“It’s you,” Irian murmured, with a touch of wonder.
My heart thrilled in my chest. I quickened my footsteps, even as his expression shifted. Hope curdled toward disappointment—the angles of his face sharpening back toward danger. He lifted the bow once more. I stilled.
He did not know me after all.
I squeezed my fists so hard my nails dug crescents into my palms.
After meeting Irian’s mother, I’d known this might happen. I’d seen how cruel the patterns etched in the stars could be—I’d tasted their torments firsthand. There was nothing I could do now, save stay the course.
“Good evening,” I said inanely. As if we were guests at a feast, partners in a dance.
Instead of enemies. Friends. Lovers. A thousand things he was to me, and none of them simple.
He tilted his head—a tiny yet threatening gesture. Dread weakened my limbs and muddled my thoughts.
I steeled my emotions. I was made of frost and rot and endless things. I was not made to fear my husband. Even if he had forgotten I was his wife.
He moved closer, although neither bow nor arrow dropped. He was still a warrior, but there was an ease in his gait—less menace than curiosity. Again his eyes caught the moonlight, and I studied their shifting color. Not silver anymore, but gray. As storm clouds. As rough seas. As the cliffs where he was raised.
I couldn’t help but smile.
The blade of his jaw tilted, and he scented the air.
“You stink of the human realms. You speak like a human.” He glanced beyond me. “Yet the Gates are all closed. Tell me what you are.”
I smiled again, a little. “Would you believe me if I told you I was lost?”
“This is no place to be lost.” He circled closer. “Nor found.”
“The pleasure of the losing is in the finding.” I followed him with my eyes. “Or so I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing.”
He stopped an arm’s length away. He appraised me with interest, if not recognition.
“Do I know you?” His voice was husky, as if he didn’t use it often. When his plush mouth moved over the words, I noticed he had a faint, nearly indiscernible scar over his lips. “You speak as if you are not lost at all, but instead wish to be found.”
My throat closed tight around a sudden swell of overpowering emotion. I remembered his last words to me, beneath the Bealtaine moon:I will find you, mo chroí.
I hoped he did not mind me finding him instead.
I gestured to his face. “Your scar. May I ask how you came by it?”
His pursed his lips unconsciously. “I do not remember.”
I did. Oh, how I did. “It bears the shape of… a kiss.”
“A kiss?” His mouth quirked. “It must have been a terrible kiss.”
“Or perhaps a glorious one.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Then sighed and dropped his bow, looking bemused. “Do you intend to leave my domain of your own free will, colleen? Or will I have to chase you?”
Colleen. Colleen. Colleen.That wonderful word scattered through me on the force of my heartbeat, raising hope wherever it throbbed.
“I have another proposition for you.” I sat upon the rocky beach, drawing a bottle of wine and two clinking clay cups from my pack as I did. “I would make you a bargain.”
“Have you never been warned against making bargains with the Folk?”
“Repeatedly.” I gazed up at him, trying to keep the yearning from my face. “I am going to pour you some blackberry wine, then I am going to tell you a story.”
