Irian
As the diamond-streaked Cnoc reared up before their straggling party, surrounded by circling draigs, Irian finally confessed himself astonished.
Over the past thirteen years, Irian had often believed he had lost the capacity for amazement. That his world, in all its bleakness and boredom and violence, was unalterable; his own destiny, fixed; his story, already written.
Then he met Fia.
Since that fateful night, Irian had been irrevocably disabused of the notion that he could no longer be surprised. His world had cracked open, letting light inside. Bleakness had creaked toward hope. Boredom had spiked toward interest. Violence still sharpened every corner of his life, only tempered now with love—a sword with one edge blunted. His stars had slipped from their alignments, but instead of feeling unmoored, he knew he had been unchained. His story had transformed from a tragedy to a tale with a gloriously unwritten ending.
For a time, it had made him afraid. For so long he had beentethered to his own doom, the shadow of his death like shackles he could not unlock. While he had not always wanted to die, he had known exactly when he would. It was as it had always been.
Until it no longer was.
Then he had yearned to use his death to save the life of the woman he loved. As she had used hers to save him. But now, gazing at the impossible mountain nest of impossible mythic beasts, he was reminded of all Fia had taught him over the past year.
He could not control the decisions of others. His life did not have to end for it to have meaning. And he could not predict every twist and turn of his own story.
“Oy!” The patter of iridescent pebbles bouncing along the sharply sloping path stole Irian’s attention. Wayland, riding ahead, was waving his arms in panic.
The tiniest of the draiglings—more or less the size of an overfed housecat—had awoken from her slumber around the prionsa’s torso and was lovingly harassing him, combing her blood-red nails through his sleek hair and repeatedly uttering, “Mine! Mine!”
“Laoise, what is it doing? Is it hungry?” Wayland beseeched.
Laoise flashed an affectionate smile. Irian had to assume it was directed at the draigling, not Wayland. Laoise seemed miraculously immune to his foster brother’s impressive arsenal of charms.
“Hasn’t a girl ever pulled your hair, Prionsa? It means she likes you.” Laoise’s smile broadened. “And Nidhoggur has a name. Maybe if you ask hernicelyto stop, she’ll listen.”
Wayland grumbled—something about the naming conventions of draigs and keeping control of one’s children. But after a few minutes the draigling settled on his shoulder and contented herself with blowing steam in his ears.
The shadow of Cnoc Féigleann swallowed them whole. The temperature dropped, an icy wind slinging down from the peaks to ruffle Irian’s hair and shiver between the legs of the aughiskies. Irian instinctively caught hold of it, singing to it in the formless, toneless melodies of his Treasure. It sprinted across the Barrens, reachingin minutes the rough expanse of Mag Tuired, patchworked with brittle grass and scarred by ragged, slumped figures. Irian forced the zephyr to sweep in dogged pursuit of any movement upon the plain. At last, he was satisfied. He released the breeze, which escaped to the south.
He exhaled. Eala either could not or would not follow them into the Barrens, where strange magic had birthed even stranger creatures.
Laoise led their group beneath a vaulted archway into the darkness of the mountain. Sunlight faded to a whisper. Veins of gemstones and metal sheared between the serrated dark stones of the cavern, washing over them in stained glass bands of color and gleam. Crimson bloodied Fia’s face; blue glazed her arms like enamel; silver caught on the crown of new metallic streaks in her hair. The glow pulsated, not with the steady, easy throb of a heart but with the syncopation of a sickened organ. The vibration bred unease in Irian’s gut—dread birthed by magic gone wrong.
Magic like the corrupted wild power the bardaí had released in their quest for domination of Tír na nÓg.
Irian tightened his hold on the woman lying motionless in his arms.
The jagged cavern narrowed to a pinch point, forcing everyone to dismount. The aughiskies sidled through; Balor wedged himself sideways through the narrow gap, black pebbles raining around his massive head. Irian was not accustomed to being so far away from the air and skies—he felt as though the weight of the vast black mountain squatted upon his shoulders. He inhaled, tasting eons of rock and forgotten magic on his tongue.
All at once, the cavern expanded. And expanded further, the clatter of their footfalls echoing into the distance.
One of the draigs flew by, its leathery wings sibilant, then landed with a thump. Red light bloomed from its gorge; a huge hearth set against one sloping wall ignited with a roar, licking around stacked firewood. Another hearth erupted in turn, casting firelight toward a distant ceiling.
Irian barely kept his jaw from hinging open in amazement.
This deep in the mountain, the Cnoc was no longer rough-hewn stone, but a serpentine dream of black rock sinuously carven into pillars, fluted archways, and vaulted ceilings. Sharp outcroppings meandered into delicate ogees; undulating hallways disappeared into mirror-glass lakes. Multicolored rocks and shining metals caught the firelight and reflected it back, until the whole world seemed to glitter.
“How…?” Sinéad licked her chapped lips, seemingly unsure what she wanted to ask. “Did you find it like this?”
“Sort of.” Irian usually found Laoise’s smug air charming. In this moment she was positively self-congratulatory. “It wasn’t much to look at when we first arrived, nor for many years after. But little by little, the draigs helped us renovate. We had to experiment with what level of heat polished the stone instead of fracturing it, and which of the crystal veins reflected the most light, but—”
Irian tuned out the rest of Laoise’s monologue. Night must be approaching—Fia twitched faintly in his arms, her eyelids flickering. Feathers ruffled briefly at her temples before smoothing back into her hair. Her hands clutched reflexively around his arms, but instead of fingernails she had jagged claws that raised red lines upon his skin.
“Laoise.” A terrible vision gripped Irian: Fia finally fighting free of his exhausted embrace and flying away in the shape of a swan or a hawk or an owl. Deep into unexplored caverns filled with fire-breathing draigs. “Is there somewhere I can take her? Somewhere safe?”
Laoise dropped her jovial pride in an instant. “This way.”
