Mother nodded. She cupped my chin with her hand and stroked a loose strand of hair back from my face. I closed my eyes, reveling in the brief, rare touch.
“Only I know how to love someone like you,” she reminded me. “And no one will ever love you more than I do.”
She released my chin and turned away. Below the high table, a bard had taken his place, harp in hand. The lesser nobles and wealthy merchants had already pushed the lower tables aside, crowding close to listen and dance. The rest of the night would be passed in music and merriment. But one last question collected on my tongue like brugmansia, a poison only I could taste.
“Mother?” Her gaze returned to me, surprised but genial. “What happens—what happens if I fail?”
All the warmth in my queen’s gaze bled away. For a moment, her eyes were rigid as tempered steel. Then, just as quickly, diamonds of tears threatened to fall.
“You cannot fail me, a stór.” If it hadn’t been nearly inaudible, I thought her voice might have trembled. “Have I not already lost everything? My dear husband. Countless battles against the Folk. Mastery of the Gates. My own precious daughter. Would you have me lose this too? My last shred of hope?”
Horror drained the blood from my face. “I would never purposefully—”
“Were I not the daughter of kings,” she whispered, still holding back her tears, never letting them fall, “I might already have died of grief. Do not be the thing that breaks me, a stór.”
I hung my head. She was right—though she had lost almost everything, she had still given me all she had left. I would do what she asked of me. I would be her weapon.
And no matter what obstacles stood in my way, I would not fail her.
As soon as I was able, I fled the feast. Outside, the night air was brisk against my bare arms. I pulled off my jewels and kicked off my tight slippers, running barefoot across the chilly cobbles. No one accosted me as I made my way to the stables—this late, only a small complement of guards would be manning the walls. The rest would be in the barracks, enjoying their rations of ale or dicing away their meager stipends.
The stables were dim, and warm with the scents of hay and sleeping beasts. I made my way toward a stall where a dappled gray mare dozed. I leaned my arms over the gate and whistled softly. She roused, ears perking forward.
“Eimar.” The mare whickered and stepped forward to push her velvet nose into my chest. “Hello, swift one.”
The horse had been a gift from Mother on my eighteenth birthday, and I loved her—loved her for her strength and agility, for her calm steadiness, for the way she accepted me without caveat. I fished in my kirtle for a piece of sugared violet I’d nicked from the feast—Eimar gobbled it greedily, her whiskered muzzle tickling my palm. She stomped an impatient foot.
“Not tonight, Eimar.” Sometimes—when the moon was high and restless greenery tangled in my veins—I’d bridle the mare and ride her bareback down to the stream, where the forest sang its woodwind song. “There are too many people about. Besides, we have a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”
Again, she bumped her nose into my sternum. I stroked her forelock.
“It’s a long story. But the queen is sending us to rescue her daughter, the princess. Eala. My—”
I stopped myself before I saidsister. Still, the word rippled through my mind, dredging up disquiet in its wake.
My whole life, Eala Ní Mainnín was the light that cast my shadow. Distant, untouchable, yet shining so much brighter than I. My looks, my behavior, my personality—all measured against her perfect absence. But I was flesh and blood, all flaw and feeling. I could never compare to an ideal, a myth.
Yet before long, Eala would no longer be a glittering void, free to be colored in by others’ imaginations. She would be real. And I… I wouldmeether.
The prospect seeded uneasy questions inside me. How would Eala feel, to know I had been left in her place twelve years ago? What would she think, to learn I had been raised by her own mother? How would she react to witnessing our uncanny physical resemblance? I’d heard the tales of Eala’s great beauty—her milk-and-honey coloring, her spun-gold hair, her lovely sky-bright eyes. I was her dark mirror: wan skin, sable hair, mismatched eyes. One green as moss, the other brown as dirt. Would she think I was a monster—a fetch, an omen of death, come to steal her soul? Orwould she know me as a sister, knitted to her by love if not by blood?
Eimar stuck her nose in my hair and blew out her breath, tickling my ear.
“You’re right.” I laughed. “I am overthinking things.”
She snorted again.
“No, we won’t be going alone. Mother has sent Rogan, prince of Bridei, to join us. He—ah—he has a very handsome stallion. But with any luck, we won’t have to see much of them.”
I trailed off. Lulled by the dim warmth of the stables and Eimar’s comforting presence, my heart’s careful cage of sharp thorns and rigid branches began to crumble, exposing my hurt. The memory I’d been keeping at bay closed like a sprung trap, seizing me with razored teeth.
Four years ago, Rogan had tried to leave without saying goodbye—without sayinganything.
Mother had broken the news to me. Cairell Mòr had discovered what had passed between us, and ended Rogan’s fosterage. Rogan had reached his majority—it was time for him to go home. But that had been nothing compared to what she told me next. How she’d offered Rogan the chance to break off his engagement with Eala, in order to wed me instead. How he’d declined.
He’d chosen Eala. The storybook princess. The fantasy.
Instead of me. The changeling. The girl standing in front of him, beating heart and willing body.
