessing the rest of their entourage who were finally mounted and settled. “If we ever get our asses moving.”

Dion hooked his fingers in his mouth, and his piercing whistle shot through the murmured quiet of the courtyard.

“Are we ready?”

Nods and sighs, and a single “I fucking guess so” rolled through Cyril’s uncles.

“Good. Onwards to Reykr then.”

Cyril eased Attie into a slow trot, glancing back to take one long, last look at the limestone estate and its imposing oak doors. One last look at the sunrise colored segments of stained glass framing them, and the rising sun carved into the wood itself.

Home.

She couldn’t help but feel she wouldn’t see it again soon.

Their first day of riding came and went with remarkable ease.

A tepid breeze and overcast sky guided Cyril and her uncles up through the narrow, overgrown trail that wove its way through the forested lands north of the estate. The same trail that would apparently deposit them right at the base of the Stygian Mountains in a few days.

All around them, the noises of a living, thriving ecosystem filled the relative quiet the group traveled in. The soft, persistent burble of the creek running parallel to their path. Leaves and branches and shrubbery, all rustling in the wind. Squawks and squeaks of curious creatures investigating what in the hells was disrupting their peaceful realm.

Cyril enjoyed the midday chorus of birds perched high in the canopy most of all, though she earned pitiful glances from Dion when she attempted her own whistled rendition of their songs.

And when Bron finally said, “Any chance you brought a book to read aloud instead, dove?” Tyr filled in where she lacked the ability to carry a tune.

Truthfully, the quiet that started their day wasn’t an unpleasant thing, but the longer the silence persisted, the more uneasy Cyril felt. For as cantankerous of a bunch as they were, to not have spent any of the day bickering with each other was unsettling.

There was some sort of displeasure simmering beneath the surface with every one of them, and that meant Cyril was stuck with a group of stubborn, brooding men for the rest of the trip. Or until one of them inevitably took a shot at the other.

Gods help her.

Even then, as they puttered about and settled into the glen that would serve as their camp for the evening, the only words spoken were ones of absolute necessity.

Bron and Tyr took off immediately to find some poor, unsuspecting creature to kill for their dinner—their dried rations, Cyril was told, were to be saved for the alpine leg of their trip—and they left Cyril to struggle with tethering three gods damned horses on her own.

Ren didn’t speak as much as he just huffed and cursed as he hauled around a few half-rotted logs for them to sit on around the firepit, set up by none other than the bearer of the Rhodea Flames himself. He filled a log nearly entirely on his own, with Cyril and Dion taking another, and Bron and Tyr sharing the third when they returned from their hunt.

“What...is it?”

Cyril wrinkled her nose as she inspected the creature as it made slow rotations on a spit over the fire, manned by Tyr’s watchful eye. It was already skinned and cleaned by the time they hauled it back to camp, and Cyril was wary of anything that large with fangs and hooves.

“Do you really want to know what we found lurking in the bushes, dove?” Tyr raised a single, wiry brow at her.

She blinked at him, and back at the roasting…thing. “Maybe not.”

Tyr chuckled—the first bit of normalcy since they left the estate ten fucking hours ago—and turned his attention back to the spit.

It was going to be up to Cyril to get these stubborn arses to do anything other than bore holes into the trees with their eyes. Usually she could rely on Bron to drive a bit of conversation when the others would brood, but considering he was actively taking part in the brooding today, she wasn’t going to hold her breath.

“Have any of you ever been to Reykr before?” she asked, glancing at the three men sitting opposite her and Dion.

“Nope.”

“Never.”

And a fucking snort from Ren.

Cyril took a slow breath. These men were intolerable, and she wasn’t sure how any of them lived this long without strangling each other.

Dion, at least, wore an empathetic smile when she looked at him.

“Many times,” he said, and Cyril was sure she caught Tyr’s hazel eyes rolling in the firelight. A bold statement from the quietest Rogue of Helia. “Not since you were quite young, though. Impossible to leave for a month or two when you’ve got a tiny creature clinging to you, screeching for every strand of your attention.”

