I believed him. Oh, how I believed him—his longing for me blurred the air between us with heat. I could not fathom what he must have experienced these past months, could only imagine all he had done to keep me—and possibly everyone else—alive. But I knew this. Knewus.
“And I you,” I whispered.
“Where were you that you could miss me?”
“Says the man who’s been hauling my unconscious body around for months.”
The brief flash of his smile was like a diamond—something I wished to polish until it shone, then cherish forever. “In truth, colleen, Iwouldlike to know where you went. For it is something that has troubled me greatly.”
“I—” Beneath the water, our hands lingered mere inches apart. Too close. Yet immeasurably far. I wished I could touch him. Instead, I laid my cheek on the cool edge of the tub. Irian mirrored me, until we both leaned against the stone, faces inches apart, eyes locked. “The Bright One called it the Deep-Dream. But it mostly seemed like the inside of my own mind. My thoughts, my memories. That was where I hid from Talah, for a while.”
“Hid?” Irian’s plush mouth formed the word like a curse.
“She was… hunting me. I think she had to catch me, consume me, before inhabiting my body.” Remembered fear reared inside me. “So I hid. In my memories. Good ones, at first, then banal ones. But eventually I realized it took her longer to find me in memories Iwas too young to recall, memories so harsh I’d repressed them. Still she came. Until at last I had to confront parts of myself even more consequential and terrifying than my worst memories.”
Irian’s eyes flicked between mine, searching. “Do you wish to tell me?”
Somehow it seemed almost sacrilegious to speak of all I’d seen, all I’d learned. “Perhaps someday. But I have spent too long inside. Will you not tell me of outside?”
He told me of all that had happened after the Longest Night. Eala, standing on the beach as Emain Ablach crumbled. Wayland removing my collar. My transformations. Weeks of hard travel over harder land as Eala’s pursuit grew ever more terrifying. The Barrens, the Cnoc, the draiglings. The group’s decision to reforge the Treasures that had been lost. The slow research and frustrating failures. When he related the events of Laoise and Sinéad’s confrontation with Eala at the Hazel Gate, I sat up straight in the tub.
“She saidwhat?” Although my eyes never strayed from Irian’s face, I knew without looking that my glow had intensified, turning the bathwater to quicksilver.
“Laoise or Sinéad should recount this,” Irian said, reluctance slowing his words. “But Eala threatened you. She swore that if you did not join her in the human realms in two months, the lives of those you loved would be forfeit.”
“I see.” My fingernails tightened on the edge of the bath, digging into the smooth stone. Fury lashed the inside of my skin, molten as Talah’s metal. “How long ago was that?”
“About six weeks.”
Panic joined my fear, whittling away my uncanny calm until I prickled with sharp thorns of agitation. I remembered my father’s words to me in the Deep-Dream, moments before he’d disappeared forever into the cottage thatched with birds’ wings.
Find your sister. You are her balance. Only you can bring her to the light.
I stared at my hands, glowing like stars beneath the frothing surface of the bath. Then I curled them into fists.
I had just defeated one enemy. Surely I was owed a single afternoon with the man I loved before plotting to defeat another.
I lifted my hands to a hank of my sopping hair, forced my tone easy, and said, “And how in Donn’s hell didthishappen?”
Irian took one look at the damp, ragged tress of burnt hair I was holding and threw his head back. Before I knew it, I was giggling too, our joined laughter echoing through the bathroom.
“Draigs are apparently not as precise as they could be when it comes to mowing down legions of the undead with living fire,” Irian finally managed, rueful. “I did scold Laoise.”
“Good.” I crooked my finger at him. “Now go find me a sharp knife.”
He froze, all his humor evaporating. “Surely not—”
“Cut to it!”
He reluctantly obeyed, moving into the sleeping chamber. The Sky-Sword mewed a traitorous little complaint as Irian unsheathed it.
I stared, askance. “Are you cutting off my hair or my head?”
“I know no sharper blade.” He looked downcast. “May I speak in defense of your hair?”
“You may.” The water was starting to get cold. I quickly finished my bath, scrubbing my body and face and kneading my scalp with my fingertips. “But I may not listen.”
“I like your long hair.”
