Don’t piss off the threatening guard currently holding a blade to your neck.
“If it’s all the same to you,” I said as mildly as possible, “I’d rather find somewhere to warm up so I don’t catch winter fever. After, you know, diving into the freezing lough and heroically fighting off fish-Folk to save the life of your friend here.”
The warrior shifted behind me, although his blade didn’t waver. “Chandika, is this true?”
The girl—Chandika—pouted. “A few wayward murúcha sought to hold me hostage.”
“You should have called for me,” growled the guard. “It is my duty to protect you—allof you.”
“And give them exactly what they wanted? I had things under control.”
I followed the exchange with interest. Cathair had said Eala and the other girls were prisoners here. But I had seen them don gowns of silk and starlight and go swanning away through an uncanny portal. To a party, if Rogan was to be believed. And now this Gentry guard spoke not of keeping them prisoner… but ofprotectingthem?
“I doubt that.” The slightest hint of humor touched the guard’s voice. “Why were you not with the others?”
“I was… late,” admitted Chandika, shamefaced. “The path to thefeisdisappeared.”
“Then you do owe this woman your life. Which means I, too, colleen, am in your debt.”
The knife fell away from my neck. I exhaled and allowed myself to start plotting exactly how I was going to get out of this mess. A swift kick to his shins, a sharp elbow to his—
He gripped my shoulder with one large gauntleted hand, wrapped the other around my chin, and simply whipped me around to face him. There was no grace in the movement—only power. And then I was looking up at him.
We stood much,muchcloser than last time. And oh, Morrigan, he wasso…
He was beauty and bane, magnificence and malice, delight and dread.
He towered over me, seemingly sculpted from moonlight and shadow. Beneath the sheen of his short black hair, his looks were just as arresting as last time—stark and exquisite, cheekbones sharp as steel. Only that plush mouth softened the severity of his angular features, his perfect lips parting slightly as his gaze fastened on my face. And hiseyes—like new-forged metal, so silver they were nearly white. Or were they so dark they simply reflected light? I didn’t know, but I wanted to keep looking until I found out.
I was so captivated by his eyes that I almost didn’t notice the cascade of emotions burning across his features. At first, he radiated nothing but death and fury. Then, as he cataloged my stolenfeatures, he frowned. A smolder of confusion—the space between us narrowing. His pupils blew wide, and savage hope scraped the bones of his face into jagged angles. He inhaled, sharp. His fingers tightened against my jaw.
I hadn’t realized he still had his hand on me, so bewitched was I. I tried to wrench my chin out of his hand, but his grip was unyielding. He tilted my face up closer to his, and unexpectedly—impossibly—his eyes betrayedrecognition. And not in the way Chandika had looked at me, as if seeing someone else’s features on my face.
Heknewme.
“It’s you.”
The Gentry guard’s opaline eyes were still fixed on my face, flicking between my own mismatched eyes. The very wind thrummed with the force of his words. His black mantle jerked and thrashed behind him, although the night was still.
No—the whole beach was suddenly shivering and shuddering like a beast in its death throes. Beside me, Chandika dropped to her knees on the quaking stones.
Only then did it occur to me to be afraid.
Droplets of water stung my cold cheeks as water unspooled from the lough in dark ribbons. Trees at the edge of the forest screamed as their roots ripped free of the earth like teeth from decaying gums.
My heart came untethered from my rib cage. And I fell.
Up.
My feet left the ground. Dark water bloomed upward from the lough. Uprooted saplings hovered above the earth like dark skeletons. I opened my mouth to scream, but I couldn’t make a sound above the thunder of rushing water, the screech of mangled wood, the shatter of falling pebbles. And standing at the center of it all washim, boots planted firmly on the earth, turbulent gaze fixed firmly on my face.
Abruptly, it ended. My knees smacked down onto the beach, sending fire lancing down my cold shins. Trees thudded into theearth. Water smashed down in a billow of ice-bright droplets. Pain creased my palm—I had fallen on one of my lost skeans. Blood squeezed between my fingers, but I didn’t care. I curled my fist around the blade and looked up.
If I had truly seen hope in the guard’s eyes before, it was gone. Now his eyes shone with nothing but danger. The tang of sharpened metal and unspilled blood filled the air. His hands fisted, the tendons contracting along arms etched in sharp black tattoos.
In my periphery, a shuddering Chandika climbed to her feet. The whites of her eyes glowed with terror.
Run, she mouthed, silent. And when she found her voice, she screamed it. “Run!”
