Chapter 20 | The Crown of the World.

They returned to the place where the Cú Sidhe had first attacked, where bloodstains and broken branches marked the fight.  The road had rippled and there were dark streaks in the ground, marking the stretching veins of rot that had exploded from Aire in her panic. Now, it felt like the rot had vanished, leaving only a stain in the ground.

Anluan was wrapped tight in a blanket, still sitting high in the branches. Dried blood streaked his face and crusted his hair to his head but when he saw Aire appearing on the path below him, a wide smile broke out.

"Aire!"

Brice peaked down, relief melting her worry. "Oh, Aire! You're unharmed."

Aire swallowed down the pain inside her chest at the sight of Anluan, alive and well. She didn't want to care about any of them, but she could never help herself.  Siseal was a whisper at her side, choosing to walk beside her. Sometimes he forgot himself, walking so close that his shoulder brushed against her arm.  She recognised the need for familiarity and the need for protection.

Somehow, they had managed to survive all these years as Wielders but Aire recognised the yearning that burned so keenly on their faces. It made her heart ache, because it reminded her of herself. Another Cearnain Wielder, longing for protection and familiarity.  She had found it for herself in Aevran Goldryn; with his sharp smile and sly eyes. A boy who had protected her and she him.

But she had relied too heavily on him. She had a year with the boys – she would make sure that they would be able to protect themselves, learn who rely on before she returned to Irial.

A nasty voice crept into her mind, "How can you teach them something you never learned?"

Aire gritted her jaw, her attention returning as Brice scolded Anluan sharply. He was clambering down the tree, a little unsteady on his feet as he landed.

"You didn't die then brother?" Anluan goaded.

"I could say the same about you!" Siseal jabbed back.

Anluan stuck his tongue out, but whatever mirth was blooming on his face quickly died as he beheld what walked out of the forest behind them.  The Bloodbound's gaze swept across the mess created by the Cú Sidhe and Aire. His expression was unchanging.

"Why is he here?"  Anluan's voice pitched. "Aire?"

"He is our prisoner." Aire placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, glancing over to the Bloodbound. As soon as she looked at him, his attention flicked towards her.

"He is not afraid." Anluan glanced up at her, his voice dipping.

"How do you know?"

"His heartbeat," Anluan touched his ear. "It is steady and slow."

"I would assume a creature like that is used to controlling his emotions."  Aire whispered back. "I would not worry."

Unconvinced, Anluan just stared at the Bloodbound for a long moment. Only when the Bloodbound turned a low-lidded, placid look his way, did the boy jerk and turn away.

Nyeth had no such inhibitions. She watched him unflinchingly, her jaw set. Aire wondered if she was taking joy in the sight of him shackled.

The Aether broke into a circle of low murmuring. Zehla did not look happy, and Aire looked to the Bloodbound often, hoping to catch a smidgen of discomfort.  None. The most emotion she had seen from him remained to be that moment he beheld the flowers at her feet, the fire casting vicious light against his shocked face.

"I have made my decision," Laochra's voice boomed, the final word. "The creature is our prisoner. Never before have we managed to capture one alive. Our leader would want this opportunity."

"She would be disgraced to stand before one."  Sloane snapped.

"You do not speak for her." Zehla's voice was low.

"I would speak for her more than you." Sloane retorted.

"Ah, discord amongst the ranks." The Bloodbound's low voice rumbled. "It is no wonder that the rebels have made so little progress all these years."

"I would not speak so bitingly." Aire's lip curled. "You are certainly in no position to speak now. You fought one of your own."

"Is that an order, Aire Thielan?" He queried, arching a brow.  That moon damned way he said it just annoyed her. She fought that annoyance back, levelling him with a severe look.

"A Bloodbound to us, a traitor to yours." She goaded. "I wonder if the Empire hates traitors more than Wielders?"

He didn't respond, but his gaze did not leave hers. There was a knowing in his eyes that unnerved her and she looked away, furious that she broke first.

As the procession packed once more, retrieving the horses from down the road, Nyeth approached Aire. "You tore the land apart. I did not know that you could do that."

"Neither did I." Aire glanced back at the torn earth. The dark marks of rot. "I've never done it before."

"But you have been masking your Wield for years?" Nyeth queried, glancing back at her. Her dark eyes were heavy and tired, but that tiredness sparked to rage as she tracked the Bloodbound. He was being moved to one of the horses, his bindings tired to the pommel of the saddle. The briars that wrapped around him had not waned and Aire could feel them against him, the mark of thorns pressed into his skin. It made her too aware of him, like a root inside of her that tethered them. 

"Yes, but I could still see spirits." Aire blinked, dragging her attention back to her friend.

"At least you did not get to see your family turn on you because of your Wield," Nyeth stroked the neck of her mount, her expression creasing into something bitterly dark. "If you could hide it as well as you did."

Aire was aware of the Bloodbound's gaze. For once, she felt as if their deaths were a small mercy. They would never had turned on her, but she didn't want to imagine their pain in watching as the world around them came to despise them.  She would have done anything to protect them from that.

