Page 71 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

“No good army puts all their people in one place.” He trails a long, callused finger over the faded greens and blacks marking out the rugged edges of the shape of our isle. Dyfflin is marked with an embroidered crown in the southeast, and I realize it’s so old, so neglected, that no one’s bothered to correct the inaccuracies on the rest of the map.

Old Ones, who made this?

The lines marking out the estates of the Seven Families are wrong. It shows three of them, not the two there really are, on the western coast. Still, I study the dark, shimmering rivers stitched along the paths connecting the estates with our city, Dyfflin, and the other Wells.

Even the crown stitched over Dyfflin is wrong—there are three spikes rising up from the golden band instead of the two on the crowns that the High King and Prince Cashel wear.

One for Berach the Cunning, the first High King.

One for his only son, their ancestor.

Wolf draws his finger up the western coast slowly, as if lingering, then up to where the isle meets the wide expanse of the Sea of Serpents. Tiny black sewn beasts with wings fly over the sea between Eireann and the Málmar Islands.

Talon’s words rise in my mind.

Wolf isn’t technically our leader.

And he might not answer, but I have to ask. “If that mage is your general, what does that make you?” The words feel too loud in the stillness between us.

“What she wishes I was? Or what I am?” Wolf’s hand draws back, no longer tracing the lines along the tapestry even as he stays close at my back. When I don’t answer, he shakes his head, his hand ghosting a featherlight touch down the length of my arm. I shiver at the heat trailing in its wake. “I’m her knife in the dark.” We’re so close that I feel the muscles across his chest go taut at the words. “Scared?”

Tension straddles a blade’s edge in his words.

I can tell—he expects me to be. And maybe I should… just like Ishouldtell him to move farther away from me. There’s no need for him to be this close, or for me to let him.

But I can’t bring myself to do it.

“I watched my mother’s body rot on the Black Quay,” I say softly, the words heavy between us. “I watched every temple she loved burn to the ground and saw more blood run from them than I ever thought possible.” I shake my head and feel the catch of his breath where his jaw almost brushes my hair. As if he can’t bring himself to pull away either. “It takes a lot more than you to scare me.”

His hand tracing down my arm stills. “Is she the one who taught you to read ogham?”

My muscles turn to stone.

He draws his hand back but doesn’t step away.

Dread is an instinct. My breath forms a faint puff in the chilled temple air, and I draw in a slow, steadying lungful. The truth can’t hurt her now.

“She was,” I whisper, and squeeze my eyes shut for a long moment.

I don’t think it’s possible to ever truly be free of a loss like this one. My hand finds the silver chain around my neck, drawing out the delicate triple knot at its end. The faint power in it tingles against my fingers.

Wolf’s breathing quickens at the sight of it.

I don’t know what makes me offer any more to Wolf of all people. The ache in my chest is pressure, though—and speaking about her creates just enough space for me to breathe a little easier.

This first real exchange between us is a spell, weaving a dangerous haze around me.

It’s achingly easy to let myself believe that—maybe—this is progress.

“She still believed, even after the High King banished the Martyr and the mages. That magic was still worth fighting to save, even if there wasn’t a single drop left in the Wells. And they killed her for it.”

My mind conjures imaginings of what her end must’ve been like. Each one feels like a blade carving up the pieces of my heart that I’ve workedsodamn hard to hold together. I flinch at the memories of the uprising: of the screams, of clashing swords, ofthe sound of altars shattering and the smell of scorched incense in the temples my mother dedicated herself to, even over all my father’s warnings.

There was nothing left of them to rummage through after that day.

Nothing but memories, and nightmares, and a lullaby I can’t even fully remember.

“And you…,” Wolf murmurs, drawing the hair back from my shoulders. My cheeks flush. “Would you fight? If there was even a drop of magic left in the Wells?”