He, like everything else in this accursed place, was nothing more than memory. Much as I longed for him to be real, he was not. He was nothing but an aspect of myself made manifest.
“You have been here before, mo chroí,” he said, rough but gentle.My heart, my heart.“Do you hear me?You have been here before.”
“I don’t know where else to go!” I cried out.
“The pleasure of the losing is in the finding.” Sympathy and worry made a battlefield of his perfect features. “Or so I have been told.”
“I don’t know where to hide so she cannot find me,” I bit out. “How can I lose myself in my own head?”
Irian stepped away from me. He stood suddenly at the edge of a cliff, wind snapping his long dark cape. He tilted his head, sending raven strands of hair gliding around his ears. “Your power is part of you, whether you like it or not. And it isvast. You are not strong enough to control it. You must find a way to work with it. You must seek the truth of your anam cló—the shape your soul wants to take.”
I turned away in frustration, only to halt when I saw who watched me from the moor.
A rack of silver-tipped antlers brushed the sky. Below, their face was inchoate: the shadow-dappled path leading deeper into the forest. Heavy muscle corded over a powerful torso; russet fur glided over legs thick as tree trunks. Behind them, the deep green forest whispered and beckoned, endless and inviting.
“You.” My helpless fury pushed me toward them. “Can’t you do anything? Aren’t you going tohelp?”
What would you have us do?The ancient being spoke like the groaning of oaks in a storm, the sighing of dead leaves settling on cold earth.
“Something.Anything.” I had been trapped inside myself for weeks. Perhaps months. Maybe even years, as Talah circled ever closer, following me to my darkest corners. My deepest regrets. Surely the entity to whom I had bound myself beneath the Heartwood could do more thanstandthere. “You are a Bright One, are you not? One of the Solasóirí? You contain within you the magicyou brought from the stars. You wield the power of the earth itself. Yet you do nothing!”
We long ago bound our magic to the Treasure you hold. We bound our power toyou.They were patient as the seasons and enduring as the millennia.We can only do what you wish us to do. We can only be who you wish us to be. We can only go where you wish us to go.
“Go?” I nearly screamed. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re trapped inside my head. Withher. No matter where I try to hide inside my memories, she always finds me. I’m running out of placestogo.”
As if on cue, Talah’s fire-fretted voice melted along the cliff face and shrieked from the sky.
You cannot hide here, star child. Let me in.
“No.” I jerked my head over my shoulder, but Irian had melted away like a forgotten dawn. I fought a sharp stab of sorrow as I forced myself to remember—he was not here. Had never been here. Somewhere,outside, he lived. He had to live.
As long as I was trapped here, I knew he would not let me go. He had made me a promise. And Irian was a man of his word.
But that meant it was my responsibility to free myself from this prison of my own making. To keep Talah from wresting control of my being.
“I thought I had more time.”
As long as you run, she will chase you, the antlered figure intoned, with a gesture of their gleaming claws.But you belong to us. As we belong to you. It is as it has always been.
Standing preternaturally still with the forest writhing at their back, the Bright One spoke with an air of… invitation. I searched for eyes amid the mottled light and shadow of their face but found only an endless kind of regard that made me feel very small. Very young. Veryother.
“We belong to each other. Are you saying…” I licked my lips, grappling with the sudden terrible sensation of teetering upon aprecipice. “Can you offer me somewhere else to go, where Talah will not be able to find me?”
The figure nodded, unhurried despite the smoking embers curling along the cliffs, the veins of molten metal splintering the sun-bright moor.A long time ago, you were given to us for safekeeping. Three moons ago, we gave you back to yourself.
The cliffs began to shake; stones rattled toward the seething sea.You cannot hide here. Let me in!
“I don’t understand.” I fought to keep my focus despite Talah drawing ever nearer. “My early childhood is a blank. I have no memories from before I came to Rath na Mara.”
You have all you need.The figure turned on their heel, melting into the forest.Except perhaps the courage to face what you must do.
My breath accelerated in my throat; my heart thumped an uneven tattoo. Before I could change my mind, I flung myself after the Bright One. The moor dissolved.
The deep forest at dusk. Early frost scribed twigs with glass; leaves flamed in shades of ocher and rouge. A small girl played beside the path—a girl with hair dark as deep water and mismatched eyes sparking green and brown in the low light. She was not alone, although her playmates were wholly unexpected.
Fair Folk clustered around her, playful yet protective. A flock of gossamer-winged sheeries shook the branches until golden leaves fell around her dancing form like lucky coins. Three ruddy-faced leipreacháin hurried the fallen leaves so they chased the laughing girl to and fro. Beyond, a few moss-haired ghillies bent the late blooms—asters and goldenrod and chrysanthemums—to make a bower for the girl to run through.
“Fia!” The shout burst the pleasant hush like a bubble being popped. The Fair Folk immediately hid, slinking behind tree trunks or between dimming shadows. The little girl tried to follow, but in the murky wood her face made a wan moon punctuated by desperate dark eyes. The strident female voice grew louder. “Where areyou, you accursed little horror? I told you not to wander off! But do you listen to me?No, no, you never do. What does it matter if your nursemaid gets whipped for losing you? You’d rather be off cavorting with your own kind. This ends tonight, do you hear? I’m going to tell the queen where you keep running off to. And then you’ll be sorry!”