Bron stifled a noise that sounded somewhere between a cough and a laugh while Cyril gaped at her uncle. The nerve of this fucking man—

Dion threw his arm around her shoulders and tugged Cyril so tightly to his side that she had to fight to get away from him as he added, “A tiny, screeching creature that I love dearly to this day.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Cyril grumbled.

She slid down to the other end of the log, glowering.

“But that is why”—Dion tossed a pointed glance back across the fire—“I can say with confidence the bullshit they spread about the moon-fae and Reykr isn’t true. None of this…what did you say again, Cyr? Bloodsucking and virgin sacrificing ?”

His less-than-impressed gaze slid over to Cyril as she found a splinter in her hand to pick at.

“Right,” Ren started, just a low, rippling rumble. Cyril was certain that was the first time he’d spoken to someone other than himself since they left that morning. “Like the bastard that fucks anything that moves knows what these freaks do with their virgins .”

“ Nonononono —” Cyril couldn’t clamp her hands over her ears fast enough as she crumpled in on herself. Dion’s own hands clasped on top of hers a half-breath later.

Her uncle's rotating repertoire of personal guests at the estate wasn't a secret by any means. Cyril just actively avoided thinking about or acknowledging it. Ever.

Dion pulled both of their hands away from her ears just in time for her to hear the tail end of Ren’s snap back at whatever her uncle had hissed at him.

“—piss off Dion. She’s a grown woman.”

Yes, a grown woman who wanted to hear nothing about the intimate habits of the man who raised her. She appreciated the near endless vouching the others did for her maturity but, gods…

Cyril dropped her face into her palms and sighed.

“Is the beast almost done?” she mumbled, earning a commiserating squeeze of her shoulder from Dion. Now that she’d gotten them talking, she was desperate for them to preoccupy their mouths with something else.

“I won’t waste my breath trying to convince any of you otherwise about Reykr. You’ll see for yourselves once we get there that everything you’ve heard is nothing but slander against perfectly good people.” From Cyril’s periphery, Dion stood and brushed himself off—assuming his preferred authoritative stance. “And if I so much as hear any of you have made our hosts uncomfortable, there will be fucking hells to pay. Am I understood?”

Bron, Tyr, and Ren all just huffed.

Cyril, at least, gave Dion the decency of a verbal acknowledgment.

How the fuck had it only been a day?

Mid-morning, on their second day of riding, Cyril urged Attie to trot alongside Dion at the forefront of their group.

So far, the day had taken a much more relaxed tone than their first. Still not quite back to normal, to her disappointment, but they’d at least poked a bit of fun at each other when dawn broke and it came time to pack up their camp. Quieter than usual, still, but she wasn’t as worried Dion would get murdered in his sleep.

Ren took up his spot at the rear of their entourage, his gelding a tad less feisty than he had been, and Tyr and Bron fell into line behind Cyril. Dion headed their group again, as he likely would for the duration of their journey, as the only one who had taken this path. Multiple times, at that.

When she finally caught up with him, the forest path wide enough for them to trot alongside each other, he tossed her a wry grin.

“Come to keep me company?”

Cyril nodded. That, amongst other things.

A good rogue always came well prepared, after all.

“It’s been boring back there this morning.” She glanced over her shoulder at the three who trailed just out of earshot.

Dion’s gaze followed hers. “They’ll come around. It’ll just take a bit of kicking and screaming to get them there.”

Cyril doubted that.

Her uncles would follow any order Dion issued them, but they were a stubborn bunch who didn’t have their opinions swayed with any ease.

“Can I ask you something?” She was as untactful as ever, but this had gnawed at her ever since they made their camp last night.

He eyed her with caution. “Oh, that’s never good.”

“No! It’s not anything bad.” Cyril sighed. “It’s just, I know you don’t like it when I pry about personal things…”

Those golden eyes narrowed in appraisal, the movement tugging at his scar before he looked back at the path ahead of them. “Try me.”

“How old were you when your ascension happened?”

A sliver of tension left Dion’s body, and Cyril breathed a sigh of relief.

“How old was I? Oh, gods.” He huffed a breath, though it sounded strained. “Thirty-ish, I think?”

Cyril blinked. “You… think ?”

“Forgive me if I’m fuzzy on the specifics of something that happened a century ago, dear.” Dion cast her a sidelong glance. “Why do you ask?”

