“Why have you come?” She hurled the words at Irian. “We have no quarrel with you.”
“Is that so?” Irian’s attention traveled past the groom, to the older Gentry lord. “And you, Dualtach? Lord barda of the Ivy Gate? Did you have no quarrel with the chieftain of the Sept of Feathers—my grandfather and your oath-sworn liege—when you slaughtered him in his bed? Did you have no quarrel with my cousins when you spiked their heads on the cliffs above Gorias? Did you have no quarrel with me when you hunted me like prey across the plains of Mag Mell?”
Above his aquiline nose, the Gentry’s yellow eyes grew thunderous. A carrion-scented breeze rippled through the brown-and-gold hair pushed back from his face. No, not hair at all, but burnishedfeathers. Beside him, the bride’s brother once more moved to unsheathe his blade. Again, Dualtach waylaid him with an arm I now saw ended in brutally sharp talons. My fingertips tightened on Irian’s vambraces, thorns nettling at my fingertips.
Irian might have been made of stone.
“The geas of hospitality protects me and mine,” growled thehawk-eyed barda. “Speak your piece, tánaiste. Then begone. You will enact no vengeance here tonight.”
“Vengeance?” Irian’s smile was cruel. “I wish no vengeance. Rather, I wish to offer the happy couple a blessing. As is my right.”
His words conjured a gale of whispers and murmurs among the assembled Gentry. The bride’s eyes flew wider, and she clutched harder at the arm of her new husband.
“No!” Her voice was strangled. “We want no blessing from you. Iarlaith—!”
The groom glanced helplessly at his wife, then over his shoulder at his father, who gave his plumed head a swift jerk. A flash of condemnation crossed the groom’s face in the moment before he returned his gaze to us.
“It is indeed his right, my love—he is still heir apparent of the Sept of Feathers. It is as it has always been.” His words were fallow, final. “Speak your blessing, tánaiste. Then leave us be.”
“I bless you to love one another wholly—and only.” Irian’s voice was assiduously even, yet a strain of magic sang between his words. A prelude for lost things, an elegy for an aching eternity. “No parent nor sibling nor friend shall you ever love. Not even your children shall ever know your love. You shall only know love for each other—through this life and the next, your souls irrevocably bound. Forever.”
The bride cried out wordlessly. Again, she brought her hands to the front of her bodice, and I finally noticed the pleasantly convex shape of her stomach beneath her bridal finery. Horror pulsed through me as she fell to her knees beside her new husband, who sank down to gather her against him. As she began to keen, the rest of their family and friends surrounded them, reaching comforting arms toward the newly wedded—and newly cursed—couple.
Irian cut a sharp, sardonic bow, turned on his heel, and walked away. My feet carried me after him—numbly, dumbly. I glanced over my shoulder at the sorrowful scene, shocked anew by the mayhem Irian had wrought with just a few carefully chosen words.
He had certainly made his point.
By the deserted end of one long banqueting table, beneath the shadow of a lantern-strung oak, I dug in my heels and wrenched my arm from his. Irian paused, then turned. His face was a careful mask of hard, guarded lines, and I swore I sensed his tattoos sharpen and lengthen beneath his black leather vambraces.
“Colleen?” he said evenly.
“You told me youweren’tplanning on cursing their descendants.”
“I did not.” From the feasting table, he idly picked up an abandoned goblet filled with glittering ruby liquid. He swirled it, then tossed it back in one long swallow. “Besides, the wine really is terrible.”
“Irian,” I snarled.
At the sound of his name, his gaze sliced down to mine, viciously bright and slick with challenge. Like he wasdaringme to chastise him—to scold or berate him for what he had just done. I suddenly wonderedwhyhe had brought me with him tonight. Why had he made me a party to his vengeance? Made me witness to his mercilessness, his cruelty? Hisinhumanity?
Eala’s words from last month crept through me—words Irian had claimed he hadn’t overheard.
I would hate to see a girl as softhearted as you outwitted by a man as heartless as he.
I understood. This was a test. Irian was showing me exactly who he was—who everyone knew him to be. Who he himself had told me he was. Perhaps he meant to frighten me. Perhaps he meant to drive me away. Or perhaps—with his peculiar Folk logic—he was being honest with me, as brutally as he knew how.
I sheathed the blade of my righteous anger and made my voice as smooth as his.
“That seemedparticularlyunkind.”
“What have I ever done to relay the impression that I am kind?” His mouth curved sardonically. “Please tell me, so I may refrain from doing it again in the future.”
“You stole Eala and the other maidens from the bardaí—youwent to great lengths to protect them. You’ve even tried to break their geas.” I searched his eyes for some flicker of contrition or remorse. I found nothing. “You can’t beallbad.”
“Do not mistake good deeds for goodness, colleen.” His voice held grim amusement. “I am not a good man. More to the point—I am exactly whattheymade me. Do not feel sympathy for them. They are merely reaping what they have sown.”
“But you did not punish those who hurt you.” I gestured in the direction of the wedding bower. “You punished their children, cursed their children’s children.”
“Was I not a child, punished for a parent’s sin?” He was calm, callous. “Would my own children, should I have ever sired them, not suffered for being mine? No—they would be just like me. Friendless and feared. Their legacy ground to dust. Their extended families long dead, butchered without cause. What is that, if not a curse?”
