Her eyes widened. “Whatever for?”
“You had nothing to do with what happened last month?”
“How could I?” Her voice held a note of injury. “I wasn’t even there.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t your idea.”
“Sister.” Her expression grew grave. “From the moment you came to Tír na nÓg, I have had nothing but your best interests at heart. Did I not seek you out to tell you truths no one else would? Did I not free you from the constraints of your conscience when I cleared the way for you to pursue Rogan? Have I not warned you against allying yourself with those who would do you harm?”
Eala had done all those things. But had she done them for my sake… or for hers? “So?”
“So why would I suddenly throw you to the wolves? Risk your life and sanity for—” She glared at Chandi. “For some half-baked, harebrained scheme to trifle with magics we don’t understand and could never hope to control?”
Again, Chandi’s eyes flicked to me before fastening on the ground in obvious remorse. I stared between the two women, trying to read the subtext flying between them, but it was no use.
“I forgive you,” I finally said. “Although I will not quickly forget.”
“Understandable,” Eala said.
“Dawn approaches. If you still have a warning, deliver it quickly.”
“I do.Wedo.” The way Eala bared her teeth was not quite a smile. “Despite my prior warnings, you seem to have formed an attachment to Irian.”
I gritted my teeth. “What of it?”
“Has it occurred to you that he is seducing you?”
“Has it occurred to you that I am seducing him?”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Eala’s face took on its now-familiar appraising cast, as if I were an oily oyster at market. “He is tánaiste of the Sept of Feathers. Bred to wield immense power. Born to a merciless lineage. His first language is treachery. He has outwitted you.”
Disquiet kissed my neck, a chill to spite the heat.
“Perhaps he kept you at arm’s length at first,” Eala continued. “Perhaps even pretended to scorn you. But slowly, he would have warmed to you. Allowed his hardened exterior to soften. Shared anecdotes about his supposedly traumatic childhood. They would, of course, be fabricated. But they would serve their purpose of making him seem sympathetic.”
A shadow of doubt winged down to roost above my heart. I’d been the one to establish the dynamic between Irian and me—I’d been the one to strike the bargain for more stories. But now all Irian’s tales about himself blurred against my mind’s eye. The boy on the cliffs. The boy with the thorn in his foot. The boy who learned to kill. I had believed them to be true. But of course I had no way to verify them…
“Perhaps he is simply not all bad.”
Eala’s smile held the barest edge of pity. “Once you had begun to see him in a more genial light, he would have really dug his talons in. Perhaps he told you he did not steal me and my sisters to murder us, but to protect us. Perhaps he contrived a scenario where he would have been in danger, and you would have felt compelled to rescue him. A scenario where you witnessed his exquisite warrior’s grace but also his vulnerability. Beset by enemies on all sides yet poised and uncomplaining. Tragically doomed to a fate he did not choose. Resigned yet stoic. An attractive set of qualities designed tosoften a violent nature, an arrogant self-regard, and a selfish and unflagging hunger for power.”
My stomach churned. I didn’t want to believe a word out of Eala’s pretty mouth. But her words were so similar to Irian’s own that another thread of doubt stitched cold over the notches of my spine.
The boy was young, arrogant, violent, and selfish. Neither age nor loneliness improved him—they only made him worse.
I sliced my gaze toward Chandi, but she kept her amber eyes resolutely fixed on the forest floor.
Whatever Eala saw on my face made her keep talking. “And when he saw you were beginning to feel more favorably toward him, he would have begun the real seduction. The heated touches, the lingering glances, the private smiles. A hesitant kiss, perhaps. And finally, he would tell you he desired you. Desired your love. Desired your heart.”
“You can’t possibly know—” The world blurred. Green nettled through my veins. “Have you been watching us?”
“I didn’t have to.” Grim satisfaction hardened on Eala’s face. “You aren’t the first to be targeted by his insidious schemes. Simply the latest.”
“I don’t understand. He’s a pariah among the Folk; he’s beenalone—”
“Alone, withus.” Eala gave the final word weight. “I wasn’t the first either. I suppose he targeted Niamh first since she was the eldest, although that didn’t matter much. We were all just children. Children who had been stolen and bewitched and had no parents or friends. Only each other. Andhim. I suppose it’s lucky I had the experience to see through his ploys. I was already accustomed to being manipulated by someone who should have loved me. Unlike you, I always knew exactly who to hate.”
She was talking about Mother again.
