Soon we stood before the familiar contours of the Gate—the willow combing her hair over the brook and the bridge looping golden as a necklace in the blooming morning.
A small smile of anticipation exposed Irian’s canines. “You know, I have always wished to visit the human realms.”
I glanced at him with a little smile of my own. Though it had not been my intention, our strange tryst in the wood had unbound something in Irian. Or perhaps bound anew—a fragmented story retold in a more familiar cadence. A distance acknowledged—then quietly crossed.
“I wish I could tell you the human realms will be lovely in the spring.” I sobered, the undulations of our relationship ebbing beneath my anxieties about Eala. “But I don’t know what my sister has done. We could be walking into ruin and rubble.”
“We could be walking through Donn’s black gates and it would be worth it, as long as I was with you.”
I beat back my dread. “Then let us make of you a tourist, Irian of the Sept of Feathers.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Fia
The Willow Gate shivered silver around us. The stones beneath our boots flashed golden, slanted, crumbled. The stream reversed directions. The willow’s branches became roots as the world upended.
We stumbled into the human realms. Irian cried out and fell to one knee, his hands fisting in the dirt. I reached for him, stopping myself in the instant before my hand collided with his shoulder.
“This place,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Feels like… a tomb.”
I knew what he meant. After so long in Tír na nÓg, returning to Fódla felt like trying to remember a story I had all but forgotten. My thoughts swam, disjointed. My limbs ached, all gnarled branches and twisted roots. The beginnings of a headache throbbed at my temples. I could only imagine how much worse it must be for Irian. He had never set foot outside Tír na nÓg. He was full-blooded Folk Gentry, born of a powerful lineage and raised to inherit immense power. Magic coursed through his veins and soldered his bones.
He did not belong here.
“My blade.” He jerked the Sky-Sword from its scabbard. It came free with the sound of steel slithering against leather. No curious hum, no bloodthirsty croon. “It does not sing.”
I remembered everything I had learned from Cathair, all those years ago, and layered it atop all I now knew about the Solasóirí, the nemeta, and the Treasures.
“When the Folk forged the Treasures and cloistered them in Tír na nÓg, they removed something vital from the human realms,” I reminded him. “Wild magic declines in Tír na nÓg; in Fódla, it has nearly died out. There is no ambient magic for your Treasure to draw on. But it is still connected to its source.”
Irian levered himself heavily to his feet. “How can you be sure?”
“Experience.” I touched a fingertip to the Heart of the Forest, hidden beneath my outer mantle. “Even without a vessel to channel its power, the Heart of the Forest found me across realms. Ínne found me and stayed close. And when I truly needed their magic, they were waiting for me to claim it.”
Irian nodded, scraping back the hair that had flopped over his brow. I couldn’t help but stare. In Tír na nÓg, Irian of the Sept of Feathers was devastatingly beautiful. But he was an extension of his environment—bewitching, alluring, a little eerie. Here, crowned by a cool bright morning and silhouetted by blackthorn and wild cherry, he looked downright eldritch. His smooth pale skin glowed, inhuman; his black hair shone, lustrous as a raven’s plumage; his blue-gold eyes glittered disconcertingly. Against Fódla’s drab backdrop, Irian was etched dark and uncanny as the blade at his waist; sharp and cruel as the incisors cutting divots in his plush lips.
I blinked, and he was just Irian again. My Irian. But I was reminded of nights long ago in Rath na Mara, poring overThe Book of Beotachand its terrifying chapters detailing the fickle, treacherous Folk Gentry. Callow killers. Nightmare predators.
Strange to think I had not only bound my destiny to one… but become one myself.
“Come.” I dared to lightly brush Irian’s gloved hand. “The fort is a bit of a hike.”
Irian soon shook off his dolor and began inspecting our surroundings with interest. He asked me the names of the birds trilling airily in the trees and the vines spilling new blossoms in the undergrowth and the woodland creatures ducking behind hollow logs. He seemed especially fascinated with a family of common hares playing beneath a rocky scarp.
“Those things,” he said with abhorrent glee, “areadorable.”
I glanced askance at their tufted white tails, smooth brown coats, and black-tipped ears. Cute, but utterly ordinary. “Don’t you have hares in Tír na nÓg?”
“We do. But ours have gemstones for eyes. And they fly.”
We reached Dún Darragh near noon. The morning had grown warm, and we threw off our outer mantles. Although I knew we had no time to waste in reaching Rath na Mara, I allowed myself a short detour to my greenhouse, threading along the cobbled pathways, now grown weedy and uneven, past the spring in its grotto, burbling merrily beyond its screen of blackthorns, until the brass and glass structure loomed into view.
Winter had been kind to it—no branches had shattered its ceiling; the errant vines of climbing ivy and wisteria had not yet grown strong enough to warp its beams. I creaked open the door and stepped inside. Irian followed, ducking his head to clear the lintel. I spun in a tight circle, nostalgia making my throat tight. The pitted worktable, cluttered with trowels and spades and dibblers. The pots, empty save for a few stubborn seedlings. The trellises, festooned with little save for dried-out weeds.
“You have spoken of this place before, colleen.” Irian did not call me that nickname so much anymore. Yet here it seemed fitting, for the girl who had tended these plants and mended thisgreenhouse had indeed been the one Irian calledcolleen. “I think it must be precious to you. Will you tell me of the time you spent here?”
“Perhaps.” When I looked at this place, I saw Rogan throwing wooden boards into fragile pots, heard Corra teasing me from wood knots, felt indecision over slaying the Folk lord I was developing feelings for. Perhaps someday I would discover how to carve this time of my life into a narrative that made sense—to file away its rough edges and smooth out its confusions. “When we are old and gray and tired, I shall tell you of all the tedious mornings I spent weeding in this greenhouse. Then you shall be sorry you ever asked.”