The procession began again.

It was slower this time with the Bloodbound shackled between them. Still, apart from the occasional insult, they did not strike him or throw his food into the dirt. He was a caged animal, with only a flicker of wildness crossing that haughty face when they tugged on his chains, but he schooled his face quickly.

Hours melted into the days. The light overhead began to grow, shining more strongly through the widening between the canopies. The forest was ending. Sunlight shone ahead of them, a beckoning beacon. Aire's spirits lifted and she slipped from Oíche's saddle. She held fast to her reins but kept walking, drawn by the gap ahead.

One by one, as if stepping through a doorway, they stepped into the light.

It was harsh against her eyes, brutal when there were no branches or leaves to mute it.  It gleamed off the snow, blinding her. Oíche snuffled against Aire's shoulder, nudging her forward and Aire took a few shaky steps forward, feeling the forest earth give away to stone under her.

Someone gasped sharply.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

What she saw didn't make sense. It couldn't make sense.  She had heard the stories, but what stood towering before her was so startling that she struggled to believe her own eyes. Valherin. The stone crown to the sprawling lands of Tearmann, the name that encompassed the four Kingdoms that shared the landmass.

The Crown of the World, as her father had called it, towered above her. It was so impossibly high that she had to crane her head back to look at it, feeling as if her eyes were too weak, too small to take all of it in. She had never seen anything so large, so consuming. The sky was shadowed by it and Aire knew for certainty that only the great Danann, the gods of old, could have created something so immense and powerful.

They were teeth of jagged, purple-black stone that cut into the sky. So tall that the clouds brushed the snow-capped sides. The great peaks were lost but Aire doubted she could see that far up anyway. She swayed on her feet, blinking as her blood hummed.

It felt as if the mountains were alive. That the very stone, the very earth that built their foundations was a living, breathing creature.

The Crown of the World.

It was funny to her that it would be here that the rebellion held strong. The one area of land that the emperor did not own or control. And what good was his crown, his gold and jewels and his cold throne when the crown made by the gods themselves could not be borne by him?

"A crown too heavy for the neck of a human man," The Bloodbound commented absently. "In a place as wild and brutal as this, ideas of rebellion are easily grown."

'He was right,' She thought. In a place so wild and beautiful – where the mountains gave protection that no castle could compare.

The stone eclipsed her vision. She had no words that could voice the awe bubbling in her throat. Even as cold wind chafed her skin, eager to attack now that the trees could not protect them. Clear, crisp air cleansed her lungs.

A haven.

It was so removed from the world that Aire had known – in Cearna and in Irial. She had never lived somewhere so remote. Her city in Cearna had been a hive of noise, of singing and laughter. The occasional fighting as Cearnains loved a good fight. She had lived packed on top of people in Irial. But this place – this had to be the edge of the world. The very edge of everything.

"Let us keep moving." Laochra pushed forward. "We still have far to go."

"But the mountain is right here?" Siseal stared up, struck.

"And it's size hides the miles within." Levrna told him. "Woven beneath these great towering giants, is a pathway. It stretches long like a snake, weaving through the stone and confusing those who do not know the path."

"A snake?" Siseal glanced at her.

"A long reptile?"

"I do not know what that is?"

"Uh," Levrna stared down at the boy, thinking. "It is ..."

"Have you ever seen a river cutting through the land boy? How it bows around rocks and bends its way through the land?" Zehla's voice was rough.

"Yes?"

"The path through the mountains is similar."

"Oh." Anluan fell into step beside the Knechru warrior. He had spent many nights finding an excuse to sit beside her at the fire. Aire began to think that he liked the softness of her voice – how it must not have grated on his ears like the rest of them. "How many times have you walked this snake-river path?"

"Many times."

"Is it long?"

"It is."

Laochra glanced back, smiling.

"How long?" Siseal slowed down so that he could walk alongside his brother. Both of them stared up at the towering warrior with open curiosity, clustered to her side. Aire had to swallow down her sudden burst of fondness.

Zehla bit back a sigh. "It can take several weeks, if one doesn't know the path."

"But you know it well?" Anluan asked.

"Very well."

Anluan glanced forward, to where the path was lost in the shadow that the mountain cast. "Did you have to walk it many times to remember it?"

"Yes."

"You do not speak much?" Siseal pointed out.

"And yet, you have been given answers." Zehla glanced down at him, a heavy brow rising in question. Siseal just stared back at her and Zehla just sighed. "We should bind the Bloodbound's eyes."

"Yes," Levrna moved as Laochra dipped his head in agreement. The Bloodbound did not struggle against the bindings wrapped tight around his eyes.

Ahead of them, Sloane whistled and when they looked to her, she motioned to the grey skies. "A storm is approaching. We must hurry."

><><><

The storm came.

And with it, misery.

As the wind howled and raged, bringing flurries of snow that clung to her clothes, any positive opinion that Aire had of Sibran vanished. Now, to her, Sibran was a world of snow, ice and death.

