Wicked is the Curse.

18 | Sweet Hound

Chapter 18 | Sweet Hound.

Laochra stepped in front of Aire. "Do you wish to fight?"

"I must."

The old Aether's mouth crinkled into a half-smile. From his belt, his unsheathed a one-handed blade. The Lunar steel was immaculate, a sliver of the moon herself. Aire's gaze dropped to it, entranced. He handed it to her wordlessly and she took it, a ball of emotion rising inside her throat.  For the first time since she saw Junhyn emerging from the darkness in the catacombs, she felt a semblance of power. For the first time since the gates of Irial closed behind, she felt grounded.

Laochra said nothing as she glanced up at him, unable to express her gratitude in words. His smile was quick and understanding, his chin dipping before he stepped around her.

"Get Anluan into the trees!" Laochra ordered Sloane. "If we can keep him from the Cú Sidhe's sight, then perhaps we can persuade the creature to leave us alone."

Aire could see a sliver of her face in the gleaming blade. The dirt gritted into her hair. The exhaustion on her face. As she took a breath, the trees around her shuddered. She clenched her eyes shut, teeth gritting as she felt her insides twist. Her Wield, the vicious beast that it was, was slowly realizing that she had no control over it anymore.

She bent down, guided by over-riding instinct. She pressed her palm into the muddy earth, shuddering as she felt energy shot up her arm. The awareness was blazing, burning cinders inside her head. The fluttering of heartbeats moving around her. The distant trickle of the stream. She could feel it, emblazoned inside her mind.

Under that, the ancient step of something malicious spreading through the woods.  The Cú Sidhe? Even as she felt that she felt another soul. Something hiding in the dark, cool like the fresh rush of a crisp forest stream.

The awareness of it, the mere touch of earth was addicting.  In that moment, as the forest and all that it was, leaked in through her hand, the thirst that burned inside her throat slackened.  Curiosity drove her to turn, observing how Sloane and Brice struggled to get Anluan up onto the lowest branch of the tree.

'Move for me?' Aire asked, hoping.

The tree was silent.

Aire lifted her hand and rose, the noises of the forest pinching away.  Siseal picked his way towards her as Aire busied herself setting moss over the blood-stains on the road and then her cóta, hoping the smell of her body and the moss would mask the scent of Anluan's blood.

"You should go up into the tree too, Siseal." Aire glanced at the boy. "You need to stay safe and high."

"I should protect my brother." His chin jutted out, stubbornness flickering across his face.

"No," Her denial was instant. "You need to go up."

"Why don't you go up then!" Siseal's voice pitched.

"I can fight."

Siseal opened his mouth to argue once more, but Zehla's quiet and commanding tone silenced him. "The Cú Sidhe has your brother's scent. It will not stop hunting him until he gets his teeth in his flesh or he is scared off. We must scare him off."

Siseal just blinked at her. Aire wasn't sure the woman had spoken that much to the boy in the long days they had spent together. "And what if we cannot scare him off."

Zehla slid blades of wicked steel from her belt, casting the boy a sharp look. She let the silence hang, so Aire answered, her voice inlayed with steel. "That is not a choice."