The familiar use of his first name inexplicably jolted Wayland. Plenty of people called him by his first name—he had always hated formalities such assireorprionsa. Those were roles—personas—he’d been forced into. Perhaps that was what made his name on Idris’s tongue sound so strange. This other man knew him only by how he had introduced himself.
It felt like resurrection.
“Not in the least,” Wayland responded easily. “Strange men leading me half dressed into unknown places is one of my favorite pastimes.”
Idris’s gaze dropped unconsciously to Wayland’s bare chest before leaping to his face. Wayland’s smile crept wider as another flush teased the man’s throat. “Laoise warned me that you would try to flirt.”
“Try?” Wayland laughed. “She underestimates my resolve. I’m not trying. Iamflirting with you.”
Idris looked forward again, hiding his expression behind his spill of hair. “You slept later than the rest. The question of the nemeton was broached. Irian especially wished to see it. But it is a bit of a hike.”
The nemeton.Laoise had referred to the grove of flaming trees growing at the base of the sinkhole. Wayland’s thoughts flew to the Grove of Gold—the sacred ring of nine ancient apple trees crowning Emain Ablach. A spear of sorrow pierced him, sharp and unexpected. The grove was lost now—he had witnessed the wishing trees being consumed in columns of silver fire before the plunging island devoured them. He had never believed himself particularly attached to the grove. It had simply beenthere, existing, for all his life. But now the knowledge of its destruction carved a hole in his chest—another negative space he felt suddenly unsure how to fill.
“What do you call it?”
“Call it?”
“Many years ago, my king father pithily named our nemetonthe Grove of Gold.”
“Let me guess,” Idris said. “The trees were golden.”
Wayland laughed. “You’re a sharp one.”
“When Blodwen first discovered the grove, we had no name for it at all.” Idris shrugged. “Only after Laoise began venturing out into Tír na nÓg and Annwyn, collecting stories and books, did we discover the termnemeton.”
“If it is as impressive as Laoise says, perhaps it deserves an honorific.”
“Perhaps.” Idris caught Hog—doing flaming loop-de-loops dangerously close to his long hair—by one stubby leg and tugged her onto his shoulder. “Or perhaps not. What is the point of naming something that is dying? Just another piece of it to lose when the time finally comes.”
His words struck Wayland like a blow to the chest. The cavern abruptly opened outward. A rill of frigid wind winnowed through the darkness of the cave, and where it gusted along the walls the minerals pulsed brighter: jasper and peridot and tourmaline glittering like colorful stars. A moment later, red-gold light exploded on Wayland’s face.
Inside the caverns, he had lost his sense of time. It was late morning, by the angled scrape of sunlight over the high, narrow lip of the impossibly deep sinkhole punched into the mountainside. Beyond, pale clouds scalloped the blue. Below…
Wayland had grown up with the Grove of Gold. As a child he had hidden from infuriated tutors among its gnarled, twisting boughs. As a teenager he had braided garlands for curious paramours from its fragrant blossoms. As an adult he had plucked, then tasted, its devious, tempting fruit, swiftly earning punishment for his heart’s desire. A delicious feast resulting in a total loss of appetite; a day of perfect weather in exchange for one horrendous storm. Such proximity ought to have made him immune to the wonders of a mystical grove of magical trees.
Laoise and Idris’s nemeton cured him of that assumption with swift and vexing totality. The glade wasincredible. Blown glass trees molded into fantastical shapes; veins of fire coursing beneath their transparent boughs; roots and branches etched with seams of living gold. Leaves crafted from memories of bonfires; burning blossoms with molten petals.
“Gods alive,” Wayland murmured. “It’s… unbelievable.”
When he finally managed to tear his eyes away from the flaming trees, Idris was watching him with an expression he could not read—curiosity, with a hint of admiration. Or was that disdain?
“Come,” said Idris. “They’re this way.”
Chapter Nine
Irian
Irian had never been the most patient of men. Laoise forcing him to wait for Wayland and her brother before explaining the supernatural grove of flaming trees licking and crackling above his head was making him livid.
“Why is it dying?” Irian asked for the third time.
“I’ll explain all I know,” Laoise said, also for the third time. “When Idris arrives with Wayland.”
Ten paces away, Sinéad—who had been nearly wordless for the past three weeks—was drilling through the forms and variations she’d learned from Fia, taking her aggression out on the air as she kicked and punched and stabbed with her twin daggers. Irian exhaled a frustrated breath, turning in a tight circle as his hand skated toward the Sky-Sword, which hummed a querulous melody beneath his palm. Fia’s ghostly weight haunted his arms. Perhaps he should not have left her in the main caverns with Balor, who was too large to easily navigate the smaller caves.
“Leave her with me, lord,” the Fomorian had offered. “I will keep her safe. Safer than safe: I will keep herBalor!”
Irian had not known what that meant. But it was daytime—his wife was quiescent after the rigors of the night. Though claw marks scored his chest and the imprint of scales pebbled her limbs, he knew she would not transform fully until night fell. So—pushing away his worst misgivings—Irian had conveyed her limp form to Balor, who had handled her with the tender care of a parent holding a newborn.
