Idris found mushrooms and declared at least half of them edible. We spitted them on bendy twigs and had the draiglings roast them with uneven bursts of flame. Everyone was famished—we ate the strange fruits and tender mushrooms until our tongues were stained violet and our fingertips tingled from pulling apart the flame-seared caps.
Stars wheeled overhead as we relaxed, sated, upon pillows of lime-green moss draped with blankets of woven vines.
Irian—never one for pleasantries or patience—asked the question we were all pondering.
“What now?”
The question chafed me like a badly forged shackle. The Cnoc was dust and ashes. We had no shelter, little food, barely any clothes, no more books, no weapons, and no forge to make new ones. We had no allies and no plans, save for the one still echoing through my mind, spoken in my father’s voice.
Find your sister. Find your sister. Find your sister.
“We could throw ourselves upon the mercy of the Ellyllon and quit Tír na nÓg for good.” Laoise’s fury toward me had burned lower, but I feared it had a long wick. “Or we throw our lot in with the Summer Twins and anyone else who stands against Eala, and join the fight that is surely coming.”
“There’s a third option: join Eala’s dread army.” Wayland inspected his fingernails, his expression deadly serious. “I hear the retirement plan is to die for.”
Sinéad silently walloped him on top of the head.
I waited for someone else to chime in, before realizing everyone was waiting for me to speak.
“From the madness Eala spoke to me on Emain Ablach, I believe she wishes to unite the Folk and human realms into one. Through conquest, for I cannot believe she desires peace.”Under my guidance, both realms could be better, stronger, more powerful than either stands alone.“If she has indeed returned home, then she will conquer the human realms first. Wrest Rath na Mara from M—the high queen—and crown herself in her stead. Only then will she march back upon Tír na nÓg and bring it to heel.”
“What does she want with you?” Sinéad asked, her voice faintly hoarse from smoke inhalation.
“She believes Fia completes her,” Irian growled from beside me. He had heard Eala’s dire philosophy on the Longest Night. “And wishes for her to swear obeisance—to stand beside her in conquest. Their power joined in balance.”
“Clearly that’s not going to happen,” Wayland said. “But it means we have a little time, does it not? Surely the human realms cannot be conquered in a handful of months. We can consolidate our power, reforge the lost Treasures—”
“With what forge?” Laoise words were so hot she might as well have breathed fire. “What magical volumes and rare grimoires collected over a decade of searching?”
“To be fair,” Wayland muttered, looking only slightly chagrined, “we weren’t getting on particularly well with any of those things before, either.”
“You’re both right.” This earned me surprised looks. “And you’re both wrong. We must plan to stand against Eala… but we do not have time to spare. And we must reforge the Treasures… but I doubt we will find the answers in books or scrolls.”
I had been thinking about the Treasures since Wayland and I had discussed my starshine. In the Deep-Dream, the Bright One had told me how the magic of the Treasures had begun to dwindle with time, despite heirs’ regular tithes to the nemeta. But Irian, Wayland, Laoise, and I had just worked together to regenerate the valley, even without two Treasures.
“What if the Treasures were always supposed to be used together?” I earned myself blank stares. I backtracked. “On the Longest Night, Eala surprised me by naming nine dúile—nine elements of magic. I knew only of the four contained within the Treasures—earth, water, air, fire. Why did the original chieftains—and Gavida, presumably—choose those four to focus their power? Perhaps they were simply the most common or the easiest to manipulate. Or perhaps it’s because in nature, those elements are designed to operate in balance.” Somehow the looks I got were even blanker. “A tree cannot grow without air, sunlight, or water, no matter how fertile the earth may be. Rain clouds cannot gather or move without heat and wind. Fire cannot spread without air, is bound by water, is fed by organic matter. Our four elements are the building blocks of nature. Each element is both nourished by and bound by the others.Counterpoise.”
Slowly, Irian nodded. “Together, we are balance.”
“Eternal, but not immutable,” added Wayland. “It does make a kind of sense, Thorn Girl.”
A glow of pride ignited in my chest, and my starshine responded. But then I remembered the theory I’d spoken to Wayland—How do you know it’s not?—and dimmed once more.
“The balance was broken a long time ago—the moment the Treasures were forged,” I continued. “The magic should never have been parceled up and hidden away—it was always meant to work together. But it was broken again—and more deeply—when the Treasures were destroyed by the bardaí during the Gate War. Wild magic cannot exist outside the regenerative cycles of nature. To restore balance, we must first reforge the Treasures. Then, and only then, can the Treasures be safely unmade and the elements returned to their natural state.”
“We reforge the lost Treasures,” Wayland repeated. “Then… unforge them?”
“Yes.” My hand found the Heart of the Forest as a sudden wave of anticipated loss surged through me. I could not fathom losing it—thisthingthat had entwined with my very being. It did not just live within me; I, somehow, lived within it. A world, vast yet intimate, both within and around me. Myheart. “After we use them together to defeat Eala.”
“But how?” Laoise said this slowly and clearly, as if talking to a particularly dim-witted child. “We do not know how to reforge the Treasures. Much less how to safely unforge them, once this hazy defeat has been accomplished.”
“I have some ideas.”
“You’re full of them today,” Laoise muttered.
“Hush,” Irian growled. “Let her speak.”
I shot him a tiny smile before returning my focus to Wayland and Laoise. The heir of fire was the one I was going to have to convince of this plan.
