Beneath her dark eyelashes, her metal eyes slashed his heart.
Irian mastered himself with a viciousness he knew he deserved. He pushed Fia—or whoever possessed her—to arm’s length with all the strength he had once used to hold her close.
She gnashed her teeth as she writhed in his grip, even more feral in borrowed lust than she had been in borrowed form. And when he met her gaze, he glimpsed not the faintest vestige of his wife.
This, more than anything else, tattered the last of Irian’s strength. The promise he had made Fia on the Longest Night echoed in his mind, the litany he had clung to now layering discordant in his skull, like a song he had heard too many times and could not shake.
Not in a thousand lifetimes will I ever let you go.
What did it truly mean, to never let a person go? If Fia never returned to him—if she had already been consumed by Talah’s heinous magic—was he honor-bound to grapple with thisthingwearing her face for the rest of his life? Or was it enough to have loved her so deeply that the sound of her name was etched like a poem upon the parchment of his heart?
By what terrible troth had he—yet again—bound himself?
All his life, Irian had been defined by geasa. His father’s curse upon his mother, his enforced link with the Sky-Sword. His invisible bonds to the swan maidens, his marriage covenant with Fia. And now this.
Without his oaths, Irian did not know who he was. He had never bothered to ask. But now he began to wonder: Would the weight of this last pledge be the thing to break him?
Or was he broken without it?
Grimly, Irian set his jaw and waited for daybreak.
Chapter Eight
Wayland
Wayland awoke in darkness punctuated by multicolored glimmers of colored light. For a long, nebulous moment, he had utterly no idea where he was. Then the shimmers grew sharp, piercing his skull with blinding intensity.
Not light.Claws.
“Ow!” He jerked upright—or tried to. Smothering weight wrapped around his head and flopped over his neck. He batted at the mass in panic, only half relieved when he felt smooth, hot scales. A low hum vibrated his face.
Hog.
The pain raking his hairline fluctuated as the burdensome draig kneaded at his skin with apparent pleasure. Wayland shoved ineffectually at the creature before letting his arms fall back onto the bed.
Of course—he was deep inside a mountain, being harassed by a toddler draigling who’d seemingly taken a shine to him.
“How did you even get in here?” he grumbled. “IknowI locked that door.”
Hog purred louder, massaging his scalp with her needlelike talons.
“Make yourself useful, at least.” He sighed. “I can’t see for shite in here.”
Hog chirruped in apparent umbrage.
“Light some torches. Please?”
She launched herself off his head. Red-gold sparks showered along the far wall, igniting the tapers embedded in the stone. Wayland sat up in bed as the little draig hurtled back to collide with his bare chest before curling herself possessively around his abdomen. He cradled her form in surrender. She was a strange combination of hard muscle and sleek scales and soft baby fat. He didn’t totally despise holding her.
“What am I going to do with you?” he asked helplessly. “Don’t you already have a mother?”
Hog rolled onto her back, exposing her velvet underbelly and giving him a sly look. He gently stroked her tummy before groaning at his own weakness and plopping her unceremoniously onto the floor.
“I’m getting dressed now, you leech.”
Wayland made a face at the rumpled, dirty trousers and stinking shirt he’d traveled in from Emain Ablach. But he had nothing else to wear. He pulled on the breeches with a grimace but tossed the shirt onto the fire now blazing in the hearth.
The Cnoc’s caverns were kept pleasantly warm. And no one—including himself—needed the stench he’d been carrying with him for weeks.
