Trees of glass embracing pale sleeping maidens. An ancient oak, branches hanging low enough to clasp its own twisting roots. Doomed men wearing shackles of bone. Girls with skin like jewels, weaving flower garlands.
Eala.Yearning, adoring blossoms choked beneath bitter leaves when I remembered her silken voice and flaxen hair and hungry, contradictory words. She had inveighed against Mother’s mercenary actions, the ambitions of princes, the hegemony of the bardaí. And yet she herself had expressed a desire for power, formagic. Her reasons were not groundless—I sympathized with feeling powerless; a tool wielded in a conflict you did not start. But she had tried to use those reasons as a weapon against me—as a way to controlme. And despite my affinity toward my bright, brilliant sister… that had made me uneasy.
As had her words about Mother, which scratched me like nettles.
She thought of a way to pass along the blame for her exploitation. I always knew exactly who to hate.
An ancient memory surfaced. I’d been nine when Cathair began my specialized training—less than a year after I’d accidentally returned Caitríona to the forest. Only a handful of months after Mother had finally showed an interest in me, beckoning me to her table to eat tidbits from her plate and pet her favorite hound.
I hated Cathair’s workshop. The grimoires on the shelves radiated an energy that set my teeth on edge. The jars on his worktables were filled with wet, grim objects—the hand of a dead man, a stillborn Folk fetus, a seven-headed wyrm. And on that particular day, there’d been a metal pail on the cold, dank floors. A pail squirming with live rats. Rats Cathair meant me to murder with my Greenmark.
“They’re naught but vermin.” He lifted one up by its thick, bald tail and let it dangle in the dim light. It squeaked, revealing long teeth. “Cook will reward you with cake for ridding her kitchen of pests.”
But I didn’t want cake. Not if it meant exterminating a bucket full of rats. I shook my head, hoping the druid would give up and let me go play outside with Rogan.
But Cathair dropped the rat in my lap. The panicked thing scrabbled up the front of my dress, scratched its way up my neck, and burrowed into my hair. I screamed, grabbing for it. It writhed in my hand, thrashing around to bite my thumb. I flung it instinctively. It smacked against the stone wall with a sick thump, then dropped lifeless to the ground.
“See?” Cathair’s smile had been calculating. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I dashed over to the animal, gathering its broken body into my palms as my green-dark blood stained its pelt.
“You’re horrid!” I shouted at him, tears prickling. “Why would you make me do that?”
“You are soft, little witch. And this world is hard. You must learn how to be strong.”
But why did compassion make me soft? I searched for someargument, some reason to make him leave me alone. But I could think of only one.
I wouldn’t fully understand his relationship with Mother until years later, but I knew the queen commanded him. She could stop this. Surely she would, if she only knew about it.
“I’ll tell the queen.” Hot tears squeezed from my eyes. Where they fell on the rat’s limp corpse, moss sprouted, growing thick over its fur. “Last week she told me to call her Mother. She—shelovesme. I’ll tell her you made me do this. And she’ll make you stop.”
Cathair had stared at the rat in my hands as its tail transformed into a coiling vine bright with multicolored flowers. Then he’d crossed to the door and flung it open.
“Go on, then.” The sunlight filtering down the cramped, narrow stairs had looked like salvation. “Go to yourmother. Tell her of your great concern for vermin. Tell her of my wickedness. Cry in her lap. See how much she loves you then.”
For years, I’d thought that a manipulation. A callous challenge meant to exploit the insecurity of a child who’d only just gained a mother. But for the first time, I wondered whether he’d meant it. Whether he’d truly wanted me to go to her, if only to show me what I really was to her. Not a beloved daughter, but a project. A tool being honed. A weapon being forged.
Even loving parents make tools of their children.
Forcibly, I shook out the next tapestry. It depicted a king upon a throne, a shining crown upon his brow. But above him hung a huge carven sword, pointing down. My next worry unfurled.
Rogan.Rogan, who I still loved. Rogan, who had as much as admitted he loved me. Rogan, who was still betrothed to my sister, the woman who suggested I sleep with him. By making such a request of me, Eala had proven how little she cared about Rogan’s heart. Or mine. Or even, perhaps, her own.
As his wife, I will require Rogan’s love, fealty, and protection. But I don’t need his fidelity.
No—Eala did not respect Rogan. She did not honor him. And she certainly didn’t love him. But that did not make what I was doing with him any more right.
I shook out the last tapestry. The weaving depicted a man and a woman locked in a passionate embrace between trees of silver and gold. He had hair like midnight; she wore a gown of flames. Above them, stars fell from a blushing dawn.
Perhaps youshouldstay away from me, colleen. If not for your sake… then for mine.
Irian.The feelings I’d thought were repulsion were beginning to transform into fascination. Temptation heated my blood when I thought about his searing palms, his silver eyes, his magnetic voice. Eala and Chandi had both told me he was a monster. He himself had more or less said the same, confirming everything I’d already suspected. He was warped by wild magic, feral after more than a decade alone, utterlywicked.
So why couldn’t I stop thinking about him?
I looked again at the tapestry. On second glance, the picture was more sinister. For though the couple’s lips were locked, each held a ready dagger to the other’s back.
I stepped away, disquiet dark as hellebore unfurling in my chest. And with it rose a vine of climbing bittersweet. I knew what I must do.
