I stiffened. I’d intentionally avoided the taller girl since my encounter with her and Eala. For a while, I had thought her my friend. It had been nice. But at every turn, she had done Eala’s bidding. She’d colluded in the abhorrent lie to damn Irian in my eyes—the lie that had nearly sundered him from me. She was loyal to her princess and always had been.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, cold.
“I know you don’t want to see me.” She was dressed all in red and gold, her sweeping gown a celebration of autumn’s dying majesty. But she was agitated. Her hands wrung together. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, even though the night was cold.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“I’m sorry about what I did—”
“Which part of it?” I snarled. “Lying to me on Eala’s behalf? Or damning an innocent man with a false accusation?”
“I thought I was helping—” She stopped, passed a tremblinghand over her forehead. “It doesn’t matter. Listen—Eala would kill me if she knew I was here. But it’s the least I can do. You deserve to know.”
“Know what?”
“They havehim.”
A premonition of tragedy gripped the back of my neck. “Whohave him?”
“The bardaí. They know he is at his weakest before the Ember Moon. They trapped him today, while he was… not himself. They will not let him tithe the Sky-Sword to another heir. They wish for the last wild magic to go free—they wish for the Gates to fall, so they may retaliate against the human realms.”
“Is he dead?” I gripped her wrist, hard. “Tell me he’s not dead.”
“Not yet.” She grimaced, although I didn’t know whether it was from the prospect of his death or the pain of my grip. “They’ll want to make a spectacle of it. They’ll want to make him pay for his defiance. They’ll want to make him watch as his legacy is destroyed forever.”
“That’s good.” Memories and thoughts and half-developed plans blurred through my mind. “That gives me time.”
Chandi’s lips pressed together. “For what?”
“For everything. For me to bind myself to Irian’s Sept. For Rogan to promise himself to Eala, and she to him. For the Treasure to be tithed, as it must be.”
“About Rogan.” Chandi’s face twisted with some new emotion. “You should know—”
But in this particular moment, I didn’t care about Rogan. I pushed away from Chandi, back toward the Willow Gate.
“I have an idea.” My words were white as frost in the dimming night.
“Should I wait for you?”
“No. Eala will expect you. You’ve helped me enough. You’ve helpedhim. Thank you.”
I clasped Chandi’s shivering hands before climbing over the golden singing bridge. Beyond, Roslea was as I’d left it—grasping,groaning, half-alive with the magic spilling wantonly between Tír na nÓg and the human realms. I kicked off my boots and stepped onto the cool, heaving earth. Power thrilled through me, awaking my Greenmark with a gust of earth-scented wind.
For the first time since I was a child, I let the magic spill over me completely. I reveled in its steady caress of wild growth and unrelenting calm. For years I’d despised it, repressed it, made it my enemy. But this—this magic, this power—had been my one companion, my constant friend. It had lured me, goaded me, pushed me, comforted me. I’d always thought it would be my downfall.
Now I knew, down to my marrow—it would be my salvation.
I closed my eyes and pushed my Greenmark beyond the bounds of my body. It shivered through the earth and sighed through the undergrowth and whispered through the trees.
Hoofbeats on dry leaves. The mare cantered from between the trees, her gait stilted and uneven. I stared, for though she was unmistakable to me, she was not the horse I rode here a year ago. Eimar’s dappled gray coat was torn in great swaths, exposing bones of white birch. Supple muscles of clematis flexed. Her hooves were smooth river stones. Her mane and tail dripped with hawthorn and honeysuckle, carrying the scents of Bealtaine in her wake.
“Hello again, swift one.”
She lowered her muzzle of coiled ivy and nudged me. I eyed the darkening sky, then gripped her green bridle. Flowers showered to the earth as I climbed onto her back. The boughs of her legs creaked, reluctant; the leaves of her spine rustled, eager.
Massive stone monsters groaned to life behind me. They thronged the dusk, incongruous amid the keening trees. A sleek selkie climbed out of her sheeny skin, her eyes pliant with night. Aughiskies with scales of murky hellebore frolicked beside the stream, their fetlocks like watery foam. A creeping dearg due whetted her teeth on the blades of her hands. And the Fomorians stepped, massive as mountains, toward where I waited motionless before the bridge.
This was my magic—but it was notonlymy magic. I glanced back toward Dún Darragh, even as Corra’s last words slid through my mind. I smiled.
