Page 11 of The Sacred and the Tormented

“Are we going alone?” she asked.

“I’ll gather a unit of my warriors and I’m certain Saoirse will spare a few for the cause.”

“My sister will stay to care for our mother.”

“What about Raevina?”

Talon bristled at the name. “Do you want her to come with us?”

“Do you?”

“She’s strong,” Rion reasoned. “But can she be trusted not to run to your father?”

“I don’t think Raevina is the reasonable type either.” She turned back to Talon. “But if you’d rather not—”

“I’ll ask her tonight.”

Arianna nodded. She wanted to ask more questions, but didn’t quite feel it was her place to do so. Talon would talk when he was ready. Perhaps on their journey to Ashling if Raevina decided not to accompany them, which wasn’t likely.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Gavin asked.

“No,” they all replied in unison.

“Tonight then?” Arianna clarified, feeling a jolt of excitement spark through her.

“I’ll gather the supplies,” Talon said. “Rion can sneak us out underground and we’ll be long gone before anyone becomes the wiser.”

Arianna glanced at the stack of paperwork she still hadn’t sifted through. “Do you think they’ll be alright?”

“Avalon will manage. If all goes well, we’ll be back with Ellie to help you sort through what you left behind.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

If they all just ended up captured … or worse.

“Then we take Niall and the High Lord down with us,” Rion finished.

#

Arianna continued to work through the paperwork she deemed important. She answered questions regarding the slaves and wrote up an entire paper on how she wished for them tobe treated. With her gone, her father would be responsible for keeping their affairs in order. She wasn’t sure if a document would hold much merit, but she hoped the nobles would respect it at least.

Avalon would likely send out teams to search for her, that was almost a given. If they caught up, she supposed she’d give them a choice, to either return to her father with a message. Or join her in their mission and rescue their future High Lady. Arianna already knew which option the warriors of Móirín would choose.

A light breeze shifted papers on the desk and Arianna took the moment to breathe in the fresh air. She kept the window open as much as possible, just to get a little piece of the outside world while she worked.

Arianna could almost feel a growing storm outside, as if the world were charged and ready to shake the very foundations of Alastríona. She wondered if the feeling had something to do with her magic, volatile as it was. Her father regularly had his warriors accompany her outside the village just so she could release it, otherwise it spilled out of its own accord. Even now she could feel it tingling at the edges of her skin, begging for release.

She still didn’t understand why her body wouldn’t just shift. Maybe it was waiting for something. The elders were just as baffled. With everything she’d faced, her body should have given itself over. But no one really knew how her magic worked either, given that the previous Divine had destroyed the knowledge.

Arianna thought back to the statue still seated in the rubble of Ruádhan. Some of the fanatics had flocked to the area, the nobles included, though they’d been more than disturbed to find a statue of someone with Rion’s magic beside it. It made them question everything they’d been taught.

Some of them anyway.

Others were worshiping the gods as they’d not seen in centuries. They were the ones who claimed her as their queen, but they’d also grown aggressive with their teachings going so far as to publicly execute any who spoke out against her.

A war was slowly forming between the rebel factions and the religious zealots.

And that was just one of their current problems.

---