Warrior, Forbidden: Book Three of the Comhairle Chronicles

Chapter Two: Not Work For Warriors

The meeting room felt claustrophobic with three ghaisgich, a barrister, her assistant, and a guide dog sat around the table. The oppressive atmosphere wasn’t eased by the dislike souring the air from both sides of the divide. Ealasaid NicArtair of Dubh and Oighrig NicÙisdean glared across the table at Aodh, Corvinus, and Eallair, and Aodh doubted any positive outcome could follow their meeting. But then getting their own way wasn’t the point, not with any immediate effect. No, their purpose was exposure. Familiarisation. The slow chipping away of Ealasaid’s reluctance and the constant reminder than she’d been saved from abduction by the very Comhairle she cast derision towards.

Eallair said they needed to reach out and to keep reaching out, easing Ealasaid into an acquaintanceship and then maybe towards acceptance, but personally Aodh thought they were clutching at straws. No child of Artair of Dubh would choose to defend the Comhairle, not one who wasn’t Tor, anyway. As Tor no longer considered himself a son of Artair of Dubh, even he didn’t count.

“You told me to leave you alone,” Ealasaid hissed, turning towards Eallair, scorn in her haughty expression. Strange, she looked so much like Tor, with his dark hair and ultramarine eyes, yet she seemed so much less than him as well, with her airs and graces and open derision towards those she saw as ‘less’ than her. “You made your stance quite clear. I was not to contact you. And since when do you need a service dog?”

“Since I sacrificed my vision in Tallamarbh,” Eallair confessed, sounding unashamed. More than unashamed. He kept his tone neutral. Too neutral, maybe; as if kept that way by force of will. “As for the rest, I told you not to contact me again because you were putting me in awkward position, asking me to go behind Tor’s back, but we’re not here about Tor. This is a separate matter.”

Ealasaid didn’t apologise for questioning Eallair about his guide dog, and actually had the audacity to chuckle. “A blind ghaisgeach. Well that’s a first. The Comhairle truly is a crumbling relic of a once great order.”

Aodh and Eallair both tensed, glaring at the barrister they’d come to beg favours from. Only Corvinus managed to mask any disgust behind a charming smile as he noted, “Crumbling or otherwise, we prevented your abduction and then rescued the other nobles.”

“My brother did that,” Ealasaid ground out.

“Not alone, he didn’t,” Corvinus refuted. “Eallair’s brother is a strong ghaisgeach but he’s still just one man. We work together, from the highest born in our ranks to the lowliest. We aren’t perfect, but the rest of bhampair society could learn a lot from our understanding of brotherhood and sisterhood.”

“Cailean. Raghnall. Kerr.” Ealasaid glared at Corvinus as she punctuated each word, turning them into rapid fire accusations. “All ghaisgich and all traitors. Where was your sense of brotherhood when Cailean capture and tortured the fey-born? Where was it when Raghnall underprepared my brother for the trials and risked his life through that intentional failure? Where was it when Kerr sold out our people – our children! – in order to betray your chief? Even more recently, there are people going missing every other day, perhaps killed by marionettes, or perhaps abducted. How do we know one of yours isn’t responsible this time?"

Corvinus’s smile didn’t falter. His relaxed posture didn’t tense, and Aodh had no idea how he could look so unruffled. “Cailean was exiled centuries ago. He no longer served as a ghaisgeach or in any capacity for the Comhairle, but either way, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call my daughter – your brother’s mate – ‘the fey-born’. She is one of us. Even the gods agree with that much, granting her both warrior tattoos and mating brands. It’s only fair that she is acknowledged as a bhampair as well as one of the baobhan sìth. No matter what you think of the Comhairle, even you can’t dispute the message the gods have issued with regard to Deòthas.