Her frowned deepened. “How so?”
“Six kingdoms. Six sigils. Six thrones.” Rhain leaned forward, drumming his knuckles on the table. “And according to my research into the Empire of Fomor, their world was once six kingdoms, too.”
A shiver went through Reyna. “It’s a coincidence.”
“Is it?” He arched a brow. “Somehow, I doubt it.”
Heart hammering, Reyna scanned the page. There was a short entry on the Namhaid, but it was enough to make her blood curdle in her veins.
Dagda encountered a terrifying prophecy during his journey through Inishfall. He has sent us warnings and notes from his travels, but much of it makes little sense. His words were strange, twisted and tumbling, almost as though he could not see up from down. There is to be an enemy, one that will destroy us all. He speaks little of this fae’s identity, though he mentions an ice princess with an owl familiar repeatedly. One can only assume this ice princess is the one. However, several scholars disagree with me on this.
What he does make clear is this: the enemy will be foreign to his or her own land, the enemy will undergo some sort of disguise or illusion or some kind of transformation, hiding who they truly are inside, and the enemy will have a natural gift for magic.
There is also mention of dreams and visions, of the Namhaid or someone else. The passages he writes about the visions are quite unclear. Much of what Dagda says is unclear. He speaks of leaving the mortal lands for somewhere else, a home beyond the ley lines. It seems whatever he has encountered has affected him in a way that cannot be undone.
And that was it. The entire entry.
Reyna glanced up at her friends. “I’m not sure what to think of this.”
“Aye,” Rhain said with a grunt. “Neither am I. The god of Tir Na Nog sounds like a madman.”
“The Dagda is a Fomorian?” Thane asked in wonder from her side.
“Ah, right. You didn’t know that part yet, did you?” She let out a heavy sigh. “Dagda is not a god. He’s just a Fomorian who travelled here one day, through the portals. Like me, he spoke to the gods. Seelie and Unseelie. And he got a warning of something terrible that’s to come.”
Thane nodded, but he still looked lost. “But what does that mean for the Court of Death? Where do all the souls go when they die?”
“Sounds like they truly might go to the Court of Death,” Rhain said with a shrug. “Fomorians have a great deal of magic. If he went beyond the ley lines, like the writer thinks, then maybe he formed his own court for the dead.”
No matter that none of them even knew what a ley line was.
“Nothing about this says the ice princess is the Namhaid,” Reyna said, turning the conversation back onto the book. “In fact, it sounds like the writer doubts it. So, it could be that an ice princess is involved, but she’snotthe Namhaid.”
“It’s someone who’s foreign to her own land,” Thane said, leaning forward to peer down at the words. His brow crinkled, and then he shook his head, clearly unable to read them. “Are you foreign to your own land?”
“Kind of,” she whispered, meeting Rhain’s gaze across the table. “Fomorian. Right?”
Rhain nodded, pursing his lips. “But you haven’t gone through a transformation—”
“I pretended to be someone I’m not. I sneaked into the wood fae army, remember? I dyed my hair and everything. And I have a natural gift for magic.”
The pieces all fit into place. She could see how the Ruin had been so convinced that Reyna was the Namhaid. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking the worst. Lorcan was undergoing a transformation through the curse. He’d always been a stranger in his own land, having been raised inside the Air Court. And he had a natural gift for magic. She’d seen his shadows with her own eyes, had felt them curling across her skin.
“He can’t be the Namhaid,” she whispered to herself, too low for anyone else to hear her. Because if he was, the curse would never be undone. He’d destroy them all. And Reyna didn’t know if she had it within herself to stop him.
21
Lorcan
The stars were reflected in Reyna’s silver eyes. Her long, flowing hair cascaded around her shoulders, dipping between her plump, perky breasts. He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life. Even the stars themselves were but a dim version of the light he saw within her.
He slid his hand along the curve of her hips, relishing in every single inch of her. She straddled him and angled her body toward his shaft. When he plunged inside of her, she tipped back her head and let out the most delicious moan in the world.
They came together beneath the clear night sky with the stars shining down upon them. He was hers, and she was his, and nothing could tear them apart. They’d proven it time and time again. No war, no magic, not even the gods themselves could keep them from being together. He would fight Unseelie himself just to have her in his arms forever.
Her slick walls sent shudders of delicious pleasure through his body. He came undone, grasping onto her hips as he emptied himself inside of her. She cried out as her own pleasure reached its climax. Shuddering, she lowered herself to his chest and rested her breasts against his pounding heart.
“I will never tire of that,” she whispered. “I will want you for the rest of my life, for as long as you will have me.”
