Warrior, Opposed: Book One Of The Comhairle Chronicles

Chapter Six - Family Failures

There had been very few times in all of Deòthas’s long years that she’d felt empathy for a bhampair, yet she empathised with Tor as he sat in her car, defensive and silent. She could appreciate his resentment at his parents’ unwillingness to use his full name. Her own mother hadn’t wanted to name her at all, and Deòthas still suspected the midwife may have been the one who gave her a designation. Even after that, her mother, Drùis of the Rìoghail House, could never bring herself to use her only child’s name.

Truthfully, Drùis had barely acknowledged Deòthas’s existence at all. When she did she addressed her not by her name but as ‘mo mhasladh’; her shame, her disgrace. Yes, Deòthas empathised with Tor. Even though she didn’t want to have anything in common with the boy, whose scorn had been undeniable the previous night, despite what he now claimed.

But had his contempt really been directed at her?

Tonight he’d looked at her with such desire, and while many men had looked at her with eyes glazed by lust over the years, none had done it of their own volition. No one had ever felt attracted to her without her magical intervention. She had never been wanted for herself. Never. Yet that had been the fragrance colouring Tor’s scent, and it had been in the gleam that had brightened his eyes, hadn’t it? It was need? A craving for her?  Was he capable of dreaming of her the way she’d dreamed of him during the day?

But no, it wasn’t possible. No bhampair would lower themselves far enough to give a second glance to a fey-born, as he’d called her. Certainly not a bhampair who had as much potential as Tor. He was strong. He was handsome, even with his longer-than-was-fashionable hair, and especially with his ultramarine eyes. He couldn’t possibly want her. And even if he did it would be for nothing more than a fling to sate his curiosity about the last fey on this side of the veil. She had no interest in that.

“Here we are,” the rookie said at last, as she pulled off the main road onto a gravel drive. A long gravel drive which was already choked by Comhairle land rovers.

Parking on the carefully tended verge, Deòthas killed the engine.

“We go on foot from here. Get your hammer. Stick with me no matter what, you got it? You stay at my side as if you were glued there, understood?”

Tor nodded but still didn’t speak. Instead he frowned up the twisting drive. The house was still out of sight but that didn’t lessen his anxiety. Deòthas wondered if he were worrying about his first battle, or if he was more concerned about his parents’ reaction to the path he’d chosen to walk.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, without understanding why she felt the need to say it. Why should she want to comfort him when he wanted rid of her as quickly as possible?

“They may well kill me,” he answered softly, and the reply still didn’t clarify whether it was the marionettes or his family he feared.

“They’ll hate that I disobeyed them.” That statement explained what played on his mind, at least, but Tor didn’t give her a chance to respond as he quickly added, “Come on. Let’s do what we came to do.”

Side by side they made their way up the driveway, and as they drew closer to the house, Deòthas could hear sounds of battle. The ringing of steel on steel and the war cries of the ghaisgich echoed through the trees. The marionettes didn’t shout as they fought. They made no sounds of fear, or of pain, or of frustration. They only ever spoke to convey messages from the Manipulator.

She found their silence in battle to be more unsettling than the stench of their decay and the blankness of their vacant stares. The marionettes could unnerve even hardened warriors, and Deòthas doubted Tor would ever have witnessed a puppet before. She hoped he’d keep his cool but few did. Not the first time at least. Warriors recovered quickly but the first battle was always hard on new recruits.