I hadn’t wanted to believe her. But three days passed, and Rogan was nowhere to be found. I’d waited for him to come to me, desperate for some explanation, some repudiation, some excuse. Anything to salve the gaping wound slowly festering inside me. But he never came. Whatever I’d imagined between us was over. Or perhaps, worse, it had never existed in the first place.
I’d tried to stay calm, that cool blue morning, as horses wheeled in the courtyard and gulls circled overhead. Mother’s hand had been heavy on my neck—the faint brush of her fingernails reminding menot to show weakness. Not to show Rogan how fragile my love for him had made me.
I’d tried to be strong. But I’d failed.
At the last moment, I’d wrenched out of Mother’s grip and dashed out across the courtyard. My reckless run had startled Rogan’s stallion, Finan—the tall black horse had shied from me, snorting. But I’d grabbed for his stirrup, hanging on for dear life as the stallion sallied. Rogan had finally reined him still, and I’d looked up at him.
His face had been pale. His expression, harsh.
“Fia,” he’d ground out. “What are you doing?”
I’d almost lost my nerve beneath his unforgiving stare. But I still couldn’t believe that he’d really leave me—not like this. Not silently, in the blue of dawn. Not without saying goodbye.
“Tell me it wasn’t real,” I’d pleaded up at him, my voice pathetic with tears. “Tell me none of it was real, Rogan, and I’ll let you go.”
His river-stone eyes had gone flat in the pale sunlight. His fingers had tightened on the reins, white at the knuckles.
“It doesn’t matter,” he’d said. “I am not meant for you. We are not meant for each other.”
“Meant?” The word had ripped jagged from my throat. “What does that mean?”
I’d thought he might relent. But when he spoke again, it was as if his voice had been stripped clean of all emotion, leaving him blank and wooden.
“It means I am a prince.” Dispassionately, he’d reached down and unhinged my fingers from his stirrup. “And you—you are…”
A changeling, I’d thought he would say.
“You are no one.”
He’d turned his back to me and galloped away without another word.
I wrapped my arms around Eimar’s neck, burying my face in her mane as I had many times before. But although I squeezed my eyes shut against the anticipated burn of tears, they did not come.Tonight, after four years and a thousand nights of weeping, I was finally empty. The day Rogan left had nearly broken me. But I’d patched the cracks with knotty vines, sewn them up with thorny briars, hidden them behind poison flowers.
And if his leaving couldn’t break me, neither could his return.
Chapter Five
Morning dawned sullen as Rogan and I set out. After last week’s crisp autumn splendor, the rotten weather felt like a bad omen, and neither of us had much to say as we turned our horses toward Bridei, Rogan’s home kingdom. The first hour was slow going—the roads were choked with the Áenach Tailteann’s exodus from Rath na Mara. Slow wagons rumbled over packed dirt. Sluggish packhorses dropped dung. Restless children played chase beneath the mounts of their hungover parents. Beggars held out their dirty hands for the mercy of others.
Too many beggars. Old, young—they lined the roads outside the fort. Many bore the hallmarks of the wasting sickness plaguing the west—raised lesions on the skin, fevered gazes. Others wore missing limbs, wounds suffered in the Gate War or inflicted by the pirates who raided our eastern waters. But most just looked hungry.
Shame rose in me when I remembered last night’s feast—the imported wine sipped from gilded goblets, the fatted calves roasted in crackling hearths, the rare fruits piled beside rich honey cakes. Perhaps, if we had dined on a little less, these people might have had a little more.
I tossed what coin I had in my pocket to a skeletal girl no older than I. Cathair’s voice rang in my ears:Bring us back the magic this land so desperately needs.
With a Folk Treasure at Fódla’s disposal, perhaps all this sorrow could be ended.
Beyond the outskirts of the city were rough lanes bordered by hedges and muddy fields. The clouds spat icy rain, and Rogan and I both drew up our hoods. By midday, the drizzle became a downpour. An ancient beech tree provided some shelter from the wet. We ate a cold lunch while the horses cropped at the grass and shook out their manes.
“I’m freezing,” Rogan said. “There’s a village half a league west—what do you say we stop at the inn? We’ll find a table by the fire, and I’ll buy you a pint of ale and a proper meal. And then two warm beds… or maybe just one.” He quirked a golden eyebrow at me, sending a fist to squeeze my heart.
The image of us tangled together—the memory of how he’d pressed me against the stones of the crofter’s cottage in Connla’s camp—flooded my mind. The weight of his hands at my waist, the press of his hips between my legs, the brush of his lips on my throat—
“I doubt such humble fare could satisfy your royal tastes, princeling.” I tossed an apple core to Eimar and cut him a cold look. I would not be so easily swayed. “And if it gets around you’re buying girls’ drinks, I daresay we’ll be there all night.”
Hurt flickered across Rogan’s face. I forced myself not to care. I had to learn to quell any feelings I still harbored for Rogan Mòr.
“Does the queen ever speak of Tír na nÓg?” Rogan asked, blessedly changing the subject around doleful bites of his crust of bread.
