No—not everything.
Cathair’s prophecy, crumpled still in the lining of my bodice, seemed to whisper an ongoing curse, trailing between my ribs and infecting my heart.So white and black, the swans must die, for stars to weave their fate on high.
I couldn’t accept it. After everything I’d done, all I’d fought for? I couldn’t accept that my story ended like that. And though I knew I ought not to keep it a secret from Irian… I could not bear to tell him. As if speaking the words out loud would weave them indelibly into the fabric of my fate.
When I was finished, Irian stirred the fire with a poker. Sparks leapt like fireflies, gilding his hair and glossing his silver eyes.
“This Marban,” he said softly. “Wayland sought him too. He found a record of him in Laoise’s library—something that put me to mind of a story I heard when I was very young. It was a favorite of Deirdre’s. Of your mother’s.”
My pulse spiked. “Tell me?”
“It was a long time ago.” He tilted his head. “I am not sure I remember the particulars.”
“Please try.”
“Once, in a land of eternal youth in the days of legends,” Irian began, with the faintest whisper of a smile. “A human prince sought the heart of a Gentry maid so fair none could match her wit nor her beauty. He wooed her without flagging, and after a time her heart softened toward him. But though their love was strong, the human prince’s mortality wore on him. His bride stayed young as the morn, even as he passed into the afternoon of his life. One day he plucked a single gray hair from his beard and, in a fit of anguish, carved the heart of his lady love from her chest with his sword. He presented it to the Sept of Feathers in return for his immortality. This they granted him, for the Songbird’s Heart was a powerful emblem. But so, too, did they banish the human to the Dúluachair, to live out his immortal days alone and unloved, in a cottage thatched with birds’ wings, so he might never forget his terrible crime.”
I jerked, my spine going rigid. “What did you say? About the house?”
“It was said to be thatched with birds’ wings. Thousands of them. But it is only a story, colleen.”
“When I was locked inside my mind, in the Deep-Dream, I spoke to—” My voice could not manage the phrasemy father. I was not sure if I had truly spoken to Rían Ó Mainnín, slain twenty years past, or a ghost of my own invention. I was not sure it mattered. But I could not forget what he had told me, a phrase I hadheard before in dreams.He is to blame for your troubles, little deer. Not I.“I believe I must seek this Marban out. I believe he holds the key to my fate. And I believe he lives in a clearing in a strange wood surrounded by wildflowers, in a cottage thatched with birds’ wings.”
Irian passed a hand over his face. “Then we make for the Dúluachair in the morn.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Because the Dúluachair—also known as the Feral Moor—is said to be the gateway to the underworld. Many believe it to be haunted by wraiths and patrolled by bog cats.” Irian flashed me a swift smile that carved my own heart from its soft chest. “Truly, mo chroí—your taste in destinations is unparalleled.”
Chandi roused at dawn, looking tired and ill and sick at heart. There was nothing for her to eat, little for her to wear beyond Rogan’s oversized cloak. I quelled guilt as I crouched before her in the rheumy light filtering from high windows and told her briefly of our plan.
“Are you asking me to come with you?” she asked, shuddering in folds of green and gold. “Or telling me I must stay behind?”
I honestly wasn’t sure. “Do you have anywhere else to go, Chandi?”
“Where are the others?” Her face pinched. “Sinéad… Laoise… Balor?”
“Our agreed waypoint after reforging the Treasures is the Summerlands,” I told her.
“Then to the Summerlands I go,” she announced.
“Do you know the way?” I asked lamely.
“I lived here for thirteen years, Fia.” A flicker of the old Chandi sparked in her amber eyes. “I daresay I know the way better than you.”
I glanced helplessly toward Irian, who was kicking the last ofthe cinders into the grate, then back to Chandi. “I fear Sinéad may try to kill you if you arrive without protection.”
“I know my sister.” Chandi’s expression warped, then hardened. “And I’m not afraid of her.”
As the sun rose above the lough, I climbed to the tower and traded my torn and muddied black gown for some of Irian’s lamentably ill-fitting clothing. I had nothing else to wear. I found a worn knapsack and tucked the shard of starstone and Cathair’s terrible prophecy inside, along with some weapons and a spare cloak.
We parted ways with Chandi on the beach. I tried not to let my worry chase after her.
An hour later—as we hiked the bluff overlooking distant Murias—Irian and I both felt it. A surge of power coursing through the morning—a savage tide crashing upon a distant shore. It swept over the horizon, stirring the forest like a whisper, trailing salt and foam in its wake. The earth and sky pulsed with the steady beat of a distant ocean’s heart.
I smiled. Irian nodded once.
“Wayland did it,” I said, a little wonderingly.
