The words seized my full attention. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” Our steps slowed but didn’t stop. We swayed between the whirling dancers. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved only you. I loved you when we were children stealing sugarfrom Cook’s secret cupboard to feed to the horses. Fighting with toy swords in the yard. Sailing on wooden rafts across the pond. And I loved you more as we grew older. You were the only one who understood me. Who listened to me. Who wanted me to have the life I wanted, instead of the one I’d been assigned. And then we were torn apart.”
“Rogan—”
“Theytore us apart. Your mother. My father.” His eyes were dark with regret. “If I could return to that day five years ago, I would. I would fight for you, Fia. I would choose you, no matter the cost. I would tell the world how much I love you, as only I know how to love you.Youwould be the one I wed.”
For the barest moment, I hesitated. The lifetime of memories he’d conjured inside me swirled like flowers in a gale. But then his words filtered through my confusion.I would tell the world how much I love you, as only I know how to love you.
The words stung. Though Rogan didn’t know it, they were too close to Mother’s refrain for comfort.Only I know how to love someone like you. And no one will ever love you more than I do.
It was those words, more than anything, that drove me toward anger.
Because they were both wrong. They were not the only ones who knew how to love me. Irian knew how to love me, for all that I was and all that I wasn’t. And—more importantly—I was beginning to understand how to love myself.
I made my voice hard. “All we had were sweet memories and reckless fantasies, Rogan.”
“Then tell me it wasn’t real.”
The ragged words were cruelly—tortuously—familiar. They yanked me back to that cool blue morning five years ago—my fingertips shaking on his cold stirrup, his drawn white face staring down at me. My resolve cracked as anguish cleaved through me. Rogan’s river-stone eyes raked mine, sad and seeking. I looked away, desperate for a glimpse of Irian, but the swirling revel still hid him.
“Don’t you have a geas to break?” I tried to sound defiant, but my voice betrayed me.
“Tell me none of it was real, Fia, and I’ll let you go.”
My heart rattled in my chest. Again, I hesitated. Because for years, ithadbeen real. So much of it had been real. Ihadloved him—desperately, finitely, imperfectly. It had been a child’s love. But it had been love. And I wouldn’t lie to him about that.
I made my face implacable. “It was real, Rogan. But you’re too late. I am no longer that girl I once was. And you are no longer that boy. You were never meant for me, nor I for you. That much was always true.”
“Fuck that.” He surged back, ran a hand through his curls. “What does that even mean? I’m so tired of living my life based on other people’s wishes—other people’s dreams. Don’t I get a say in any of this?”
“You’ve always known your duty, Rogan—”
“Donn damn my duty.” His river-stone eyes flashed green beneath the dancing lanterns. “If I lose Bridei, so be it. If my father wills his precious kingdom to my worthless brother, then it’ll be his fault when our people bleed. Not mine. If the high queen decides to hunt me to the end of the earth because I chose to follow my heart, then I will run as long as I have legs to stand on. I don’t care if I was meant for Eala, changeling. I want you. If I’m going to give my willing heart to anyone—”
Shock rippled through me. I slapped my hand over Rogan’s mouth, silencing the careless words spilling out of his mouth. Surprise stilled him.
“What did you just say?” I lifted my hand an inch off his mouth.
“I said, if I’m going to give my willing heart toanyone—”
Again, I covered his mouth with my hand. A cascade of realization rushed over me.
“You said to break the geas, you had to declare your love for Eala before the Folk host,” I said hoarsely. “To bind her to your name—your royal house—in marriage.”
“That’s right.” Rogan looked confused. “I have to swear my willing heart to her. But I’m telling you—”
The rest of his words were drowned out beneath the roar of blood in my ears. Hiswilling heart. It wasn’t a coincidence—it couldn’t be. Rogan knew nothing of Folk magic—he would not choose those words at random. He was repeating something Eala had said to him. Something Eala had read. In the journalsIhad given her.
My heart hammered in my chest. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps it was simply the wording she’d used. But my instincts told me otherwise.
In the old stories, a willing heart can do almost anything, Cathair had said.Steal magic. Create new worlds. Save doomed men.
I’d hoped there would be something in those journals she could use. I’d never imagined she would reach for the darkest, dearest magic written in their pages.
But Eala was born a crafty daughter to a ruthless queen and raised beneath her mother’s manipulative thumb for years. Then she’d been raised by the Folk, learning their own cold and cunning ways. Never telling a full lie—always twisting words like brambles and briars to obscure the whole truth. Manipulating a situation to benefit her own goals, no matter the cost to others.
This—this was the doll she intended to break. This was her final play. She did need Rogan’s help to free her from her geas. But not as a bridegroom. As a willingsacrifice.
