Tears stung Saoirse’s eyes as she glimpsed Eimear, the High Lady of Brónach, standing inside the hollow crevice of a tree.
The thick trunk had grown around her mother’s body, cocooning her in a protective embrace. Only her head and shoulders could be seen from the top, along with a web of branches cradling Eimear’s head like a mother with her newborn infant.
Eimear’s hands were still raised to either side of her body, each one reaching as if she were the wall that would keep the sinister creatures on the other side at bay.
Thin vines had wrapped around everything, beautiful flowers on full display. Saoirse stopped mid-run at the sight of the violet one with yellow stems emerging from its center.
She held up one hand to stop Zylah, too. “Stay far away from the purple ones.”
Zylah glanced over the landscape. She didn’t have to tell Saoirse that would be impossible if she wanted to pull Eimear out. Those very flowers coated the entire forest floor. They’d even wrapped themselves around the trunk that held her mother upright.
Decades ago, there’d been a poison created from these very flowers. It had spread across their country like wildfire, all thanks to a faction that had wanted to eliminate her family and make their own claim for the throne. But the crafted poison didn’t compare to the real thing. A single scrape would have the neurotoxin entering the bloodstream in minutes. It wouldn’t take long for the heart to stop, and Saoirse certainly didn’t have any sort of antidote on her at the moment.
Despite the danger, she stepped forward. Those very vines rose, blocking her path and Saoirse paused again. She glanced between the woven vines, focus still on her mother and inclined her ear to listen. Saoirse’s eyes misted at the beautiful sound of her mother’s heartbeat.
Alive.
Her mother was alive.
Slowly, so as to not disturb the plants further, Saoirse knelt and placed her palm flat on the ground. Everything surrounding her beat with a familiar pulse of magic.
Her mother’s magic. The power and control within it was unmistakable.
“Let me go to her,” Saoirse whispered, letting her own power trickle into the ground, bleeding into the roots surrounding her. The plant life drank her magic greedily. Theworld stilled. Saoirse stood and dared a step forward. Vines shot out, woody stems clamping around her wrist and waist.
“Saoirse.” Zylah was starting to panic.
“Stay there,” Saoirse commanded as calmly as she could manage. She didn’t resist her restraints even as those purple flowers crawled dangerously closer.
“It’s me,” Saoirse whispered again, speaking to the power extending from Eimear. “It’s Saoirse.”
Her mother may not have been in her right mind most nights, but she’d always recognized her children. Even in her delirium, she’d never harmed them—well, aside from Rion when he’d been freeing her, but their mother hadn’t known who he was yet.
Then again, Eimear hadn’t possessed her magic then, either. She hadn’t had it for decades. Saoirse had witnessed firsthand the way her mother’s magic had always seeped out, as if it couldn’t be contained. Rion’s power had been the same. Could suppressing it for so long cause a Fae to lose their minds entirely? Was her mother already too far gone?
With her magic free, there was so much more her mother could do to aid them in the coming war. She’d be able to predict Vairik’s next move, but perhaps, more importantly, she could delve into the past and reveal the secrets hidden by the Fae of old.
“Saoirse,” Zylah hissed again.
Saoirse’s heart sped at the sight of those flowers growing closer. She couldn’t pull away. Eimear’s magic might see her as a threat if she tried to escape. Instead, Saoirse took a deep breath and forced her muscles to relax. She took another and slowed her heartbeat. Another and part of the adrenaline began to ebb.
She couldn’t fight her way through this one. In fact, the entire concept of fighting her mother at all was absurd. Not simply because it was her mother and Saoirse would never lifta hand against her, but because Eimear was ten times stronger than Saoirse. She’d heard all the legends growing up. Some had been believable, others impossible, but after witnessing what her mother had just created—
Saoirse gently curled a finger around one of the pulsing vines digging into her wrist. She let her magic flow into it. She didn’t intend to control the power, but rather coax it. She wanted to let Eimear’s forest see—no—feelthat Saoirse was Eimear’s own flesh and blood.
Saoirse began by pouring out memories of herself as a child. The moments when Eimear had carried her on her shoulders at festivals, just like Saoirse had done so many times with Rion.Her first days of school and the training camps where she swore she’d emerge the strongest, even among the males. Her younger self’s triumphant victory. Images of the times Saoirse had first used weapons and how Eimear had watched with a proud smile on her face.
She shared the treasured memories of them tending the palace gardens, two royals covered from head to toe in dirt while the servants fussed at every turn. Images of the tea shops, annual balls, the solstices, the males and females she’d attempted to court over the years.
Saoirse let it all flow without restraint.
The woody stems holding her in place accepted the magic, drinking it up like an offering. The deadly flowers stopped moving, as did the vines that had begun crawling up Saoirse’s leg. The entire world seemed to pause, waiting, evaluating.
Saoirse barely dared to breathe and then slowly, one at a time, the branches pinning her down loosened, pulling back to stand straight once again. Saoirse could feel Zylah’s relief as if it were her own.
“Stay there,” Saoirse commanded before carefully walking around the pulsing greenery that had just been pinningher in place. She climbed over another fallen tree, hands still pouring out her magic onto everything she touched.
The poisonous plants moved aside as Saoirse made her way forward. Even the ones wrapped around the tree directly surrounding her mother fell away like a curtain. Saoirse climbed the tree with ease and ducked under one of her mother’s arms until she stood face to face with Eimear.
