I had gotten something out of the bargain after all.
In Tír na nÓg, strains of distant music pooled between the trees. I pushed Eimar across the bridge, into the darkening wood at the edge of elsewhere.
We passed beneath a line of ancient silver beeches, their thick branches pulsing with molten veins. Birds of bone flitted between glass-sharp leaves and pecked at jeweled fruit. Rubies and sapphires and emeralds glinted from their bleached beaks. But no—the ruby was a human heart, ripe with blood, and the sapphire was the seething sea. And the emerald was a whole world, sharp and bright and brimming with promise.
Beyond, the forest. Trees like masts sailed toward a sky splashed with unnameable colors. Trees were forged from iron and hammered from brass. There were trees for every song that had ever been sung. Trees wild as fear, etched with the faces of the long dead. And reaching beneath them, the bones of the earth: roots, an untamed, unseen forest beneath my feet.
And then I sawthem. The procession of dancing Folk was less strange to me than it had been all those moons ago. Their singing sounded like crackling fire and crashing surf and the wind through wildflowers, but their laughter was just laughter, and their eyes—bold colored and bright as jewels—were just eyes. I edged Eimar to join their parade, and they barely glanced at me or her or the pageant of monsters trailing behind me.
The glade that had once played host to a springtime wedding had been transformed into a revel to celebrate the end of a harvest, a year, a hegemony. Red and orange blossoms splashed the trees like bloodstains. Bold lanterns like faces snapped sharp teeth lit with flickering flame. A stiff breeze needled my skin and scudded clouds across the rising moon. The Heartwood swayed nearby, taller and more majestic than any other tree in the forest.
Something cold lodged in my throat. Night had already fallen with a slow, leaden hush tasting of decay.
I was almost out of time.
I dismounted Eimar, gesturing for my fiann of exhumed monsters to stay hidden beneath the trees. I smoothed the feathers along my brow. I swept my long feathered train behind me, then stepped from the shadow of the forest into the Feis of the Ember Moon.
Only to find Rogan blocking my path.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Changeling.”
His voice was taut with worry… anger… relief. Amid the colored lanterns and creeping shadows, he looked so normal—sohuman—it nearly broke my heart. His golden curls—tamed for the occasion—fell over his brow and shoulders. His river-stone eyes glittered green and blue as they roved over me. He took in my dark hair braided with feathers. My mismatched eyes. My glittering gown and mantle of iridescent black.
“What in Amergin’s hell happened to you?” He reached out, caught my wrists. “Where have you been?”
I tried to writhe out of his grip. “I—needed to stay in Tír na nÓg.”
He held me fast. “You could have left a message. Unless leaving my horse tethered to a tree at the edge of the Gate was supposed to mean something to me.”
I bit my lip with guilt when I realized how little I’d thought of Rogan in the past month. “I was at Dún Darragh all day today. I looked for you, but—”
“I washere. Looking for you.”
“How?”
“The Gates are weak.” His hands tightened painfully on my arms. “After everything Eala and the swan maidens told me, I worried—”
I shook my head, not understanding. “Told you about what?”
“Abouthim.” Rogan inclined his head.
I followed his gaze. And nearly doubled over from the dread punching into my gut.
Atop a dais before the Folk host, Irian was restrained with metal and malice. But it was not the sight of him on his knees, with his hands caught behind his back, that upset me. It was his expression—cold and hard and storm shuttered. His face alone undid me. In less than a day, he had transformed from the man who had made love to me beneath the moonlight and begged me not to say good night, tothis. The monster I’d met a year ago, with a face like fear and a mouth like rage.
And he was still so magnificent. Even among this strange revelry, he shone—darkly, insistently. He would not be snuffed out.
And yet, one way or another, hewouldbe snuffed out. By their hand or by mine—Irian died tonight.
I started toward him. I had to help him, to hold him, to—
Rogan’s grip on my arm whipped me back. Around us, unearthly music swelled. Lithe bodies swirled in a breathless cascade. His hand curled around my waist. He pushed me into the throng of dancers, spinning me through the host like a leaf on the wind.
“What are you doing, princeling?” I craned my neck toward Irian, trying to catch sight of him through the revelry. “This isn’t the time—”
“I need you to hear me, Fia.” Rogan’s voice was low, emphatic. “I’ve tried to love her. But it’s always been you.”
