Page 36 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“Not fully, unless it is a clear projection of thought the way that we can talk to other riders, but we can feel one another’s emotions and instincts. Vargr are our equals,” Sage reminded me when my eyes darted to all three of the wolven creatures. “She will be your closest confidant.”

“But…” I began to protest before snapping my mouth closed when I realized that Ciaran was listening. I did not want him to know my insecurities about killing Aodhan and taking his vargr. Especially since this new revelation about how bonded the riders were with their mounts only solidified my certainty that Pyrope must actuallyhateme. It was such a cruel fate for her to be forced to bond and defend the person who killed her previous rider.

I looked at Serafin who was also watching me now as if he knew we were talking about him. I supposed he did because he was evidently privy to Sage’s mind. I had known from the start that the vargr were sentient in some regard, and there was a deep connection between them and their riders, but this was beyond what I’d imagined.

Sage’s attention was called for by a female scout who needed to give a report, and I turned to watch him while he was distracted. I stared up at his handsome profile and considered the way Serafin would often curl up with me and how Sage seemed mildly horrified the first time it happened. The vargr was so protective of me, and I had thought it was just because he liked me, but the truth was Serafin had been revealing Sage’s feelings all along.

Which was a downright terrifying realization when I turned to look atmyvargr and caught Pyrope gazing at Sage with her bushy tail thudding against the ground.

Fuck. I could barely keep my own emotions and plans straight in regards to him, now I was going to have this creature mirroring me to the world!

She glanced at me suddenly as if sensing my distress, and her ears pressed back against her head. I sighed.

I noticed it was quiet, the scout having moved away, and I looked back at Sage to find him gazing down at the smoke in the valley with a troubled expression.

“Sage, I… I’m sorry,” I whispered, sidling closer to him without knowing how to comfort him. He touched my arm and gave me a squeeze as if he were the one trying to console me.

“The standing stones are outside the village. There is still a chance that the tablets remain intact,” he insisted.

“I hope you are right,” said Ciaran, his eyes also on the smoke rising from the valley before sweeping southward. “We do not have time for any of this.”

“No,” Sage agreed with him, his deep voice clipped, and then he stepped away from us to conjure his portal for the fey waiting before him.

I followed Ciaran’s gaze south after the other rider had also moved away while I pondered Ciaran’s words.

We do not have time for this.

We had moved north, up the mountain, and out of the Suridin Valley, so I could no longer see the blight that plagued the Autumn Court. A stretch of dead forest in the south near Dulgune from whence the Fuath had come.

We really did not have time for this. Not with pollution from the humans in Uile Breithà steadily seeping through the magical barriers between worlds. Eroding them and poisoning the fey as it had poisoned us long ago when we were first forced to flee from that world.

We did not have time to be drawn into this vicious war with the Fuath when the very integrity of the borders that kept the Autumn Court intact were disintegrating.

Chapter eleven

THE COST OF A VOLATILE MAGIC

Rian

Isat as still as I could while the sun rose, its warmth and light a soothing caress on my face. I listened to faraway cries of Feurin seabirds and waves crashing thunderously against the shore as I breathed in the briny air. In the wake of the brutal and unforgiving anguish that had ravaged me during the night, I now felt empty. Numb.

Achieving that kind of oblivion was something that had taken me a long time to learn in order to control my volatile magic, but I had perfected the meditation. I had forged a quiet place in my mind where my magic and my emotions were all at peace. An imagined woodland cabin filled with sunlight and herbs hanging in a kitchen where a woman was humming some lullaby.

“It is a shame we do not live closer,” said my uncle Carrick, breaking into my thoughts about the cabin, as he leaned against the wall tower. “Sage has brought me to see the sea before, but it is always a wonder to behold.”

My eyes opened slowly. They still felt swollen, and it was a reminder of the pain which I immediately repressed before it could spark any more feeling.

I had been trying to get him to walk through a portal and go home for hours, but he would not leave me, and I would not speak. Which was for his safety as much as my own pride because I was too unstable to safely discuss such heavy emotions when my magic was tied to them.

So we were at an impasse.

Carrick sighed deeply when I still would not respond, and he walked over to settle beside me again, sitting so close that our arms and shoulders brushed.

“If you will not talk, then perhaps I shall,” he mused, casually crossing his arms over his bent knees to sit the same way that I did.

He had absolutely no sense of self-preservation.

“I do not want to kill you,” I insisted softly once again. These were the only words I had managed to speak to him without rousing too muchfeeling.

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