My heart throbbed, pierced with a thousand biting thorns.I might not mind oblivion, if you were the one to deliver it.“There has to be another way.”
“Do you think I have not tried everything? Promise me.”
“I won’t.”
“Then you and I have nothing more to say to each other.” He moved his hand from my face, placing it on my shoulder. My eyes widened. I reached for him.
“Irian!”
But I was too late. The night sky swallowed me up and spat me out. I fell to my knees in the forest, wearing little more than scraps of golden flowers and streaks of black rot. I rested my head on the dark, warm dirt, reeling from nerves and nausea and the dreadful sensation of impending tragedy. The surrounding trees reached branches down to comfort me. The green of their leaves was tinged with gold. Though the night was warm, a premonition of autumn’s bright chill ghosted down my spine, and I shuddered.
I believed Irian.
Morrigan help me, but I believed him. I’d seen the hurt—the devastation—in his moonlit eyes when he became aware of my betrayal. That wasn’t something you could fake. He had not wanted me for my heart. At least, not like that.
He had not seduced me or anyone else. If he could not physically touch a human without wounding them… then he could not have laid a finger on any of the maidens.
Which meant Eala and Chandi had lied to me. A huge, egregious deception meant to damn a man I had come to care for—to manipulate me into ruining him. And though I blamed Chandi… I knew which of the two women dictated, and which of them obeyed.
The truth slithered through me and settled heavy on my bones.My sister, bound in love—perhaps also in blood. Despite the similarity of our appearances, I had always known she and I were not the same. But I had attributed her flights of whimsy and spells of callousness to half a lifetime spent among the Folk. Now I wondered whether her character didn’t spring from somewhere more essential—a cold ruthlessness that was both painfully unfathomable and achingly familiar.
Like daughter… like mother.
It felt like the dimming of a light I had thought would always shine. It felt like betrayal.
“Fia!”
I whipped my head around so fast I put a crick in my neck. But it wasn’t Irian. It was Rogan, bounding through the forest with dawn at his back. He came at me quickly—something must be wrong. Panic pushed me toward him, and we almost collided. He gripped me around my upper arms and steadied me. The unexpected contact jolted me—he and I had barely touched since we’d ended our dalliance.
“She did it.” His river-stone eyes glinted. I stared at him, not understanding. “The translation you gave her—she says it explains everything. About how the Septs are bound to their Treasures. How the bardaí are bound to their Gates. How magic flows through Tír na nÓg. She knows how to set herself free.”
His words sent a burst of panic to uproot my thoughts and strew them like leaves. What had she gleaned from the ancient warrior’s words that I had not?
“How?”
“To break her from her captor, I must go to the Feis of the Ember Moon on Samhain and declare my love for her before the Folk host.” Rogan wasn’t celebrating. His mouth was set, his brows were knitted over his blue-green eyes, and his hands still gripped my arms. “We will be wed that night. As she joins the royal house of Bridei, she will be torn from the tánaiste’s Sept. She will be free.”
Relief coiled with alarm in the thicket surrounding my heart. Itwas a convenient solution—a declaration of love, an exchange of allegiances. Almosttooconvenient. The same night Irian was to tithe the magic of the Sky-Sword, Rogan was to swear himself to Eala? To buy her freedom with nothing more than his sworn love? It was like something out of one of Cathair’s stories.
And Cathair’s stories all ended in betrayal, deception, and tragedy.
“Rogan,” I said haltingly. After months of pushing Rogan toward Eala, warning him away from her was the last thing I wanted to do. Yet after tonight, I feared I had to. “Do you remember the first time you met your betrothed?”
Rogan’s gazed flicked down to mine, gray in the hush of dawn. “Why?”
“I fear that once again, the princess is handing you her doll and telling you to break it.”
“Oh?” His mouth twisted. “What will my punishment be this time?”
“I don’t know.” I swallowed, unsure how much to tell him. “Folk geasa are near-inviolable magical contracts. To break one, an equal magic must be bought and paid for in counterpoise. I’m not sure if a simple vow of marriage is a big enough sacrifice.”
Rogan’s laugh was grim. “No matter how unwilling the participants?”
Reluctant sympathy sliced through me. “Rogan—”
“It doesn’t matter.” His hands tightened on my arms, then fell away. “I will do what I am told. If it is the wrong thing, then I will endure whatever whipping comes after. As I have always done.”
“Just be careful—”
