“Go on.” His voice was low. “It might as well be you.”
“Trust me, I will. But I need to do something else first.”
With my second knife, I briskly cut through the layer of gorse and aster chaining his hips. The hilt of his sword slid free—he hadn’t had time to unbelt it before lying down. I’d made sure of that.
I unsheathed the weapon. It came free of the scabbard with a sound like surrender—a note so pure it made my throat close with emotion. The black metal vibrated against my palm. Flickering images painted over my vision, vivid yet intangible—iron cliffs and fallow skies, seething seas and windswept trees. I clenched my eyes shut and twisted the hilt in my hand, mastering myself. I swept the blade up to replace my skean. Its kiss raised a line of silvery blood on Irian’s throat.
“Tell me how to break the swans’ geas,” I demanded. “I know a heart is powerful magic. If I take yours, will it be enough to undo the curse?”
“You do not have to take my heart, colleen.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “It is already yours.”
“Stoplying.”
“We have both kept secrets, colleen.” His brows winged together. “But I have never lied to you.”
“You seduced me.” Blood throbbed in my ears, control abandoning me with every pulse. “You needed me to fall in love with you. You needed my heart—mywillingheart.”
“Your—” Surprise ghosted across his face. “But why?”
“To set you free.” The words jumbled together. “The tithing of the Sky-Sword demands a life, doesn’t it? My life, instead of yours. My willing heart, to pay your tithe.”
“That is ridiculous.”
I pressed trembling lips together. “Ridiculous?”
“The tithing doesn’t demandalife—it demandsmylife.” His eyes flicked between my own, glittering like starlight. “That blade you have at my neck is little more than a symbol, colleen. Like a torc or a staff or a crown. It is as it has always been.”
The edges of my vision frayed. “I don’t understand.”
“The Sky-Sword is not a what. It is awho.” His mouth curled into a dazzling, desolate smile. “I do not simply wield the Sky-Sword. Iamthe Sky-Sword.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Stop lying.” I couldn’t muster much venom. I felt dizzy, as if I were spinning through a sky of falling stars. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It was the Septs’ greatest secret.” The sharp, masculine cut of his jaw tightened against the sword. “For long years, none but the four chieftains knew the heirs to the Treasures did not simply inherit the object, but the very elemental magic it represented. We knew, too, of course—but only after we came of age and learned that the price of ourgreatinheritance was death.”
Irony chilled his voice and made a wasteland of his gaze.
“Then the tithing—” I licked my lips, trying to make sense of this new information. Trying to decide whether he was telling me the truth. “Not a price, but a mechanism of replacement. The old tánaiste dies so the new heir may inherit the power.”
“Yes. But only if there is a new heir to channel the magic. Otherwise—”
“The magic goes free.” Realization pulsed through me. “The bardaí discovered the secret, didn’t they?”
“They did.” His lip curled away from his teeth. “The Septsalready hid their heirs until they could come of age and undergo the tithing. But after Deirdre threw herself from that cliff with no living tánaiste to receive her Treasure, every mother, father, child, and cousin was in mortal danger. Entire lineages were threatened. Family by family, child by child, they were all butchered.”
His words drove through me, seeding panic in their wake. I pulled the blade from Irian’s throat, leaving a line of silver sliding down his skin. His throat convulsed, but otherwise he didn’t move.
“What is this, then?” I hefted the blade of hammered black metal embossed with silver feathers. “I can feel it. The magic—it shows me visions. Of the night sky, of ruffled trees, of storms. I can hear itsinging.”
“It is a kind of conduit, channeling elemental magic between source… and vessel. It is ancient and sharp enough to carve stone, and sometimes I wonder whether it has thoughts and feelings of its own. But it is in essence no more than a sword. I am the vessel—I amthesword.” His eyes lowered. “And the reason you can hear it singing… is because you are its next heir.”
His words slammed into me like a punch to the chest. The sword fell limp in my hand. I pushed back from Irian and stumbled off the edge of the rotting mattress. My Greenmark receded—stalks of flax wilting, bunches of gorse crumbling, fronds of goldenrod sifting to dust.
“No.” I was no tánaiste, especially not of magic that sang like the sky and burned like lightning. “You’re wrong.”
Irian sat up, rubbing his wrists where my makeshift ropes had scored his skin. There were flowers still tangled in his midnight hair—asters and marigolds and hyssops. There was blood on his throat and metal in his eyes. “I am never wrong.”
