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My gaze shifts to her, drawn by the quiet strength in her voice—light, lilting, like something carried on the wind.

“We know what you have lost far more deeply than you may ever understand. But there is more at stake than grief or vengeance. This land—the very essence of you—depends on your strength to endure. Without you, the delicate balance we have fought to preserve for millennia will crumble.”

I glare at her. “Don’t talk to me about balance. When the people I love are dead because of this cursed stone and the lies that led us to Tara.” My voice cracks, but I don’t care. “Why should I trust you?”

Callan’s presence grounds me. I catch the way his hand hovers near the hilt of his sword, his muscles taut with tension. “Aye,” he growls. “Why should she? Much of what we’ve seen since leavin’ home is betrayal and bloodshed. Tell me why this isnae just more of the same.”

Mannie’s gaze flicks to Callan, his smirk returning, but it’s more subdued this time—less mocking, more measured. “You do not trust us. Fair enough.” His tone is calm, almost resigned. “But the rifts growing in this land will not wait for your grief to settle or your rage to burn out. Every moment you delay allows chaos to creep closer. Do you truly believe Finn would have wanted you to stop here, to falter now?”

“Don’t,” I hiss, my voice low and venomous. “Don’t you dare speak his name. Don’t use him to make a point.”

Mannie nods slowly, as though he expected my reaction. “Perhaps it feels right to hate me for what has happened. For what it cost you to reach this point, but hate changes nothing, Little One. The task before you remains, as it has for ages untold.”

My fists unclench, though I’m still trembling. The words hit something deep inside me, something I can’t name or ignore. “If I’m so important,” I murmur, “why didn’t you come sooner? Why didn’t you stop this before it all fell apart?”

Rhiannon speaks at last, her voice calm and unflinching. “Even gods walk within boundaries laid by hands older than time. Mortal lives are threads we cannot untangle, not until the bindings fray and fall. It was you, Ériu, who severed the cords that bound you to silence. Only then could we come.”

“Who was strong enough to keep people out for over four thousand years? Who could put up all those barriers?” I ask.

“Who but Lugh, son of the sun, could weave such barriers? He, whose strength outmatched even the tides and winds, locked you away where no shadow could reach. But what became of him, none can say. Since that day, his light has not graced the earth, and the echoes of his steps have fallen silent.”

A sudden, jagged ache lances through me at her words. My breath hitches, stolen by a weight I can’t name—a memory not yet whole. Finn’s face flares in my mind, bright and aching. Rhiannon’s voice echoes behind it, the sound curving like a blade through everything I thought I understood.

“You called him… you called Finn ‘child of the sun,’” I whisper, my voice raw, the phrase striking something deep in my chest like a memory flaring to life. A flash of warmth, a golden field, laughter that felt older than time—gone in a blink, but the ache it leaves behind is sharp and sudden. “When you came to me at the tavern, you said that. Why did you call him that?”

Rhiannon tilts her head, her expression unreadable. “It is a title passed down through many lifetimes. Finn was blessed with a strength that bends the world without breaking it—and carries knowledge born of more than one life.”

Callan speaks quietly beside me. “He always felt like an old soul,” he says, a touch of fondness in his voice.

I glance at him. He reaches for my hand and grips it firmly. There’s a silent question in his eyes.

Slowly, I nod. “I feel the truth in their words,” I murmur, voice hoarse. “I wish I could explain how I know it—how I can feel it in my bones…”

Callan squeezes my hand, cutting me off before I can spiral further. I look up, startled by the intensity in his eyes.

His voice softens, but his grip doesn’t. “Where ye go, I go.”

I take a shaky breath, then look at Mannie.

“If this is a trap… if you’re lying to me…”

Mannie lifts his hands in mock surrender. “There is no trap set to fool you. But if I lie,” he adds, his gaze sharpening, “you shall certainly have the power to make me regret it.”

The corner of my mouth twitches—a fleeting, bitter smile. “You can count on it. If you need me as badly as you’re suggesting you do, I won’t hesitate.”

I glance between Mannie, Dana, and Rhiannon, their expressions unreadable but unrelenting.

“I ask again…where are you urging me to follow you to?”

The wind rises, lashing my hair across my face—but I don’t flinch.

Mannie’s smirk fades into something quieter. His gaze locks with mine, heavy with meaning, and something in it twists deep in my gut.

He glances once at Dana. Then at Rhiannon. Wordless understanding passes between them before he finally speaks.

“To the edge of Tír na nÓg,” he says. “To the stronghold where it began… and where it must end.”

Mannie’s gaze turns thoughtful, and he lowers into a crouch before me. His voice drops to a near whisper. “Little One,” he murmurs, “I forget how much you truly missed—how much time has passed between lives.”