Mairsinn had served as the commander of the Taghadairean for longer than she cared to remember, part of the sisterhood responsible for protecting the halls of the gods and training with the battle-slain who dwelled in Tallamarbh. She also decided which candidates passed the trials or died attempting to gain recognition as Comhairle warriors. She wasn't sure how many bhampairean she'd killed because they chose to step into the Proving Grounds, underprepared. She only knew that she was weary of it, and sometimes she needed to escape. Unfortunately, chasing an illicit, temporary release from her duties left her vulnerable, and at least one bhampair had a bone to pick with her. When a ghaisgeach attacks her, knocking her out and dragging her to a grim dungeon where several bhampairean are being held, Mairsinn needs to figure out what her captors want from their prisoners. What connects the captives? Will her jailers want to keep her or sell her to the highest bidder? Can she find a way to escape? And if she does, will her place as commander still wait for her? Meanwhile, Aodh, second-in-command of the Comhairle-Chlaidheamhan, had been tasked with persuading an unwilling noble to help the Council with legal matters. That wasn't work for a warrior, but leaving the task to Corvinus seemed... risky. Nonetheless, when Aodh's gift as a seer revealed that one of the Taghadairean had been abducted by someone wielding a Comhairle sword, his focus needed to shift. Making nice with a noble no longer seemed so important, not when the woman responsible for protecting the gods and assessing new ghaisgich had been abducted; stolen away from a supernatural establishment trading in angel blood, a place she should've had no reason to be. Worse, the visions of her just keep coming, making his gift even more intrusive than it had been before. But why? There was no love lost between him and the commander, yet he couldn't get her black eyes out of his mind. He needed to find her.
5 parts