No—no. Laoise could already envision what lay beyond that last range of hills, as if prescient—the blight and ruin, the waste and havoc. She did not want to see; she did not wantthemto see.
“Please, Laoise!” Panic touched Sinéad’s voice, and it was not for what lay beyond the ridge. “We’ve come all this way.Please.”
Inwardly, Laoise cursed. Sinéad’s words from two weeks agothreaded through her hesitation.I need to see that I am on the right side of this—that they are worse than me. Or rather, that I can be better thanthem.
Sometimes, the best way to protect someone was to give them what they needed. Even if it caused you pain.
Abruptly, Laoise banked again and pointed her nose toward battle.
The scene beyond the ridge was worse than she had imagined. The fianna of the dead were vast—Laoise struggled to understand how Eala had amassed such an army in the time since the Longest Night. As they swooped lower, she began to. Some of the soldiers were waterlogged and bloated, still clad in Gavida’s pale blues and lambent silvers. Still more were ancient and bog parched—desiccated corpses strung with rotting flesh and armed with weapons from a forgotten age. But the bulk of them were fresh—blood still oozing from slit throats, hollow eyes gazing from lopsided heads upon recently broken necks.
They advanced in eerie silence, heavy steps trudging over early-blooming snowdrops. The air should have been crisp with the gossamer scents of frosted pine and waking earth; instead the putrid reek was like a grave split open—rotten flesh and mold and damp carrion, underlaid by the acrid tang of burnt hair, scorched marrow, old blood turning to rust. Where they marched, the land withered—green grass blackening, yellow daffodils curling into ash, crystal streams turning to inky sludge. The last rows of dead warriors carried torches; eager flames devoured whatever life remained. Behind them stretched the wasteland of their passing, a stark wound slashed through the serene beauty of late winter’s landscape.
“Your fire!” Sinéad’s shouted in Laoise’s ear. “We have to destroy them!”
Laoise did not relish adding more destruction to the desolation already scarring Tír na nÓg. But Sinéad was right. This was war—Eala’s army could not be allowed to march onward. And if MagTuired had taught them anything, it was that draig fire destroyed dead warriors better than anything else.
Laoise dived, folding her massive wings as she plummeted toward the cavalcade. Fire erupted from her maw—a searing torrent of molten gold that bathed the undead horde in cleansing flame. Bone and rusted steel melted like wax; soundless mouths parted in Os of distress as empty lungs incinerated. Laoise soared lower, her talons lashing out to cleave through brittle skulls and snap spines like dry twigs. In her wake, a scorched trench marred the earth, the smoldering remains of Eala’s army little more than ash swirling in her furious updraft as she climbed back into the sky.
She descended again and again, screaming fire out of the blue to decimate the horde. To her right and left, Blodwen and Barfog followed suit, their draig fire less powerful but no less destructive. Within minutes, the cool morning sun was hidden by stinging smoke and sifting ash, accompanied by the searing stench of burnt bodies.
“There!” Sinéad was laid low along Laoise’s neck—her voice raw from shouting. “Up ahead! I see her!”
Laoise did not know how the girl could see anything through the smolder. Still, she swooped toward where Sinéad indicated, her wings slicing the smog into wafting specters like the souls of the dead warriors below. There—through the shifting smoke, she spied the tangled sprawl of a hazel wood, buds still curled tight in the chilly grasp of late winter.
Figures wove through the wreckage with swift steps, their silhouettes flickering between the twisting branches. A golden-haired human man led the group, hacking with his sword at the grasping boughs hemming them in. Behind him, a slight blond-haired woman moved with silent urgency, her shredded cloak billowing amid the death-scented wind. A tall, slender girl with long black hair followed, her spine hunched as she glanced repeatedly over her shoulders. A score or more heavily armed warriors brought up the rear, though Laoise could not determine whether they were living or dead.
Her stomach contracted, not with belching fire but with curdled relief. Chandi lived.
So, too, did Eala.
Upon her back, Sinéad’s legs tightened. She leaned precipitously along the length of Laoise’s neck, forcing her to rear back and bank her wings to keep the human girl from sliding off.
“I know this place!” Sinéad shouted. Between the hazel trees, past the haze and ruin, a glade beckoned—a patch of untouched green bathed in distant sunlight. The human prince was cutting a path directly toward it, Eala and Chandi at his heels. “Geata Coll—the Hazel Gate!”
The Hazel Gate.The Gates had never been of much concern to Laoise—she had little interest in the human realms and even less in the stolen domains of the bardaí. But she knew enough. Only a Treasure could open a Gate. Eala was now a Treasure.
Perhaps this had always been Eala’s route—the human realms her deadly target. Perhaps this was the promise of escape within reach, with a fire-breathing assailant at her heels. It mattered not—the princess knew these territories as well as Sinéad did. There could be no doubt about where Eala was heading.
“Lower!” Sinéad screamed, her fingers digging into the tender spaces between Laoise’s spikes. “You have to fly lower!”
Laoise hesitated. Despite Chandi’s betrayal, she did not wish to harm the girl. She could not kill Eala—not unless she wished to unleash wild magic over these lands. Nevertheless she obeyed, descending from the heavy bank of smoke.
“Lower!” Sinéad urged.
Hazel branches scratched Laoise’s belly and grasped at her scales. Sinéad tilted sideways. Panic threw Laoise in the same direction. But the girl’s legs were unlatching from her shoulders, her hands unhinging from her spikes.
Sinéad threw herself down into the hazel grove.
Shite.Laoise banked, rolled, and tucked her wings tight. She flung herself after Sinéad, transforming from her anam cló as sheplummeted. Hazel branches bent and snapped, scratching Laoise’s fragile Gentry skin and showering her with pale catkin pollen. She hit the ground hard, her knees thunking on cold, muddy ground. Her eyes swam over a confusion of tangled branches and lurching figures and skeining smoke.
Where was Sinéad?
Laoise shoved forward, careless of the thrashing branches catching at her hair and clothes. A heavy, reeking warrior wildly swung a sword in her direction; she neatly sidestepped and rolled beyond his reach before flinging herself back to her feet. Panic made her dizzy—her heart beating too fast as she dragged smoke-stained air into her gasping lungs.
Where was Sinéad?
There. Her slender form had found the path the human prince had cut through the wood—she dashed swiftly through gusting smoke, twin daggers gleaming from her fists. Laoise swerved sideways, seeking the same path even as her fear flamed higher. She silently cursed her friend. What was Sinéadthinking? She had already tried to kill Eala once—surely she knew better than to try again.
