The words struck me like poison barbs, and I fought the urge to keel over from all the venomous words suddenly boiling inside me. Yet all I could manage was “You knew, didn’t you?” I remembered Rían’s words in the Deep-Dream.Then you have truly been a pawn of destiny… and I am sorry for it.“How long?”
“Almost from the beginning,” Eithne said dispassionately. “Though you must have inherited your mother’s coloring, both you and Eala strongly resemblehim. I also recognized his lamentable softness in you.”
“Is that why you tormented me so?” I asked bitterly. “To visit the sins of the father upon his bastard daughter?”
“I made you strong, a stór.” Eithne’s words were the same as the last time I’d seen her; again they conjured memories of rats in buckets and budding flowers tossed on the fire and painful bracelets of nettles and brambles. “Strong enough to realize the fate of Fódla is more important than any enmity we bear toward each other. Strong enough to rule a kingdom brought to its knees by plague and famine and grievous war. Strong enough to be a queen.”
This was absurd. “I do not wish to be queen.”
“Nor should you.” Eithne’s eyes glittered like diamonds in the sallow glow of Cathair’s chambers. “You will inherit death and ruin. Even with this document, you will face the ridicule and censure of jealous under-kings. Nothing will be easy. Yet it must be you.”
“Why?” I spluttered. “Not only am I Rían’s illegitimate child, but I am also half-Folk. You ought to hate me—to hate everything I stand for.”
“I have come to learn hate is rarely a productive emotion.” Eithne’s hands were restless on the scroll, rolling it tighter before smoothing it out. “I know you think me cold and manipulative and callous. I may not have been the best mother. I may not have even been the best queen. But I love my country. I want the best for my people. Cathair and I spent years educating you and honing your skills. This is the return on our investment—a queen we can count on to have Fódla’s best interests at heart.”
“I am a half-Folk bastard,” I reiterated, albeit faintly. I felt exposed—as if the wounds she’d dealt me for years had reopened and begun to bleed. “They will never accept me as an Ó Mainnín heir—under-kings, nobility, peasantry. None of them.”
“Please.” Eithne sneered. “Put grain in their stores and cattle in their fields and gold in the treasury, and they will all forget in a year. The Ó Mainnín line is riddled with inconsistencies, going back to Amergin himself. His eldest son, Prince Marban, abdicatedhis throne and ran away to a fort in the middle of nowhere, leaving his bastard half brother to rule. Yet Guaire is remembered as a great king and the forefather of Fódla itself.”
“Marban?” I jolted, nearly stumbling backward into one of Cathair’s workbenches. “What fort?”
“Dún Darragh, of course.” Mother brandished the scroll. “If we are agreed, then you will sign.”
I bolstered myself with a hand on the table. “I will not.”
“It matters little if you do,” Cathair said softly. He had not spoken since the queen appeared; I had nearly forgotten he was there. “The document will be distributed regardless. But think of your mother’s peace of mind.”
“She’s not my mother.” My words lacked their intended venom.
Eithne pushed the document into my palms, then gathered her shawl around herself. She turned toward the door, pausing on the threshold.
“The choice is, and will always be, yours. But when Fódla falls to her knees after my death,thatdevastation will be upon your head.” Her pale blue eyes glittered like diamonds. “Swear me this, at least: When you destroy your sister… make sure she is well and truly dead.”
That, I could promise. “I will.”
Eithne disappeared without another word, leaving me alone with Cathair and a scroll I could barely stand to look at.
“Come,” he said, at last. “Dawn is nigh. Your companions await you.”
I followed him numbly back toward the dungeons before stopping him in the darkness of the corridor. “Wait.”
He turned, his silvering hair glinting in the dim. “Little witch?”
“You, of all people, would not lie to me about this.” My voice was strangely guttural in the near black. “Do you really wish me to be queen?”
For a long moment, he was silent. “The problem with monarchs is they are all born to rule. You were not. You know the weightof hunger, the sting of injustice, and the value of mercy—lessons learned not in gilded halls of power, but upon the jagged teeth of a careless world. I believe that because you have lived as common people do, that you will not rule above them… but for them. I believe in you.”
I did not know how to respond to that. Cathair tilted his head.
“I could ask my Book for a prophecy,” he offered. “Perhaps it will illuminate your destiny.”
“No thank you.” I shuddered at the thought of Cathair’s fell Book of Whispers. “I have had enough of destiny for now.” I handed the scroll back to him—unsigned. “Do what you must. But I do not think I can fix what Eithne and Eala have broken.”
The dungeon was as we’d left it—Irian seated with his blade across his knees; Chandi hunched in the corner with my cloak masking her face. They both rose at the sound of our footsteps, drawing near the bars as Cathair unlocked them.
“We make for Tír na nÓg,” I told Irian. “I will explain as we go. But first… do you mind doing something about this dress?”
Irian knelt before me, using the Sky-Sword to hastily shred the suffocating layers of gown and the petticoat beneath, until the skirt fluttered freely above my knees.
