I opened my mouth to reply but found I’d run out of clever responses. Irian’s eyes on my face were molten—the same heat radiating from the palm he lifted to my face. He brushed a strand of hair off my cheek, curled it behind my ear. His hand slid against the nape of my neck. He bent toward me.
“Perhaps youshouldstay away from me, colleen.” His lips brushed my cheek, soft as a feather. His breath tasted like petrichor. “If not for your sake… then for mine.”
“I would.” My voice came out reedy. “But we made a bargain.Friend.”
He released me. And, with a lingering smile, stepped away. “Go on, then. What is your story?”
“Once—in a time of living gods and limitless possibility—a mortal warrior fell in love with a Gentry princess.” I fought the urge to touch my cheek, where Irian’s kiss still burned. “When he could not follow her into Tír na nÓg, he went mad. He built an isolated fortress and became obsessed with the Folk, with magic, with bindings and releasing. He wrote and wrote and wrote, searching for a way to be reunited with his ladylove. And the principle he kept returning to was i gcothromaíocht. Counterpoise.” I exhaled. “Tell me you know what it means?”
“That is not a story, colleen.” Irian cocked his dark head, the gesture endlessly intimidating. “It is a question.”
I scowled. “Do you know what it means or not?”
“I do.” His true smile never failed to dazzle me. “I may also know the ending to the story you just began.”
I stood straighter. “You do? Tell me.”
“I will tell you…” His silver eyes grazed my face. “For a kiss.”
Shock and heat flamed through me, followed by swift, icy fury when I remembered the Feis of the Nameless Day. The fox-faced barda, his claws pricking my skin as his fangs tore my lips. And the sleek blue-eyed Gentry who ostensibly saved me… only to demand the same price.
“Why do your people insist on bartering kisses like coins?” I lifted my chin. “Kisses should only ever be given when they have been earned.”
“I could never hope to earn your kiss.” His canines flashed. “I could only ever hope to steal one.”
“Kisses may only be stolen under the most perfect of circumstances.” Tension and temptation thrilled through me. “Solemn vows. Shared secrets. Superb sunrises.”
“In that case… my story will be better told elsewhere. Meet me here next month, and I will reciprocate my half of the bargain.” He started to turn away, then paused. “And, colleen?”
“Tánaiste?”
His smile was sharp. “Come dressed for a party.”
He melted into the trees before I could argue. I returned to the Gate to wait for Rogan, but Irian’s words shoved against me, like hothouse flowers against clouded glass.
I may also know the ending to the story you just began.
For the first time, I had not even left Tír na nÓg before I longed to return to it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Saille—Willow
Spring
Ihad every intention of ending things with Rogan. But springtime and Eala’s dubious requests and Irian’s perilous flirtations had wakened something restless inside me. My blood sang songs of damp earth and sweet flowers and endless skies, and I couldn’t sleep. So when Rogan crawled into my small bed in the middle of the night, bare-chested and warm-bodied and hungry-eyed, I was slow to push him away.
“Princeling,” I whispered, even as his fingers found the hem of my nightclothes and his face nuzzled my throat. “We really shouldn’t—”
“Just one kiss, changeling.” He brushed my lips with his, sending flares of desire tangling toward my core. “Just let me taste you.”
And I let him, knowing full well it wouldn’t be just one kiss. When his fingertips dragged up my spine and he shifted his weight on top of me, I experienced the briefest respite from the thoughts and worries multiplying inside me. I lost myself to the easy gratification of anowI knew couldn’t last long.
It didn’t. As soon as Rogan and I rolled apart, spent and sweaty, the thoughts returned with a vengeance. After a fruitless stretch of willing myself to sleep, I left him—snoring gently in my garret bedroom—to pace Dún Darragh’s midnight halls and grapple with the maelstrom brewing inside me.
The crumbling corridors swallowed my footfalls. Lit braziers limned cracked columns and sway-backed archways in flickering gold, transforming them to a forest at sunset. A few stray ink-black feathers swirled off into the shadows as I passed the mantelpiece carved in rosettes. I slowed, then kept walking, down a narrow clerestory lined with staring eye-shaped windows, until I reached a long hall draped with tapestries. I’d glimpsed this place during one of my prior explorations but had not taken the time to properly regard it.
The ancient weavings were choked with centuries of dust. Gently, I shook them until particles drifted to the floor like snow. Exquisite threadwork shone out—bold, delicate, striking, eerie.
