Up ahead, many Folk were gathered to greet me. And there were humans too—people I’d known, or seen from afar. They smiled as I approached.
“My lady,” they cried. “Lady!”
And they spoke my true name. A name that sounded like being lost… and then found.
“Fia!”
The word was a briar, piercing me.
“Fia!”
Whose namewasit? I turned.
A monster lunged at me in the languid moonlight. A nightmare—the afterbirth of midnight and magic, conjured against the silver forest.
I recoiled.
The monster roared. Its black-edged bulk was a blight on existence. Huge black wings beat around my face. I dropped to my knees and covered my head with my arms. Still it reached for me, pulling me against the wringing crush of its mangled bones. I struggled. But it was strong—too strong. It wrestled me still, pinning me against the throbbing earth.
Voices filtered through my panic, but they were very, very distant.
“You never should have—” The male voice was distorted. Furious. “Why did you not summon me sooner?”
“I’m sorry.” Female. Anguished. “I didn’t think—”
“No. You did not.”
But then they both sifted away. Leaving me to drift on visions of silver and green toward a forest made of wishes. Toward a crowd of smiling people who knew me.
Wholovedme.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Waking was like resurrection. I clawed my way toward heat and light from somewhere dark and deep. I forced my eyes open, although they ached. All of me ached. Dim light filtered beneath my eyelashes. And I was hot.
Savagely hot.
Someone had stripped me down to my underthings. Every inch of my bare flesh was molded against another body. A body slick with sweat and corded in lean muscle, with skin that seared against mine. Tattooed arms were looped protectively around my chest.
I tensed, fighting for clarity. My mind still echoed with unrelenting delusions; the edges of my vision pulsated with melting flames and laughing shadows. The air scintillated with steam that took on the shapes of nightmares.
“Are you awake?” Irian’s voice was an inch from my ear. His cheek rasped against mine, igniting my raw nerve endings. I shuddered.
“I think so.” Talking hurt—there were cuts in my mouth. My thoughts wove in and out of each other, fractured threads and clashing colors. Was any of this real? “Why is it sohot?”
“The best way to process the drug is to sweat out the toxins.”
I tried to lift my head, but it was a boulder lashed with vines.“Drug?”
“Drug.” His anger rumbled against my back. “Chandi did not tell you the whole truth about those flowers. They are born of wild magic.”
“The black ones?”
“And the white ones.”
I struggled to organize my memories. “Chandi told me they bloomed to balance the powerlessness of the swans.”
“That may be a convenient lie. Both the white and the black flowers began to appear after Deirdre’s Treasure was lost. They cluster where wild magic distorts the landscape—the abandoned cities, my fortress. Perhaps they have more innocent origins. I fear they do not.”
