Her back half…
Torn flesh and ragged sinew and shattered bone. Flies swarmed, and the stench of decay filled my nostrils. I pressed a hand to my mouth, fighting nausea as I forced myself to look away from the carnage.
Another doe stood in the shadow of an oak, poised for flight. The fawn’s mother. Her depthless brown eyes held compassion. But not for herself.
For me. Me, as I knelt weeping beside her dead child.
She flicked an ear. Then bounded off through the undergrowth, her snow-white tail like an omen of the coming winter.
“Changeling?” Rogan crouched beside me, his bulk bleeding heat into the chilly afternoon.
“She was just a fawn,” I whispered. “She was so young.”
Rogan’s hands moved over the torn flesh of the deer’s bottom half, fingering the ragged hide.
“These aren’t teeth marks,” he murmured. “This was no wolf or bear.”
“Then what?” My voice came out desperate—as though knowing what had preyed on the fawn would make this death make sense. “What killed her?”
My eyes landed on the scraps of shadow between the fallen leaves. No—they weren’t shadows—they werefeathers.
Stiff pinions scattered between fallen leaves, sharp as swords. Black as the space between stars, with an opalescent sheen that caught the light and turned it silver.
Foreboding loomed heavy over me, creeping close on clawed feet and beating great dark wings around my head. The forest pulsed like a dying heart. Bars of gold and silver striated my vision—sharp swords of light shafting between metal trees. And there were bells, although I couldn’t hear them ringing, only feel the sound of them throbbing in my bones.
I knelt on the ground as thorns prickled up my arms. Sudden intuition chilled me.
Thiswas the ending waiting for me.
It wasn’t peace. It wasn’t home. It wasn’t even love.
It was balance. And its other name wasdeath.
Slowly, reverently, I placed my hand on the dead fawn’s back. Green light rippled from my fingertips, then burst into swift-growing vines twining and braiding over her russet coat. Jasmine and bellflower bloomed, snow white and rose red. Roots of nearby trees unearthed themselves and clasped the tiny form, drawing it downuntil there was nothing left of the fawn but a mound of soft brown dirt and a cluster of bright, buoyant colors.
The black sky was vast and alive with stars. The barest sliver of moon hung above the horizon, a smile cut from sharp steel and honed on dreams.
He buried his face deeper into my hair, and I inhaled the cool-bright scent of him, like moonlight and ice water. The long grass itched against my skin.
“There.” I traced a line across the sky with my finger, and he followed the arc through slitted eyes. “Did you see it?”
He laughed into my hair. He brushed his lips along the arch of my throat and smiled when I shivered.
“You always see more shooting stars than me.” He slid his hand across my chest, fitting his thumb into the hollow where my pulse jumped. “If there were truly so many stars falling from the sky, then the night would be empty and black.”
I rolled to face him, curling my arms around his neck and pulling him close. His lips captured mine and I sighed against his mouth. We tangled together in the silver-fretted dark, and there was no yesterday and no tomorrow: only he and me and the blanket of stars at the gateway to eternity.
If only that were enough.
I shuddered awake in the embrace of clammy sheets. Tears trailed cold down my cheeks and soaked the pillow.
I longed to bottle the dream: distill its flavors and drink it like liquor. Savor the warmth of his skin, the distant sweep of constellations I didn’t recognize. The lingering taste of his lips.
But it wasn’t real. Whatever had existed between Irian and me was ruined. And much as I might like to lay the blame wholly on Eala’s cunning, it had beenmyfault.
I hadn’t followed my own heart—I’d given in to suspicion andambition and a lifetime’s worth of conditioning. Cathair and Mother had taught me to hate, fear, and mistrust the Folk. But by extension, they’d also taught me to hate, fear, and mistrust the parts of myself that were not human. The shadowy depths of my heart; the spiky push of thorns at my fingertips; my lost memories, dim as a forest path.
I climbed out of bed. The idea stirring in me since Cathair’s witch-bird had tapped on my window at Lughnasa raised an ugly, grudging head. I knew what I needed to do.
