Rogan straightened, following her pointing finger with his eyes. When they landed on me, I almost screamed. His mercurial blue-green gaze—like river stones, like oceans, like dusky skies—was gone. His stare was flat, gray, lifeless. Empty save for a determination that chilled me.
He stepped forward. Jumped down from the dais. And barreled toward me through the crowd.
Denial and fear warred within me and slowed my reaction. Then I turned and ran. Or tried to. The Folk host that had impeded my progress forward hindered it backward. I shoved against slender, inflexible bodies. Stared pleadingly into faces warped with cruel amusement or aloof disdain or sneering superiority. Hands gripped my arms and caught in my feathered braids. Laughter grated through my ears. Sharp teeth gnashed in moonlight. I spun through the host like a leaf caught in a gale—forward, backward, sideways. But I was nearly to the edge of the forest. I reached for the safety of the trees, conjuring thickets of briars and tangles of greenery to come to my aid. I silently called to my horde of stone monsters.
A large, hard, familiar body slammed me into a thick trunk.My skull cracked against rough bark. Colored leaves rained down around me. I reeled, dizzy. My hold on my Greenmark slipped. The forest receded, and my stone army stilled.
Strong arms gathered me up and hauled me back the way I’d come.
The crowd parted for Rogan in a way they had not for me. I fought him as he dragged me toward Eala. I tore at his hair, his mantle. The cloth audibly ripped, his cracked river-stone brooch coming away in my palm. But although I’d sparred with Rogan a thousand times—and bested him often—this was different. He was no longer a man, but a machine. He didn’t flinch when my fingernails raised red scratches across his cheek. Didn’t blink when my teeth shredded the palm clamped over my mouth. I reached for my Greenmark, throbbing through me with renewed vengeance. Briefly, I considered doing to Rogan what I’d done to Eimar a year ago. What I’d done to Pinecone. To Caitríona.
Then I stopped fighting. Morrigan help me, but even now—with his hands bruising my arms and his eyes empty of any familiarity—I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t know how the magic of the black flowers worked, but hemuststill be in there. I wouldn’t destroy him.
Rogan stepped onto the dais and deposited me before Eala. Below us, the Folk whispered and murmured, amused intrigue still holding their interest.
How captivating these petty mortal dramas must seem.
“What have you done?” I ground out.
“I am sorry it had to happen this way.” Eala’s lovely face was impassive. “I wanted his heart. Hiswillingheart.”
“So you stole his will instead?”
She shrugged. “I still need him.”
“Forwhat?”
“Mother was always so shortsighted, allowing her under-kings to keep their power.” Eala gave her head a rueful shake. “I never understood why she tolerated their petty quarrels and border disputes. What’s the point of being high queen if you must endurethe squabbles of men? Why not rule as a true queen, a good queen, a powerful queen? Of everyone?” Her face contorted, then smoothed. “Rogan’swilling heartwould have bought me all Fódla in an instant. But I will make do with his obedience. Bridei will fall easier to me if its crown prince is by my side.”
I tried to make sense of her words, but she was already moving away from me and Rogan. She beckoned to one of her swan maidens, a red-haired girl I recognized from the Feis of the Wild Hunt. The girl climbed the stairs toward her princess with a reluctance I didn’t understand. She stopped before Eala, shuddering. Eala pulled her into an embrace, kissed her cheek tenderly, sorrowfully, with tears glinting in her eyes.
The knife that appeared in Eala’s palm glittered gold in the flickering light of the laughing lanterns. She laid the blade against the redhead’s breast.
“Go on.” Eala’s voice was soothing, gentle, desolate. “Remember, my sweet sister—we do this for Fódla. And for Tír na nÓg. We do this forus. And I will see you again.”
The redhead closed her eyes. Her mouth moved, as though she was reciting a prayer. Finally, she wetted her lips with a small pink tongue and stood a little straighter.
“By fire and by sky, by fast water and by ancient tree,” she said in a trembling voice. “I promise my willing heart to thee, Eala Ní Mainnín.”
Eala drove the dagger down. The blade cut her maiden’s breast, carving through flesh as the girl gasped and screamed and scrabbled at her chest. A broad red gash opened up. Eala plunged her fist into the shattered rib cage and tore out the girl’s still-beating heart. Red coated her arm to the elbow and spattered onto the ground at her feet. The redhead collapsed.
“With the power of this willing heart, I renounce my tie to the Sept of Feathers,” Eala cried out. “I declare myself and my maidens free of its geasa, its enchantments, and its bonds of protection and loyalty.”
A burst of brutal, savage magic rippled outward from Eala—the magic of stolen love and forced heartbreak. It tore at my bones, nearly ripping me apart. I whimpered and glanced toward Irian, who was thrashing wildly against his bonds. The muscles of his shoulders bulged as he struggled, but there was nothing he could do. He fell forward, limp. I struggled toward him, but Rogan’s hands around my arms were like iron.
Not to be deterred, Eala lifted her bloodstained hand and beckoned to her next maiden. “Niamh,” she called. “It’s time.”
A dark-haired girl rose upon the dais. She faltered a few steps from Eala, hesitation plain on her face. Her eyes flickered from the body of her sister crumpled and broken before her, to Rogan, blank-eyed and compliant. To me.
“Please,” I begged her. “Whatever she’s asked of you, whatever she promised you—it’s not worth your life.”
But my words only strengthened the maiden’s resolve. She crossed the last few steps to Eala. Their embrace lasted just as long, even as the restive Folk stirred below us. The vow on her lips was the same as her sister’s.
“By fire and by sky, by fast water and by ancient tree, I promise my willing heart to thee.”
Horror burned through me. This time, I refused to watch—I buried my face in Rogan’s chest as Eala plunged her dagger into her maiden’s chest and tore out the girl’s still-beating heart. I cast my gaze over the Folk host, who stood silent and transfixed. None of them seemed to mind this wicked, bloody display. What did it matter to them if the humans they had stolen to be killed wound up killing one another?
“With the power of this willing heart, I claim the Ivy Gate,” Eala cried out. “I claim its power, its oaths, and all its supplicants. I declare myself its new and everlasting barda.”
