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I pulled my lips between my teeth, unsure whether I wanted to scream or cry. “What are we going to do about Liam? Of course, I want to help the other prisoners too, but Liam ishere.”
“We won’t allow you to trade yourself for him,” Tor said, brokering no argument. “Liam is valuable to the Undine King, and if King Irvine cannot offer you as a trade, he might offer something or someone else.”
“And if he doesn’t?” I asked bitterly.
“Cormac will kill Liam.” Tor blinked and looked away.
“Perhaps we can talk to Cormac?” Rainn offered, hopefully. “Perhaps if Maeve explains that she killed Lady Bloodtide in self-defense, Cormac might abandon the battle? If Cormac attacks, both Tormalugh and I can protect you.” And escape as fast as possible, went unsaid.
“Do you think that would work?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my voice.
“It won’t work,” Tor said.
Rainn grinned, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s the best plan we’ve got.”
Chapter 14
Part of me wished I could glamour myself like the Merfolk as we tried to form a plan to get to Cormac—through the swathes of soldiers, who all knew my face as an enemy of Tarsainn.
Since I met Cormac Illfin, he had brought nothing but pain. He had killed my kin, imprisoned them and me, and now he had marched past the front line bisecting the lake to bring a battle to a city that was once my home.
It was too late to leave. Too many lives would be lost once my uncle and Cormac met on the battlefield. I had to do whatever I could to stop it. The water was hungry for the battle, eerily reminiscent of the High Throne with its teeth, determined to feed on blood and foam.
I wanted to use my way with the water to cast myself back toward Cruinn, to gauge what we were walking into, but I couldn’t. Cormac could see me in that state, and the lake's hunger was getting hard to ignore when I became the water.
I could run fast on land when I had trained with the Sirens in the Cradle. I wasn’t strong enough to use a sword or trident confidently or effectively.
I was not a charismatic leader who could persuade even the hardest of heads to change their minds about a battle.
I felt tiny, insignificant.
But I had totry.
I wondered what would happen if I gave myself to Cormac and threw myself on his mercy for killing his mother—but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be locked away again in poisoned water. I couldn’t let Liam remain in Cormac’s grasp.
I trusted Tor and Rainn to keep me safe, and I prayed to Belisama that the Shíorghrá bonds would replace their loyalty to Cormac as their friend.
Tor, Rainn, and I hadn’t sat down to discuss what it meant to be Shíorghrá. I wasn’t even sure if Tor was aware that I knew what his markings meant.
It infuriated me that they treated me like a child in some ways but placed adult expectations on me in others.
We left in the morning without a single guard. Tor wore his horse form, and I rode his back. Rainn wore his seal form after I handed his skin to him as if granting permission.
The royal entourage had traveled further from the Reeds than I had expected. It had set up camp on the edge of the abyss, leaving enough space for battle—refusing to pass the ominous cloud of my uncle's magic that guarded Cruinn and shielded the city from view.
Tormalugh didn’t need to say anything, but I could tell with every glance that he didn’t think Rainn’s plan would work.
Appealing to Cormac’s logical side wouldn’t work.
We were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
And I had no intention of being the reason that Liam Cruinn became collateral damage.
Tor knew the area around the Reeds like the back of his hand, taking us along the shore and the familiar lagoon that led to the Frosted Sands—closed to all but the Undine during their migration, with the jagged rocks of the Skala Isles in the distance. Selkie Territory.
Tarsainn had worn a path through the front line after the soldiers had been recalled back to Cruinn in response to Cormac’s threatening missives. The coral fields, already skeletal and dying as the lake churned with war, were broken where the Merfolk had cut a path through them to allow their supply wagons to fit through—the coral providing some coverage from attacks from the sides.
The sheer number of soldiers had decimated the lakebed, and their trail felt like following on the heels of death.
