There was a name for her, too. The Namhaid. The enemy.
The Dagda had sent word to the Fomorians across the sea. They had spoken of her in hushed tones for centuries, hoping that the Ruin would stop her, hoping that Unseelie would never get his claws into the fae who would one day kill them all.
And she was that fae. She had to be. Everything fit. Deep, shuddering fear shook through her.
It all made horrible, brutal sense. The Ruin had not begun to destroy her kingdom until she was born, and it had always seemed to strike when she was nearby. It wasn’t all-knowing and it wasn’t all-seeing, and the power of it was so dark and so great that it stormed through the world, destroying everything. It had only one command: kill the ice princess and her owl. It did not care about keeping anyone else alive.
“He accidentally created a monster,” she whispered.
I am not a monster. I am the Dionadair.And now you control me, just as he feared. You will bring destruction to them all.You are the Keeper of Storms.
51
Reyna
Reyna stood, her aching body as bruised and battered as her heart. She scanned Fomorian Square, bracing herself for another onslaught of arrows, not knowing if she would have the strength to dodge this time.
A harsh fire had settled in her chest, burning her up from the inside out. Unseelie had used her. She’d been tricked. He’dwantedher to destroy the Ruin…the Dionadair. She could not bear to think about what she’d done. Not now. She was still in the midst of a battle-ravaged city. Distantly, she could hear the clash of steel on steel. She needed to find Lorcan and help him fight the wood fae…just so long as she could stay standing long enough to swing her blade.
As soon as it was all over, she would press her cheek against his chest and breathe him in. She would tell him everything, at once. He would know what to do, even if there was nothing theycoulddo. This could not be her fate. Together, they would fight against it, tooth and nail.
She needed him, she realized, that painful ache spreading through the rest of her limbs. And nothing would stop them from staying together now. She hadn’t needed to return to the ice lands to find the Ruin. It hadn’t begun in the north at all. It had begun here, in Findius. She clenched her hands, shaking her head. She could not think of the Ruin anymore. Not until she’d found Lorcan.
As she stepped through the broken courtyard, she saw nothing but frozen bodies and piles of ash. The stench of death was overwhelming. The ice wall blocked her path to most of the streets.
She had no idea where to find him. The Ruin had knocked her off course, and she did not know this city well. Taking in a ragged breath to steady her racing heart, she reached deep into her soul for the power that Seelie had bestowed upon her. Instantly, she bumped up against the Dionadair. The powers curled together in a strange, twisting embrace.
Reyna hissed and drew back.
I am not the dark thing inside of you. You are.
She ground her teeth together. “I’m not going to use you,” she said aloud, not even caring how demented she looked to the fae cowering inside the few nearby buildings that had not crumbled beneath the magic of the ash.
I am born of Seelie magic. The Dagda created me, for the good of the world.
“Yeah, well,” she muttered and shielded her eyes against the red light of the sun to find a better path forward. “He did a terrible job of controlling you. Do you know how many fae you’ve killed?”
Because he left these lands. Now,youcontrol me, Keeper of Storms.
“I don’t want to,” she snapped.
You have no other choice.
She really wished she could shut this voice up. It had only been a few moments since she’d consumed the Dionadair, and it was already annoying the hell out of her.
“Well, then I command you to be silent.”
No reply.
“Good.”
In the moments since the fight, the magic had infused her bones with a small amount of strength. It would be hours yet before she was whole again. Days even, perhaps. Her shoulder was still very much broken, her arm dangling at an odd angle by her side.
But she would be able to fly.
Squeezing her fingernails into her palms, she cried out as she pushed her wings through the throbbing skin at her back. She had to pause to catch her breath when it was over. If she was going to do this flight thing on a regular basis, she needed to find a way to do it that wasn’t so painful.
It felt like someone had lit her back on fire.
