But Laoise’s fury was reserved for me. I knew it without having to ask—understood it on a visceral level. The truth was, I blamed myself too.
For all of it. I hadseenit—that tree at the center of everything. Every story, every legend, every myth. Every action, every reaction, every twist of fate. Every hero, every villain. Irian, Rogan, Wayland. Eala, Gavida, Talah.
Me.
With every step I had taken, every action I had made, every choice I had chosen, I had manipulated the stories of those around me. I had dug my thorny fingers into fate’s tangled vines andpulled.Some things had gone my way; others had decidedly not. But after all I had learned in the Deep-Dream, I could no longer pretend to be a hapless pawn in my own destiny. I was rooted deep in all our stories—no maple seed spinning on a breeze, but a taproot wedged firmly in dark soil.
I just was no longer sure whether I was the hero.
Or the villain.
Perhaps that was why I did not retreat as Laoise plunged toward me with violence and venom. Perhaps it was thoughtless bravery. Perhaps it was resignation.
Or perhaps I knew—a friend incinerating me on the spot was not the way my story ended.
“You!” she screamed, the word igniting like a match on her lips. “This is your fault! Do you ever think about the consequences of your reckless, half-baked plans? No—youdecide and then you drag everyone else into the mess you created! Emain Ablach is at the bottom of the ocean because of you. The Cnoc—my home—is nothing but smoke and ashes because ofyou!”
In the blink of an eye, she shifted back into her anam cló, her scaled form massive and sinuous. Flames blossomed in her gorge. Maybe she wanted me to flee, to cower, to beg. I did nothing, just held my ground and lifted my chin. Her long neck swiveled; her eyes flickered like coals. She hissed, spat. Then breathed fire a pace to my left. Heat roared over me, crisping the hair on my arms and flushing my skin. Irian stepped in front of me, shielding my form with his larger, taller figure.
“A little late, mo chroí,” I breathed at his back.
“Not really.” Over his shoulder, his mouth quirked with the tiniest smile. He pitched his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “I am not trying to protect you from her. I am trying to protect her fromyou.”
I huffed, but amazingly, the jibe had its intended effect. Wayland laughed; Sinéad made a sound of relief. Laoise shifted back into her Gentry form, although she still vibrated—every muscle along herarms and shoulders clenched. She glared at me around Irian’s forbidding figure but did not try to attack me again.
“You should not have bartered my draigs in your unholy bargain, tánaiste,” she snarled. “They were not yours to trade.”
“I was the one to suggest it,” Irian said. “If you wish to rage at anyone, Laoise, let it be me.”
This deflated Laoise, unleashing the last of her anger like ashes on the wind. She sank to her knees in the ruined ravine. Hog once more squeaked, lofted into the air, and bumbled across the ravine. Laoise gathered her into her arms.
“She turned them against me,” Laoise cried, so softly I could barely hear her. Idris knelt beside his sister, nesting both woman and draig within the embrace of his larger frame. Laoise bowed her head into the crook of his neck, the most vulnerable gesture I’d ever seen the Gentry woman make. It shattered something inside me. Their home—theirlife—had imploded with a blaze, the years they’d lost glowing for a fleeting moment before fading to cold ash.
This was not a thing that could be mended. This was an end.
And I might not have been its sole cause. But I had certainly precipitated it.
I did not blame Laoise for her vitriol. All of this had happened because of me.
It was going to get worse before it got better.
There was no reason to stay in the valley—Laoise’s fury had destroyed anything that might have been worth staying for. Water… food… shade. But as the draiglings lofted skyward, expressing our group’s growing restlessness in ever-expanding circles, an idea grew inside me.
This little valley—almost like the miraculous sinkhole in the Cnoc, save for its nemeton—had everything we needed. Earth, albeit blackened with hours of draig fire. Seeds, albeit charred and split. Water, albeit little more than a trickle.
And four tánaistí of four essential elements.
“Let’s stay.” I interrupted Wayland and Irian, discussing our next steps in hushed undertones. “Not forever. Just for the night.”
“We have no supplies,” Wayland helpfully reminded me, as if I could have forgotten the disastrous events of the past day. “No food, water. Clothes. Bedding.”
“Besides,” Irian added, “this place smells like a charnel house. I fear the insides of my nostrils are already coated in soot.”
A buried acorn—dropped from its tree in the autumn and left to overwinter as the seasons changed—rested a few inches below the topsoil in a corner of the valley relatively untouched by Laoise’s draig fire. It responded to my gentle nudging, unfurling from the blackened soil in a curlicue of green before rapidly shooting to my height. But then it slowed, even as I poured my energy into it.
“The soil is too dry—Laoise’s fire dehydrated the moisture. Can either of you—”
Irian understood. He glanced at the sky, which was clear and blue as an enamel bowl.
