The glade opened up, green and gold glowing through the smoke. Eala had nearly reached a natural archway created by two huge ancient trees leaning toward each other, framed with shivering catkins and spiky new hazel leaves. Sinéad pushed herself even faster, but the human prince abruptly turned. Drew his sword. And slammed bodily into the human girl, knocking her off her feet. She fell onto her back in the loam, the breath visibly gusting from her lungs. She gasped and flailed, struggling backward as the human prince slowly bore down on her, his steel gleaming over Sinéad’s bared throat.
Laoise pumped her legs harder, longing for her draig flight. She was never going to make it in time; she wasn’t close enough; she wasn’t—
A stripe of red-gold slashed her vision as Blodwen hurtled intothe smoky glade like a shooting star. She collided with the human prince’s shoulder and slammed him into the dirt, the impact knocking them apart. Barfog landed a moment later, lowering his head as he spread his black-striped wings protectively in front of Sinéad, who lay choking on the ground. Sparks glowed from his hissing mouth as Blodwen joined him, unfurling her own wings like a shield.
Laoise finally caught up to them, skidding to her knees in the dirt beside Sinéad. She helped the younger woman—still gasping and shuddering—to her feet.
“Stupid,” Laoise said, voice low but vehement, as she handed Sinéad the daggers that had fallen from her hands in the tussle. “That was so incredibly stupid.”
But Sinéad didn’t seem to hear her. Her eyes—glittering with smoke and terror and venom—were fixed beyond where the draiglings hissed and spat sparks. The human prince had climbed back to his feet beside Chandi in front of the Gate, both of them smoke smudged and dirty but otherwise unharmed.
Sinéad wasn’t looking at them. Princess Eala stood beneath the ancient hazel trees, the boundary of the Gate a silver susurrus behind her. Her pale blond hair stirred in the smoky breeze, a gilded halo turned ghostly in the charcoal smog. Her face, once serene as sculpted ivory, now seemed to bear faint fractures, like cracks in a broken mask. Her hands and arms bore more of the markings, pale as glass and delicate as lacework. Barely leashed power thrummed beneath her skin and flickered in her ice-blue eyes—Laoise sensed the vast, unrelenting stirring of her magic. Raw. Unfettered.
Wild.
Laoise fought the urge to step back, instinctive fear roiling in her chest. As a child, she had been taught the power of a Treasure was immense—too great even for some Folk to bear. Humans were never designed to wield such monstrous magic. Eala’s fragile mortality suddenly seemed less a limitation than… a danger.
If she wasn’t controlling it… then it was controlling her.
“Hello, Sinéad.” Eldritch glamour and seeping bitterness threaded Eala’s voice, raising the hair on Laoise’s neck. “Come to finish the job you neglected to complete?”
Delicately, Eala drew down the collar of her ruined gown—the same fluttering concoction she’d worn on the Longest Night, now shredded and filthy and smoke stained from traveling. Yet the princess wore it like the raiment of a queen. Her narrow breastbone was ridged with seven long, ragged marks—reminders of the places Sinéad had viciously stabbed her.
“Seven scars,” Sinéad spat. “For the seven sisters you stole from me. It is less than you deserved.”
“I forgive you,” Eala said, in a way that made Laoise suspect it was not remotely the truth. “Surely you know I have never meant you any harm. I loved you. Yet you defy me. Defile me. Destroy my children.”
Sinéad’s eyes flew wide, then snapped narrow. “Yourchildren? Is that what you are calling…them?” She gestured toward a hulking Gentry warrior Laoise could now see was dead—half his throat had been ripped out, making his head loll strangely. “They are an abomination.”
“They are amiracle.” Eala’s face contorted with emotion, and again Laoise glimpsed those strange markings spiderwebbing her skin. “Until you killed them.”
“They were already dead.”
“They were more alive than you can fathom,” Eala argued, even as a flicker of uncertainty scathed her expression. “But now they are gone. You have left me no choice. I must make my way to somewhere I will be more appreciated.”
“You mean you are fleeing in defeat,” Sinéad spat. “To rain your destruction upon the human realms.”
“Call it what you will.” Eala turned toward the Gate before looking back over her shoulder. Her eyes shone like diamonds. “Tell my sister she has one moon to join me at Rath na Mara. Then I will start killing the people she loves.”
“Eala!” Chandi’s cry of distress startled Laoise; beside her, Sinéad also stiffened. It was the only sound they had heard the other girl make, and it was a wretched thing—shrill as the wail of a wounded animal.
“Fine.” Eala visibly composed herself, concealing a frenetic energy that suddenly struck Laoise aspanicked. “Twomoons—no longer. I need my sister, my other half. My patience is not infinite.”
With a deft, forceful gesture, Eala grabbed Chandi’s wrist, then looped her arm through the human prince’s elbow. She dragged them both through the Gate.
Silver flashed. Sinéad lunged forward as the draiglings shrieked. Bodies thumped to the earth as the revenants lurching through the wood collapsed. They were suddenly alone—the Gate nothing more than an empty circle of sifting smoke between budding hazel trees.
Sinéad fell to her knees in the dirt. When Laoise crouched beside her, she saw wet tracks cutting through the soot staining her face.
“We should have stopped her,” Sinéad said furiously. “We should not have let her escape. She will do to my world what she has done to yours.”
“How?” Laoise said gently. “We cannot kill her. We cannot bring her home with us, lest we put those we love in more danger. We protected ourselves—for now, it must be enough.”
For a time, they crouched there beneath the hazels. Blodwen and Barfog crept close, nuzzling their sleek, scaly heads against Sinéad’s cold, wet cheeks and bumping Laoise with their wings. Finally, Sinéad sighed, rose to her feet, and sheathed her daggers.
“You’re right,” she said. “The only person who can end this is Fia.”
Laoise smiled, though the expression felt forced. “Then we’d better go home and tell her to wake up.”