“Ah, well…” Her confidence packed up and fucking ran . She should have thought this through before broaching the subject. “I just…”

Unfortunately, Dion could always read her with preternatural ease.

Softly, he said, “My fire bothered you last night, didn’t it?”

“No!”

Yes, it did.

In an immense, soul-crushing sort of way.

Every time her uncle conjured flames to light a lamp or a hearth—or their campfire last night—without effort, it served as a devastating reminder she had nothing. That not a lick of magic had manifested in her veins in twenty-one years. A tough thing to accept when fire ran down the Rhodea family line so ruthlessly that it smothered anything else that tried to mingle with it.

“Cyr, give it time. You’re young still, and most fae don’t ascend—”

Until they were older than she was now.

She knew, but that didn’t change what ate away at her, and it didn’t stop her from talking right over him either.

“You had some of your fire before your ascension, right? And my father too?”

Cyril knew the answers, but sometimes it felt like Dion needed a reminder of it himself. Every Rhodea recorded in their quaint family archives showed some aptitude for wielding fire long before their ascension opened up their full wellspring of power.

Every Rhodea except for Cyril.

“We did, yes.”

“And your father too?”

“Yes. But, Cyr, that isn’t—” Dion sighed, drawing his mouth into a tight line.

This was a discussion they’d had more times than Cyril could count. Dion always tried a different angle, but he knew how much it pained her.

Most sun-fae looked forward to their ascension solely for the near halt of their aging, hoping to spend the centuries to come locked in their youthful prime. Gaining access to the full breadth of their powers was just something nice they got along the way.

For Cyril, it was the opposite.

She would gladly forfeit every drop of beauty and youth for her fire—for freedom from the gnawing inadequacy she felt in its absence.

Living out the rest of her life as an old hag seemed like a small price to pay for that.

She knew, though, that while all fae would reach their moment of ascension in their early adulthood—in their twenties and thirties, usually—some lacked the ability to wield magic. Like their wellsprings were too shallow to start and ran dry granting their near eternal youth.

Cyril worried she didn’t have a wellspring to begin with.

It was common enough too, that at least a few rogues living at the guild relied on their brute strength alone to carry out contracts, and those men frightened her more than any of the magically inclined fae.

“At some point, you need to accept that until your ascension happens, there is no way for us to know what the gods gifted you with. And it could easily be ten years until then. You’ll drive yourself mad if you obsess over something—”

“That may not happen?”

“No, Cyr!” Dion snapped, and Cyril tensed in her saddle. “You’re as stubborn as a fucking mule sometimes. Something that may not turn out the way you want. Something that you have zero control over. What if it isn’t fire, but your mother’s gifts instead?”

Ah, yes.

The water-bearing healer who couldn’t mend her own wounds as she bled out.

Just who Cyril wanted to take after.

“You’ve made your point,” she muttered. Maybe she could still salvage their conversation, get something out of him that wasn’t his usual runaround. “Was it obvious when your ascension happened?”

Dion snorted.

“Incredibly.” His tone bore a hell of a sharp edge to it—any patience he had for her was gone.

“How so?”

The sidelong glance he cast her was chilling.

“Not up for discussion.”

And just like that, Dion urged his horse to pick up speed and left Cyril to fall back in line. She knew better than to say another thing to him, even if her pounding heart screamed at her to do otherwise.

“Everything alright?” Bron murmured as he trotted up beside her. Strands of his long, golden-blonde hair had already slipped from the braid he let her weave it into before they left camp.

Cyril squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to acknowledge the burn that pricked at the corners of them, and took a shaky breath.

She shook her head.

No, things weren’t alright and no, she did not want to talk about them.

She couldn’t let Dion get to her, not this early on.

“You’ll get there, dove.”

Bron believed in her to a fault, far more than Dion and her other uncles ever did. And that was why, right now, she couldn’t look at him. Not when his forest-green eyes would be soft and full of so much pity. Empathy, he would argue, but it always felt like pity.

That night, when they settled for camp, Dion tasked Cyril with taking their water skins to the river for refilling.

When she returned, the campfire was already lit.