Not a day passed in their trek under the shadow of the Valherin mountain, did the cold, brutal wind subside. She had always hated unrelenting cold and now was no exception. She could feel it in her bones, leaching through her gloves. Brice loved it, or at least remembered how to tolerate it. Siseal had loved it for a while, exclaiming how intricate each flake was as it fell but his mood had sobered under the cold onslaught.

When she found her attention wandering to their captive, she did not find misery on his face. Often, in the rare moments his eyes were unbound, she found him with his face turned up to the sky. His eyes shut, his long lashes brushing against the jut of his cheekbones.  There was such peace on his face, a raw and broken kind of peace that she found no words of malice to spit at him.

Too quickly, he felt the weight of her stare and returned it unblinkingly.

Back in Cearna, the winters had been bearable with a roaring fire and heavy blankets. Here, the cold had to be un-natural. Some curse bestowed by the mountain. They stopped by lakes of ice and the twins raced ahead when Laochra declared it safe, shrieking as they slipped and skated along the surface.

"We do not have time for this," Sloane hissed.

"They are children." Laochra reminded her. "Skating and falling on your arse repeatedly does not have the same appeal, or same glamour when you are older. Let them have some fun. They have earned it."

Sloane had nothing to say to that.

Siseal had skated over to them, tugging on Aire's hand. The denial had been heavy on her tongue, but then she re-membered the sickly boy in the forest. His broken foot and how that had been certain death for him. He took her hand and pulled her out onto the ice.

She fell immediately.

The boys shrieked with laughter, tugging on her to help her stand. Nyeth and Brice were their next victims, and the Aether watched the road as the Wielders skated and fell. Nyeth could not believe the glimmer of the ice, her hands pressed against the ice as she tried to peer through it. Only Brice mastered the ice, throwing her head back to smile at the grey skies.

"How can you stand so easily?" Aire had fallen, again.

"When I was a girl and the roads were heavy with snow, we used to traverse the rivers. We had blades cut from the bones of reindeer for our boots."

"Blades?" Nyeth sat back on her heels.

"It allows us to move faster."

"I would like to try that." Anluan wobbled his way towards Brice.

She caught him as he pitched forward. "Perhaps this haven will give you the chance?"

The Aether called them in from the banks and they returned. During the nights, they were packed tight together and a circle of fire was lit behind them. Creatures, great hulking bears and yellow eyed wolves would occasionally prowl closer. The creatures snarled and roared in the dark and luminous eyes flickered in the darkness, watching their camp before slinking back into the night.

Why had they not entered the forest? She knew little of bears, but why had the wolves not stalked them in the forest? Unless, she had never noticed them.

That last night, Aire did not sleep.

The wind was loud as it whipped through the valley of stone and ice and everyone around her was wrapped tight in fur. Creatures prowled beyond the wall of fire and those luminous eyes seemed to home in on her. Aire tucked her trembling hands under her pits, wishing she had just a snippet of Eoban to clear her paranoia.

Under the wind, she heard their chittering and their echoing howls that only brought more prowlers.

Those keeping watch during the night commented on it – how strange it was that so many were beginning to gather.

"It is not the noisy ones we should fear," A gruff voice whispered beside her.

Aire jolted as Laochra settled beside her, offering her a tired smile. "We should reach the heart of the mountain tomorrow."

She returned her attention to the eyes in the darkness. "Why shouldn't we be afraid of the noisy ones?"

"They are curious. They are talking to each other, to us as if we can understand them." The low fire cast shadows on Laochra's face. "The quiet ones are the ones waiting for us to make a mistake. Waiting for a way to slip in and tear us apart. The Cú Sidhe is but one malevolent spirit within these lands and even he takes no joy in his killing."

"I've heard of such creatures. A long time ago."

"I imagine you did." Laochra said softly. "You were a Cearnain child. The mountain is not home, nor will it replace what we have lost but we try to hold onto the old ways. As much as we can. The Empire has tried it's best to erase us, but ... we exist in pockets."

We have lost.

Aire's smile was sad. "You have done far more than I."

"You did what you could." Laochra told her. "It is enough now that you survived to remember. Do not doubt that Aire Thielan."

"Some days, I wish that I could."

"Not truly."

The Bloodbound was listening.  In the dark, with only the fire serving as light, his eyes were luminous. Aire looked to him as Laochra turned to watch the night  Again, she felt as if she knew what he was thinking just by the way he looked at her. Either that, or her need for Eoban was warping her thoughts, making her paranoid.

Aire glanced back at Laochra. "No, I do not truly wish that."

The old warrior patted her shoulder stepped away. He was taking the first watch. "Sleep well, Aire Thielan. We will reach the heart tomorrow."

Welcome back to Aire's world!

Tell me your thoughts, theories and conspiracies.

Apologies for being away for so long. I was on holidays and then I wasn't feeling well so writing took a little bit of a back seat during this time.

1. What do we think awaits the Wielders in the mountain?

2. What do you think the Bloodbound is feeling right now?

3. How are you enjoying the story so far? Any ideas on where it's going?

Until next time - Saoimarie.