“I know you finally got to spend the whole night with Eala.Alone.” I hadn’t meant for it to sound so venomous. But I was finished with him trying to keep me for himself, even as he pursued another. “Well done, princeling.”
“Who told you that?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I smoothed my hands over my arms. The thorns were still there, sharp and stinging. I pressed my palms against them, letting the pain ground me to this world. “Yes, Rogan—I kissed someone. Did you not kiss Eala?”
His lips pressed together. “That’s different.”
“Why?” My resentment spiked. “Because you still expect me to be your mistress? Because you want a queen at your side and a whore in your bed?”
“Because I care about you. I refuse to let you get hurt.”
“When are you going to get it through your thick head, princeling?” I turned my back on him in the lofting dawn. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Tinne—Holly
Summer
Awave of feverish heat smoldered through Dún Darragh, rippling along the tops of trees and hazing the horizon. The greenhouse was unbearably muggy, and even the perpetually drafty fort was oppressively hot. I tossed and turned as the midnight hours slogged toward dawn.
A tapping sound roused me from fitful, hard-earned sleep. I cranked my eyes open.
A bird perched haughtily on the sill, jabbing its beak at the glass. With its silver-black plumage, the starling was unmistakable. One of Cathair’s witch-birds. I pushed a surge of panic away as I opened the window. It had been months since Cathair had written me. Probably because I’d simply stopped responding to his letters.
The starling hopped onto the bed, lifted a talon, and shot me a long-suffering glance. I uncurled a scrap of parchment from its leg. Cathair’s spiky handwriting stared up at me.
A wet summer promises a poor harvest. Disease surges in thesouth, fomenting unrest among the under-kings. Are we to expect a returning banfhlaith and a Folk Treasure before Samhain? Or will the little witch scuttle back in shame and failure to the realm that spawned her?
My fingers itched. I crumpled the message, then hurled it at the witch-bird, who fluffed indignant feathers.
“I don’t owe him a response,” I snarled at it. “I don’t owe him anything.”
The starling cocked its head, trilled a mocking note, then took off into the sunrise.
Lughnasa dawned hot and hazy, washing indistinct colors against a cornflower sky.
“Chiardhubh!” A chubby brass doorknob spat out a mouthful of leaves and berries as I trotted down into the great hall. The doors stood slightly ajar, splashing shades of lily and rose across the flagstones. “We must celebrate!”
“What are we celebrating?” I put my hands on my hips. “A spare moment of peace and quiet, I hope.”
“She’s grumpy,” remarked another brass head to its twin. “Do you think the mattress in her bed is lumpy?”
“We think it’s that hulking Porridge Face,” suggested the first head primly. “His head is bumpy. His legs are stumpy. His—”
“All right, all right!” I bit my tongue. “How would Your Unbodilyness like to celebrate Lughnasa?”
“A bonfire, of course!”
Lughnasa always seemed too hot for a bonfire, but Corra was right. All the high holy days called for fire. At Rath na Mara, they’d be building a pyre atop the tor. Cook would have butchered a bull and spent all week preparing dishes from the early harvest, and the younger lads in Mother’s fianna would all be boasting about their wrestling prowess.
Besides, building a bonfire sounded better than stewing here, my mind spinning in circles.
“Where’s the highest hill?”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘high,’” said the right head.
“If you turn the lough inside out, it’s a mountain,” agreed the left unhelpfully.
