“Once—in a time of oak leaves and early frost—there was achangeling girl. She did not know her name or her place. All she knew was the trees rustled their boughs for her when she stepped into the forest. The fallen leaves chased her down the path. The late blooms waved as she passed. But she spent too long in the woods. Night fell, and her nursemaid came looking for her.”
I remembered Caitríona’s frantic cries for me. Not that she’d been worried aboutme. She’d just been worried she’d be whipped for losing me.
“At last, the nursemaid found her charge. But the changeling didn’t want to go home, where she’d be scolded and sent to bed without supper. She wanted to stay in the forest.” My voice caught like wet leaves in my throat. Caitríona had been a careless girl and an unfeeling caretaker. But she hadn’t deserved what I’d done to her. “The nursemaid caught her around the waist and prepared to drag her back. The changeling transformed the nursemaid’s legs into saplings and her hair into vines and her face into a flower. In the dark of the night, the changeling was sorry for what she had done, and wished it away. But the sun rose and the maid remained a tree. And that was how the changeling learned that she had agiftno other human had.”
After a beat, Irian said, “Your endings are not sunshine and roses either, colleen.”
“Just following your lead.” I tamped the hateful, painful memories down, never to be dredged up again. “May I go home now?”
“You may. But I wonder whether it is truly your home.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. Space bent around me—the night sky swallowing me up and spitting me out. My knees hit dirt. I doubled over in leaf-strewn loam and fought nausea. When I finally looked up through watering eyes, Irian was nowhere in sight.
Dawn flushed lilac across an azure sky. Birds warbled awake, adulating the day with a riot of song. I gazed up at the shadows of theleafy canopy, churning with questions as I trudged back to the fort beside an exhausted Rogan.
Tonight felt like a dream. Revealing, confusing, heartbreaking, unexpected.
My enemy—my friend?—was dying. And all things being equal, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to.
If Irian died before the Treasure could be renewed, Eala and her swan sisters would die. Control of the Gates would fall to the bardaí. Fódla would not survive the onslaught they would bring, and everyone I cared about would die in the attack.
And if Irian tithed his life to renew the Treasure, Eala and her swan sisters would also die.
Either way, his death meant my failure. Even if I brought Fódla the Sky-Sword, Mother would never forgive me for the death of her true daughter.
I had to find a way to do all things. To renew the Sky-Sword to its full power without risking Irian’s life. To break Eala’s geas so she might go home. To bring magic to Mother without exposing Fódla to a war no one would win.
Irian would help me. Of that, I had no doubt. After all, his time was running out. And I was his only ally.
My face still tingled where his thumb had grazed it.
I might not mind oblivion, if you were the one to deliver it.
Perhaps I would deliver him oblivion. Or perhaps I would deliver him salvation. He didn’t matter. It only mattered that I save my kingdom, my queen, my sister… and perhaps even myself.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Fearn—Alder
Early Spring
Changeling.”
The voice was far away, filtered through obsolete phrases and aching lines of poetry.
Spring had arrived with ephemeral glory. But despite the new colors pricking bright against the backdrop of brown and green—new threads in a threadbare tapestry—I barely spent any time in the gardens. The old alcove with its trove of books had swallowed me whole.
While I was still no master of the ancient tongue, my translations of the warrior’s books steadily became easier the longer I spent in the archive. Part personal account, part philosophical treatise, part magical grimoire, his prodigious writings were scattered, strange, and deeply sad. His longing unfurled from each page, boundless and bittersweet. But at times, his focus on Folk lore and magical bindings veered into the obsessive. The more I read, the more I tasted his thirst for knowledge in the back of my own throat, querulous and unquenchable.
“Changeling,” said the voice, louder.
I continued frowning down at the obscure translation I was fixated on.Our hearts were made for breaking; that magic made for mending. I gcothromaíocht, the bygone warrior had written. But the last phrase stumped me. It meant something likein counterpoise, but in this context…
“Fia,” Rogan said.
The sound of my name finally captured my attention.
The prince looked utterly out of place in my little library—his broad shoulders filled the spaces between the shelves, and his golden head nearly brushed the ceiling.
