“Swans may appear sedate upon the water, mo chroí, but we are strong fliers.” He smiled, a sharp dazzle of humor. “If you are intent on riding that beast, perhaps we shall make a race of it.”
I finished fastening Finan’s girth. “Only if you have a craving to be trounced, Sky-Sword.”
Irian shoved off the wall and came at me without warning. Finan shied away with a shriek, but Irian ignored the horse, pinning me with his dazzle-blue eyes before caging me with his arms. One broad hand collided with the stall door at my back; the other wrapped tight around the post by my head. He stood bare inches from me; I could smell him, black leather and cold steel and the faintest tang of ozone, like struck lightning. Slowly—so slowly—my husband bent his head until his lips nearly brushed my ear.
“I crave many things, colleen.” His breath gusted over my skin, and my throat hitched as warmth vined my spine. “You make an exceptionally comely stable girl.”
I looked up at him, my pulse throbbing reedy between my temples. His mouth was parted; his eyes, shadowed with desire. Tension sang between us, and I ached to break it. With a word, a touch. A kiss.
“Alas.” His hands dropped; he rose to his full height. “The afternoon grows weary. We must away, lest darkness strand us in the wilds.”
“They say after nightfall, the Fair Folk wander,” I agreed, rueful. “And I would hate to meet any of them. Alone. In the woods. After dark.”
“One might trap you into a foul bargain.”
“Or worse.” I mounted Finan. “A fine marriage.”
Despite my bravado, Irian’s anam cló swiftly and easily outpaced me.
Finan practically had wings for hooves, but I found him difficult to control. Consigned as we were to pitted wagon tracks and goatpaths sharp with rocks, I feared for the stallion’s slender legs in the treacherous potholes.
I glanced at Irian streaking through the sky like a black arrow and felt a dart of envy.
We did not make good time. It had rained in the past week, and mud soon caked Finan’s fetlocks and splattered his girth. After a winter of easy exercise and a soft diet, the stallion was already beginning to lather. As afternoon trundled toward evening, great roiling thunderheads darkened the horizon and turned the sun to a bloody coin.
I cursed but had to admit: We weren’t going to make it to Rath na Mara tonight.
I detoured into a nearby field as the rain splattered closer, dismounting beneath a beech as I squinted into the sheeting downpour.
A shard of black zigzagged between squalls, large wings buffeted by the high winds. Irian transformed as he descended to the ground running. His wings were the last thing to go, shedding bedraggled black feathers.
“Gods alive.” He shoved sopping black hair off his face, drenched from his mantle to his boots, which squelched audibly. “Storms here are stubborn. When I felt the wind rising, I tried to raise the temperature of the air and change the direction of the draft. The storm practically laughed at me… then tried to strike me with lightning.”
I stifled a giggle. Irian was rarely outmatched. Especially not by the weather.
“We should have brought bedrolls,” I grumbled. Moisture pattered steadily between the beech leaves, muddying the ground. “We’re in for a miserable night.”
Finan lowered his head and whuffed unhappily at the bare roots of the tree.
“And you said the beast could not communicate,” Irian said wryly.
“I said he couldn’ttalk,” I corrected with a laugh. “He’s always been apt at complaining.”
“I fear he is not wrong.” Irian tilted his soaking head to one side. “I spied the lights of a village half a league to the west.”
I frowned. “I doubt anyone will be out in the dark and storm. But perhaps we should move a little farther east.”
“You misunderstand me, mo chroí.” Irian wrung out the hem of his mantle. “Might they not have a… way station in this human village? A place where travelers might stop and sup and perhaps sleep?”
“An inn?” Had I not been alarmed, I might have laughed. “Irian, you are full-blooded Gentry in a realm preparing for war with the Folk. I am a changeling. We are both Treasures.”
“Indeed.” I had lived so long with the shadow of fear in Irian’s eyes that this gleam of anticipation was novel. Albeit unnerving. “If Eala has brought her war to these parts, I have not yet seen evidence of it. No one need know we are not human. And should we need to fight our way free of some quarrel, I daresay we can take on a few dozen pitchfork-wielding human peasants.”
I barked a disbelieving laugh at his bravado, especially the notion that anyone could suspect him of being anything but otherworldly in origin. I felt as if I had swapped bodies—or perhaps minds—with my husband. How many times had he urged caution and prudence to me in the past year?
And how many times had I readily ignored his warnings?
“This is my realm.” I echoed a warning he had given me many times, even as the prospect of a hot meal and a bath wheedled through my misgivings. “There is much you do not know. Have a care for your surroundings, and do not speak or act out of turn.”
