Warrior, Opposed: Book One Of The Comhairle Chronicles

Chapter Eight - All Going Mad

Something was very wrong. Deothas didn’t know what, exactly, but something was certainly not right with the world. She’d noticed it almost as soon as she awoke in the medical suite. Sure, blood was being fed to her by way of an IV drip and that was certainly bad news. However, that was not what was causing her an abnormal amount of anxiety.

No, the sense of wrongness had taken hold the moment Tancred appeared to check on her. Something about the way he looked at her set off all her internal alarm bells. At first she wondered if something was wrong with her, if she’d come down with some supernatural malady, but the assistant Comhairle physician, Goraidh, assured her she was perfectly healthy. Well, with the exception of the stitched-up stab wound. So what made the chief look at her with such concern? Why had he watched her with something which bordered on fear?

Her trepidation doubled when she finally escaped the medical suite. Sure, she’d never had much of a relationship with Aodh, but why, when she passed him in the corridor, had he looked at her like she’d done something unfathomable? In fact, why were all the captains looking at her like she’d done something sacrilegious, whenever she ran into them?

Yes, her recent behaviour had been truly out of character, but she didn’t think she’d done anything to deserve just how uncomfortable the captains seemed to be. And anyway, if their discomfort came from how she’d behaved at Tor’s family home, then surely those under them would be looking at her with extra disdain too? Yet the reaction seemed restricted to the captains and Tancred, and didn’t seem to affect other warriors… with the exception for Tor.

Tor had become extremely jittery around her. He took the captains’ discomfort to a whole new level of distress. Shit. Had she let too much slip the previous night? He’d already been disgusted by her species and how she’d behaved at their first meeting, maybe the truth about her youth was too much. She was shameful.

Even though he seemed to respect her as a warrior, that couldn’t have changed his dismay at what she was. What if he now felt disgusted by how pitiable she'd always been? She shouldn’t have told him about her mother’s name for her, or about how she came to be trapped on the wrong side of the veil. That was too personal… Too lamentably pathetic.

The whole mess made her wish she could avoid everyone, but she'd been summoned and knew better to ignore the chief's order. When she entered Tancred’s office, the waiting captains fell silent and the chief coughed uncomfortably. Whatever played their minds hadn’t eased during the hours since her release from the medical suite. What the hell was going on?

Maybe one of them would let something slip during the course of the meeting? Maybe that was the best she could hope for. It wasn’t likely though. The captains were too well trained in the art of keeping her out of the loop, even at these briefings, to drop clues unknowingly.

Gods, she hated these things.

Deòthas regularly attended captain’s meetings even though she wasn’t a captain. She wasn’t part of a team and therefore operated as a law unto herself, and involving her in the briefings saved everyone the hassle of having to force her into the collective. However, now she had Tor to watch over, she supposed Tancred would insist on her presence at all meetings, so she could ‘supervise’ her partner too… Unless Tanc tried to force her into a team after all.

Torrann’s hammer, she’d never manage to work under Aodh, and that made Caitrìona, his sister, a no go too. Those two were thick as thieves and loyal to a fault. As for Seren, it would be too cruel of Tancred to place Deòthas under her command. And Edward? He was too young. Tanc wouldn’t punish him like that. So would she be placed in Corvinus’s team? Or would Tancred realise that paired up was as much as he could managed, and teamed up was probably a step too far?