“And what, exactly,” Sinéad asked, “didhappen?”
“The Grove of Gold was once Talah’s home. But in time it became her prison—in the same way the Treasures have become prisons for others of her kind. She was bound first by twos—by the Oak King and the Holly King. After, Gavida bound her by threes. Three elements, three shackles, thrice three trees. Then we bound her by fours.” Fia’s eyes slid far away, and Wayland knew she was remembering that night beneath the glowing apple trees of Emain Ablach. They had all been so certain something was going to happen… and then utterly sure nothing had. They had been wrong on both counts. But Fia had been the one to pay for that foolishness. “Gavida once told me,Bindings are always easier than unbindings. All the pieces of the cosmos want to be connected, even as they fall apart.Perhaps that means the natural state of balance is…binding.”
The words clattered against the inside of Wayland’s skull. He’d heard those words before. Many times, in fact. Unless he was much mistaken—
“Did my father say who told him that?” Wayland asked sharply.
Fia’s brow creased as she studied him as if for the first time. Her mismatched gaze widened when she focused on his throat, curious and canny and unflinching. Wayland experienced the same forcedunveiling as he had on the Longest Night, as if Fia had torn off his skin and stared into the unmasked meat of him. There was no judgment in the recognition—only kinship. Maybe even solace, green as a well-trodden path through a sunlit wood.
“He mentioned a man named Marban,” Fia said after a beat. Satisfaction chased away Wayland’s less convenient feelings, and he shared a loaded glance with Irian. “And he said he had never met a human who had not changed the course of his life. Do you know of whom he spoke?”
“It can wait. I interrupted your tale—please continue.”
Fia lifted one shoulder in an eloquent shrug. “When I saw the flaming trees of the nemeton, I hoped Talah might find a new home and leave me in peace. But I was forced to bind her anew. Seven trees. Seven… friends.”
“And my dragain,” Laoise said, in a clipped tone that made Wayland think she was trying not to sound as furious as she was.
Fia’s chin came up an inch. “Seven dragain. And a price, levied in counterpoise to the magic performed.”
“What exactlywasthe magic performed?” Laoise had surely noticed how the minerals embedded in the cavern walls suddenly appeared more silver than gold, like Talah’s metal veined through Aduantas. How the draiglings’ red-gold scales all seemed glossier than they had before—as if embossed with hammered silver. “And what was the price?”
“The girl is glowing, for gods’ sake,” Wayland scoffed. “And nearly burnt her husband’s hands off, if I’m not much mistaken. Is that a high enough price for you?”
Irian reflexively curled his palms, though his skin had nearly healed over, pink and smooth as a babe’s arse. Wayland almost pitied him—it would be hell to earn his sword calluses back.
No—Wayland did pity him. Swordplay was likely not Irian’s first concern in this unlikely scenario of his wife’s touch burning the very flesh from his bones.
“But why?” asked Sinéad softly.
“I don’t fully understand.” Fia looked at her hands. Her glow had dimmed but not disappeared. “I must think on all I’ve learned. Now—will you tell me what has happened since the Longest Night? What happened to the Silver Isle? Where is Eala? Where arewe? Who else is here with us?”
Her gaze fell on Idris with this last question, and Laoise’s brother dipped his head behind the screen of his hair, struck inexplicably shy by Fia’s direct gaze. Everyone was silent as the past few months arose like a monumental mountain in their midst. No one seemed to know how to traverse it.
“Come, mo chroí,” Irian finally said, his voice pitched low. “You will wish to bathe and eat and perhaps sleep. Then I will tell you all that has passed.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fia
The wine tasted strange on my tongue—like bitter mallow or soured wort. I had a feeling food would be similar. I was reasonably certain I never wanted to sleep again.
But I would commit gross acts of treason for a bath.
So I gathered the folds of Irian’s overlarge mantle around my frame and stood from the table, feeling the eyes of the group follow me. I knew they had questions. So did I. But I could read Irian’s careful stoicism better than any book. I had seen the way his hand had lifted toward me, then dropped away. I had heard the hurt hollowing his rough burr.
Irian was in pain. And not just because I’d charred the flesh from his hands.
But as I followed him toward what I assumed were our chambers, I could not summon my own emotions. I, too, should be feeling something. Triumph or horror or heartbreak. But all I felt was a strange tranquility. After everything I had experienced in the Deep-Dream, it was a relief to feel numb. Distanced.
Talah had left my body. For now, that was all that mattered.
We entered the same room in which I’d awoken an hour before. Just an hour? It felt like a lifetime. The walls, bed, and ceilings were all carved from the same black rock as the rest of the caverns, pricked through with gemstones and veins of metal. I dallied in the center of the room while Irian ran a bath, skimming my eyes over the unfamiliar surroundings. My gaze snagged on deep scratches cut into the stones; shredded tapestries; a shelf that had been crushed, then hastily mended. Something twinged in my stomach.
“Who did this?” I pitched my tone lightly over the sound of running water. “You haven’t been letting Linn into our chambers, have you?”
“You did.” Irian did not laugh. “During your transformations.”
My eyebrow crept up my forehead. “Transformations?”
