The Sunspire black seas

Rannoch’s words were like a truck ramming directly into her chest. She looked at the struggling boy again, who had switched to pleading for his life. She had not heard the death threats, otherwise maybe she would’ve come at this differently. She hesitated now, fear for her mate wrestling with fear for what Sunspire would become if they did this thing. It might’ve been different if she had heard Redshank’s violence and not his pleas. It might’ve been different if Terance had ordered a different punishment and not a broken leg. It might’ve been different if Rannoch hadn’t threatened banishment for Titmouse if he didn’t side with them.

But Moonspear was too close. To all of this. Redshank was Gannet and Terance was Hydra. Rannoch was Charon, Titmouse was her. She looked at her mate, her anger and her command softening from her desperation. ”Rannoch, how is breaking his leg going to stop him from wanting to hurt you, or any of us?” she said to him, pain lancing each word over the fact that she even had to say these things to him when he should not have brought her to this in the first place, ”We didn’t leave Moonspear just so we could become them on some other mountain. What’s next? Break his leg, take him prisoner, then demand a life of servitude and loyalty from him? I love you, and that is why I will not allow you to do this. We are better than this.”

Her eyes went to Redshank then and she stepped forward, her demeanor shifting again to something more authoritative. ”Do not come back. I will not protect you next time if you make this mistake again,” she told him, with some regret. Not for what would happen to him if he did return, for he’d deserve it. But still she would mourn that he had made the choice that would end so poorly for him, for she remembered this boy. He had not always been so angry.

Liffey stepped back then, looking once again at Rannoch and wondering with a terrible pang if he truly hadn’t understood her reasons for Moonspear. If he truly even understood her, to think that she would ever be okay with this. She’d never looked at him like this before. She didn’t know what would happen if she ever had to again.