Magnificent.He sees me. Always has and to him? I’m magnificent.
I reach for the barrier. The salt circle that’s kept me trapped, protected, contained. My fingers touch the invisible wall?—
And it shatters.
Not because I broke it. Because I don’t need it anymore.
The glamour was survival magic. And I’m not just surviving anymore.
The goddesses appear in the kitchen doorway. Morrigan’s silver eyes go wide. Badb actually gasps. Macha says something in Old Fae that sounds like a prayer or a curse. Hard to tell with her.
“Well,” Morrigan breathes. “There you are.”
I stand. Taller now. Steadier. The thorns pulse beneath my skin, ivy patterns catching the light, and I feel?—
I feel like myself.
For the first time in my entire life, I feel like myself.
Turns out she was in there all along. Just waiting for permission to exist.
“Ash.” Kieran’s on his feet, reaching for me, and when his cold hand finds my waist I don’t flinch. Don’t pull away. Just lean into him and let myself be held by someone who sees exactly what I am.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “I’m actually okay.”
Orion joins us. His heat at my back, his arms wrapping around both of us, and for one perfect moment everything is still. Everything is right.
Then the war horn sounds.
The noise cuts through the tavern like a blade. Deep, resonant, ancient. The kind of sound that lives in your bones and demands attention.
The front door slams open.
Dagda fills the frame, his massive form blocking the light. His face holds something I’ve never seen on the jovial god before.
Fury.
“We’re under attack.”
41
Ash
The attack comesfrom the south. Through the dark cover of trees and the endless purple twilight.
Luckily I get a whole five minutes to actually put clothes on. If you could even call that luck.
I feel them before I see them. A wrongness in the air, a pressure against my newly awakened senses. The thorns beneath the surface of my skin pulse oddly, vibrating in a warning.
“How many?” Kieran is already moving, shadows pooling at his feet.
Dagda closes his eyes and I swear his ears twitch as he listens.
“Thirty. Maybe forty.” He shakes his head. “Mixed forces. Seelie, Unseelie, exiles. And...” He frowns. “Humans.”
Humans.No. Impossible.
But is it? Is it impossible? After everything I’ve witnessed. After everything I’ve felt and I’ve watched. Is it impossible?
