“Nevermind all that,” Reyna insisted. “We’re here, and that’s the portal.”
“This is your last chance to change your mind,” Lorcan said. “We can turn away now and leave this place behind. We don’t have to go through with this.”
“Yes.” She clenched her hands. “We do.”
Lorcan sighed. She understood his concerns, and it wasn’t as though she didn’t have them herself. The king had already proven that he didn’t want them to end this quest alive. His ‘vision’ from Unseelie had been nothing more than a diversion, a way to get them away from the castle where his brutalities could not be witnessed by the low fae of the city.
But she was convinced there was something to Inishfall. She felt the truth of it, the power of it, in her very bones. And seeing the portal before her now, she knew she was right. Power hummed from the rushing waters. She could feel it and hear it. She knew it was there.
This quest might still go wrong. But maybe it wouldn’t. It was a chance she couldn’t ignore. A chance to save her kingdom. A chance to stop the Ruin from taking the life of even one more fae. Andthatwas what stopped her from fearing what was on the other side of that portal.
“Well, I guess we’re doing this,” Nollaig said. “Who’s going through first?”
“I am,” Reyna said exuberantly.
“Absolutely not,” Lorcan growled.
But she already knew he would say that, and she wasn’t waiting around. Without giving Lorcan a chance to stop her, she leapt into the pool. Freezing water swallowed her whole, a welcome relief from the humid heat of the shadow realm. Lorcan shouted as she dove beneath the waters. A splash sounded beside her, but she was already off, pushing through the crashing waters and swimming to the other side of the falls. Wingallock swam by her side, twirling through the soothing waters.
Soon, she parted the waters of the falls and drew in deep lungfuls of air. Her eyes were assaulted by a thousand shades of glistening green. Everywhere she looked, lush and luminous plants wove through the landscape, a dense forest that sagged beneath the weight of the cloying humidity. There were thick vines and trees that sprouted moss. The soft spray from the tumbling falls soothed her cheeks. It looked and felt like paradise, but a deep dark power pulsed beneath it all, reminding Reyna that there was more here than met the eye.
Lorcan pushed up beside her, wiping the water from his face and glaring around. When his gaze landed on Reyna, he growled. “I swear to the Dagda, Reyna, I have never met a more impulsive female in all my goddamned life.”
“And you never will,” she said sweetly.
Without waiting for an answer, she waded to the edge of the pool and hefted herself onto the thick carpet of grass. She ran her fingers through the long blades, listening as they let out a twinkling kind of song. Lorcan climbed out behind her, followed soon by Nollaig and Tarrah.
Nollaig’s cloak was plastered to her skin. Water poured from the thick material, the entire thing forming a puddle of water at her feet. Reyna bit back a laugh.
“Perhaps you should take that thing off,” Reyna said as she wrung her hair. Wingallock shook his wings, flinging more water onto Nollaig’s cloak. “That looks mighty uncomfortable.”
“I am fine,” Nollaig grunted.
“If you say so,” Reyna said in a singsong voice, turning her attention back onto the new surroundings.
They had arrived in the middle of a luminous forest. Overhead, a large outcropping of rocks formed the mouth of the waterfall on this side of the portal. The water rushed down in a mighty haste, crashing into a large pool. Further down, the water slowed, narrowing into a slow-moving river. It appeared to cut through the deep forest, leading…somewhere.
“This is a rainforest,” Tarrah said, gazing around with a haunted look in her eyes. “We don’t have them in Tir Na Nog. I never thought I’d see one with my own two eyes.”
“A rainforest,” Reyna murmured, gazing around once again. The name was fitting, she decided. It was so much denser than a normal forest and thick with wet and mud. They had only just climbed from the pool, and already she could feel beads of perspiration on her brow.
Nollaig had scrunched her cloak between her hands and was doing her damnedest to wring out all the wet. She was not succeeding. The material stubbornly clung to her skin, revealing a very muscular form beneath. Reyna was not surprised. Nollaig was one of the strongest fae she’d ever met.
“Now what?” Nollaig muttered. “I don’t see a god lurking in the bushes to bestow world-shattering power on anyone who asks.”
“We need to follow the river downstream,” Tarrah announced. “You see how it slopes downward? We keep going until we can’t go down anymore. That’s the lowest point in all the world, and great powers can be found deep within the pool.”
Nollaig froze, her hand wrapped around an oozing scrap of cloth. “More swimming?”
“Only for the one who wishes to gain the powers,” Tarrah said with vacant eyes, her ominous tone twisting unease through Reyna’s gut.
The river stretched on for miles. They crunched through the thick brush, always keeping close to the riverbank, until the skies turned grey with twilight. After they set up camp, Nollaig sat drying by the fire while Tarrah went on the hunt for some meat.
Reyna took the opportunity to go for another swim to rinse off the grime from the days spent travelling through the shadow lands. She grabbed a bar of soap she’d packed and dove into the cool, crisp river, sighing in contentment. It had been a very long time since she had felt the soothing embrace of the chill. Letting her eyes drift shut, she spread her arms wide and floated happily in the Inishfall river.
A loud splash broke her out of her reverie. She opened her eyes to find a grinning Lorcan swimming toward her, a familiar glint in his dark as night eyes. “You didn’t think I would stay at camp when I knew you were out here naked, did you?”
She flushed beneath his gaze, even after all their time spent wrapped up in each other’s arms. “I didn’t think you’d like how cold this river is.”
