Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

23. Cyara

23

CYARA

“Can you make animals out of fire like Lyrena?” Maisri asked, throwing a hand out in the direction of the fire that burned steadily at the center of their small camp.

Percival did not look up from the leather strip he was carefully wrapping around the hilt of a new dagger. “No.”

Maisri bounced on her toes and flung her arm in the opposite direction. “What about that tree. Right there. Can you make it—do something?”

Percival sighed. “No.”

She shoved her hand under his nose, between his face and his task, a tiny snowdrop flower tripling in size within her palm in the space of a breath.

“Flowers?”

Percival’s throat bobbed. “No.”

Maisri flung the snowdrop over her shoulder, landing it squarely in the flames of the campfire with impressive aim, considering the weight of the sigh and the intensity of her whining. “What can you do?” she demanded.

Percival lifted a hand to his temple, the blade abandoned at his side. “We—”

“I thought you were part witch!” the child cried. She threw herself down onto the log that Osheen had dragged up for makeshift seating, not caring or not noticing that the force of her seat had thrown Percival’s tools to the ground. “Witches can do terrible things! Dangerous things! That’s why the Ancestors locked them away after the Great War—”

“Maisri.” Osheen’s voice brought her up short. Cyara suppressed a smile at the roughness of it. He sounded like he might have been ordering around a soldier rather than a daisy fae child. “I thought you were managing the laundry.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, her head rotating to where her guardian had appeared at the edge of the clearing.

“Then why is Diana down there at the creek, and you are up here warming that log with your bottom?”

Maisri shot to her feet as if the aforementioned bottom burned.

Osheen was halfway to the fireside. Just enough time for Maisri to arch her dark brows in Percival’s direction. “Later. Think of something. Anything .” Then she scampered down the hill, leaving a trail of tiny snowdrops sprouting up through the permafrost in her wake.

Percival stared after her, his hand scrubbing away the mop of tangled black hair that had fallen forward over his brow.

“I traveled with you for weeks. I thought she’d have given up by now,” he said, not directing his words at either Cyara or Osheen specifically.

“Children are more tenacious than adults,” Cyara said, rising from her seat on the other side of the fire. She’d finished grinding the spices for their evening meal.

“And twice as irritating,” Osheen added, dropping a heavily feathered bird beside the fire.

Cyara lifted a brow in his direction. She’d have given anything for a court of mischievous children rather than conniving elementals. “That is a matter of opinion.”

Osheen shrugged. “Well, now you know mine.”

“And mine,” Percival said faintly. “I’m going to collect firewood.” And then over his shoulder— “Don’t tell her where I’ve gone.”

“No promises,” Osheen said under his breath as he dropped down to the ground along with the bird. He hadn’t bothered with a field dressing; that told Cyara he hadn’t had to go far from camp in order to catch it. Good to know that the surrounding land was plentiful. And birds were always the easiest to catch.

“At least he’s more helpful this time,” Cyara observed as Percival disappeared beyond the tree line.

There was a marked difference between the sullen man from their first journey through the human realm and the one accompanying them now. He was still plenty prickly; but without Veyka to needle him constantly, he was at least polite. Veyka had not taken them far—just through a rift of her own making, from the edge of Eilean Gayl’s lake to its less auspicious counterpart in the human realm.

They would make the remainder of the journey the slow way—on foot.

For now, at least. Cyara buried that thought deep before even a trace of it could show upon her face.

“And she’s only cried once.” Osheen nodded to where Diana kneeled at the edge of the creek, wringing out fabric. He turned back to his task—preparing the bird to be cooked—without looking at Cyara. “Why are they here at all?”

She was not surprised by the question, nor that it had taken him multiple days of travel to ask it. Like her, Osheen watched first and asked later. He was observant, but not as used to the day-to-day subterfuge that life in the elemental court demanded. That would be one of her few advantages when the time came.

“Percival studied the Sacred Trinity during his time at Avalon. He is our best hope of finding the grail. And where he goes, Diana goes,” Cyara said. With a flick of her wrist, already aching, she banked the flames down to the coals required for cooking.

“Our first priority is to secure the alliance of the Faeries of the Fen,” Osheen said, working easily in tandem with her. “I’d think those two would be more of a hindrance than a help.”

“Percival has been there before,” Cyara reminded him. “Besides, all we really need is Maisri.”

Osheen paused to quirk a brow.

Cyara bit back her sharp laugh, letting out a softer version in its place. For all his watchfulness, Osheen had missed one of the most important details from their time with the Faeries of the Fen. His paternal concerns clouding his observations, most likely. Cyara could admit freely that where her heart was involved, she struggled to be an objective observer.

But she was not even pretending to be objective anymore.

She had one goal on this journey—and it was not to secure allies.

Cyara’s voice was smooth and unruffled as her eyes drifted down the hill to where Maisri was busy making Diana laugh. “She made fast friends with the faerie children. Irritating though they might be, children are more tenacious than adults. If anyone is going to wear down the parents, it will be the children. That is universal—human, fae, faerie. Children are our hope for a better future. Perhaps even a future where they do not have to hide in caves.”

Osheen followed her gaze. As they watched, Maisri grew comically large snowdrops up from the ground, big enough for them to drape the wet laundry over to dry.

Maisri would convince the faeries. Cyara entertained no doubts. The daisy fae was irresistible.

“Will you question them about the Sacred Trinity?”

She darted a glance at Osheen from beneath her lashes, under the guise of returning to the fire, where she tied a three-footed spit into place over the coals. She surreptitiously searched his face for any sign that he suspected her intentions. He was better at dissembling than most terrestrials; but what he’d implied…

But his face remained focused on his task. A single wrinkle indented between his dark brown brows; the tip of his tongue slipped out from between his lips. Her gaze lingered too long there on those lips. The ones whose shape she’d already memorized. Imagined. Dreamed of.

Ancestors . He still awaited an answer.

She rocked back on her heels. “I will not pass over any opportunity to find the grail.” Careful. She had to be so careful.

Powerful flora-gifted terrestrial that he was, Osheen could not contain the harpy. But Cyara needed Percival’s help as well, and he was a liability. She could not trust her harpy not to harm him or Diana.

But Osheen did not push her further. He hung the trussed-up bird from the tripod she’d created and walked down to the creek to wash his hands. Leaving Cyara alone.

Alone was better, she told herself. If Osheen crossed that bridge between them, it would make what she had to do even harder.