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“Magic can do that? Drive you crazy?”
“Oh yes, my dear. Magic wants to be used. It wants to be loved. It wants to be adored and venerated for all its might. A Fae who eschews their very nature as a child of magic is cursed to lunacy. Many of the residents of the Tears are Fae who turned their backs on magic and tried to live their lives without it. It built up within them and exploded in violence, mania, and destruction. There is a reason even the lowest of the Fae of this realm wind the threads of it into their everyday lives despite being out in the wilds and at its whims. Even the Fae courtiers would rather bleed themselves dry on frippery and vanity than risk not using it even in its current state.”
“Magic really is fucked up, isn’t it?”
He gave another casual roll of his shoulders. “The ice of a blizzard will kill you if you ignore it. Is the blizzard evil? Or is the blizzard merely another force, a fact of life, that you must account for in your daily life? Magic is no different. It is merely more than the blizzard itself. Magic is, and always will be, the throbbing heart of Magh Meall. To ignore it would be the ultimate folly. So yes, it could indeed drive you to hear voices if it felt ignored.”
“You said it could be many things. That’s two. Two is not many.”
“Clever girl.” He winked condescendingly.
“Dick.”
“It could be one other thing. Or it could be nothing at all.” He guided me to the edge of the way meadow and pointed out across the distant lake in the general direction of the magic storm that watched me, “Tell me, my Pearl, what do you see? Anything of note?”
“You mean aside from the lake, meadows, forests, magic storm, and that giant bare patch on the opposite side of the lake?”
He scowled. “You see a magic storm? Where?”
I took his outstretched hand and guided it to point directly at the leering storm. “About there. Just over the bare patch. Don’t you see it?”
“My lady Pearl, all I see from here to the horizon is the abundance of nature. I do not even see the bare patch you are describing, let alone a magic storm.” He lowered his arm and sighed. “The voice was probably the keeper of these lands. They’ve been buried beneath its soil since long before the House of Magic came to prominence. I would hazard you being able to see the magic storm, a magic wound left bleeding after the war, and the bare patch beneath it where I believe the House of Magic once stood, is because you are its heir. I would guess it is revealing itself to you, its one true hope for being restored.”
“But it’s . . . just land?”
“You’ve been in Magh Meall long enough to know that nothing is just what you think it is. Everything is more than it appears. I am more. You are more. These trees, these flowers, that lake. It is all more than it appears to be. When you are the resident of a land so steeped in the chaos and capriciousness of a force like magic, everything sucks it up like a sponge and reaches for the possible with much stronger hands.” My eyes drifted back to the unblinking eye of the storm as he spoke. “This land, of all kingdoms, is far more than just land. It is the womb, the birthplace, the residence, and the grave of magic itself. From these lands, magic flows out into the others. It makes perfect sense that it would hold secrets that only the heir would be privy to.”
He turned his attention back to the general area where I had pointed out, even if he was slightly off. “Tell me, Banfhlaith, do you see anything of note aside from that? Especially large rocks, trees, animals, or anything else?”
He emphasized trees just slightly, just enough to make it suspicious. But what was there to be cautious about with a tree? “No, but there are a lot of different types of trees across the lake near the scar. I don’t know what they all are, but there are a lot of different kinds.”
A gentle, wistful, almost hopeful smile curled up at his lips. “I had hoped so. We will ride out tomorrow afternoon.”
He turned to leave me, and I took a deep breath. I had been practicing this speech in my head and what came next since we crested the Old Teeth.
“Iron Thorn.”
“My lady?”
I turned to him. “I’ll be going alone.”
“To bed? Yes, I assumed so, given our conversation. It is no imposition, my lady. I’ll have your clothes brought to you like always.”
“No. To the House of Magic. To the scar.”
He scoffed. “Not likely, my lady.”
“I mean it, Iron Thorn. I’m going alone.”
“You imagine I will allow you to mount a horse, one you can barely even stay on top of, I might add, with supplies to head into a land steeped in deep power, all alone, to face whatever has taken up residence since the Fae fled and left it to its own whims?”
“Allow me? You’re not allowing me to do anything. I’m doing it.”
“Mmm, yes, too much head trauma.”
“I mean it, Iron Thorn, I’m going alone.”
He cast a glance around and then came as close as he possibly could. “Assuming that I would have lost all sense of myself, my morals, and abandoned all hope of having anything left of care for you is the only way you would truly consider that something I would do. No, my lady Pearl. I will go with you. Even if you leave the rest behind to the safety of my men, I am going with you. I will not allow harm to come to you.”
