And yet it was exhausting.
“Are you close to Mor?” he asked then.
Vyr huffed a laugh, eyeing him. “No oneis close to Mor … and that’s the way she likes it.” He paused then. “Back in Sheehallion, my territory is in the far north. In truth, I’ve had little to do with her over the centuries.”
Lara dragged a hand across her forehead. It came away slick. The air bit like winter this high on the mountain pass, yet heat rolled off her skin in waves. Worse was the coppery taste coating hertongue. Her throat was tight. And beneath it all, something gnawed at her insides, a wrongness.
“Your cheeks are flushed,” Bree said. They rode two abreast now, forced to crawl through the thick fog. A few yards to their right, the world simply ended—a sheer drop into nothing.
“Aye.” The word scraped out. “The fever's back.” Lara met her friend’s eye. “What time is it?”
Bree’s mouth tightened. “Hard to tell in this soup … but our break at noon was a while ago. Cailean said we’re almost at the summit. Didn’t you hear him?”
Ice slid down Lara’s spine despite the heat pulsing under her skin. She had no memory of Cailean speaking. None at all. “I’ve lost time again.”
Alarm flashed across Bree’s face. “It’s the fire magic … it’s doing something to you.”
Ahead, Cailean twisted in his saddle. Behind him, Eithne did the same, her young face pinched with worry.
“I feared this,” Cailean said quietly.
Lara’s fingers tightened on the reins. “Feared what?”
“Ourgiftsdemand payment. When I became an enforcer, earth magic bound itself to me. I use it, and I must refill the well after. Without the blood-letting, I weaken. Eventually, I die.”
The words reminded her of the cost of Gregor’s desertion. They’d need to find Cailean a new sacrificer after this. But at least he understood the power burning in his veins.
She didn’t.
“So, is my price fire-madness?” The question stung the back of her throat like bile. “But that would mean all the fire-wielders of old would eventually have succumbed to it.”
Neither Bree nor Cailean answered, yet their expressions were grave.
“Gil found almost nothing in those scrolls.” She looked down at her right hand, at theOrd-ree sealgleaming against her skin. Her chest began to tingle. Cold washed over her fevered flesh as fear sank its claws in. “Nothing about what happens when you wield fire regularly.”
“Mor said the Marav destroyed most records about fire magic,” Bree replied. Her gaze traveled forward to where the Shee had vanished into grey nothing. Her expression tightened then, and Lara was about to question her when Eithne interrupted them.
“Can you hear that?” The lass’s fingers dug into Cailean’s waist hard enough to make him grunt.
“What?”
“Footsteps.”
Lara frowned. She’d been listening to the roar of blood in her own ears, the wheeze of her breathing. But now—
“Halt!” Cailean’s shout cut through the fog.
The group stuttered to a stop. Lara glanced back. Ruari, Ren, and Annis had frozen in place. Meanwhile, Vyr and Alar had pulled up in front of her.
Then she heard it.
The crunch and drag of heavy footsteps.
Something climbing the mountainside behind them.
The sound of it—rhythmic, patient, inevitable—made her still. Her pulse thudded slow and thick in her ears. Despite the fever burning through her, her fingers went numb with cold. “By The Five,” she whispered. “What is that?”
“I’d hoped to avoid this.” Cailean’s voice had gone flat.
