Page 93

He looks down at what he’s made, like the sight of it hurts. His fingers curl, slow, reluctant, and the paired forms falter, as if they feel the change in him. With a soft twist of his wrists, he closes his hands.

The smoke collapses into his palms and is gone. He grabs his cup once more, busying his hands.

“And when she chose sacrifice,” he says quietly, “it was not a choice he agreed with. By the time he learned what she meant to do, he ran to stop her, but by the time he reached the hill, her decision was already beyond stopping. He begged her to stay with tears in his eyes, but she told him she needed to do this, and that he needed to guide our people to safety. She promised that all would thrive, in truth, because of their bond. Then, her spirit dissolved into pure energy right before his eyes.”

His voice roughens, almost imperceptibly.

“He remained where he knelt,” Mannie continues, “hands pressed to the earth that had taken her, as if the ground might give her back if he pleaded hard enough. His golden armour—bright as dawn in every tale—went dull with grief.”

Mannie’s fingers tighten once around the edge of his cup.

“When he could finally stand, he did not leave her body there to the mercy of time.”

He looks up then, eyes sharpening.

“He lifted her—lifeless, and yet still radiant—and carried her himself to a sacred tomb he created deep within the hills of Brú na Bóinne. He laid her inside an obsidian coffin as gently as if she were only sleeping, and he wove magic into the place to keep all out, so that no force—mortal or divine—could ever disturb her rest. Only what was invited could pass the walls.”

Mannie’s mouth presses thin, as if even he dislikes what comes next.

“After leading our people to the Otherworld… no one truly knows what became of him.”

He glances around the table, letting each of us feel the weight of the uncertainty.

“Some say he vanished into the mists, because what is a sun without the land it warms? Others claim he walked the edges of Ireland in silence, guarding what remained because he had nothing else left to do.”

Mannie reaches down beside his chair. When he straightens, there’s an item in his hands.

He sets it on the table between us.

“I did not know this existed.” For the first time since he stepped into our home, there’s no composure to him. Something that looks almost like pained sorrow mars his features now.

“Not until yesterday.”

The item is no larger than your average sized book, yet it sits on the table with the presence of a standing stone. Bronze, if I’m not mistaken. Old enough that the metal has gone dark, dulled to the colour of deep peat.

Twine is wound around it in tight, uneven bands, not decorative but desperate, as though whoever last held it was trying to keep it from coming apart. Because it has.

A crack runs straight through the centre—clean and unmistakable—splitting it in two like a fault line through bedrock.

Mannie’s fingers drum against the casing.

“The existence of this item reveals two more truths kept from even me.”

He exhales.

“When Ériu met Amergin on Uisneach… she did not only yield the land.” His gaze lifts briefly, then returns to the relic. “She whispered something to him. Not meant for anyone else to hear.”

His thumb traces the seam of the fracture. Then, carefully, he loosens the twine. It falls away in coarse strands. He pries the bronze casing apart along the split.

Inside rests a stone dark as deep water.

It drinks the light rather than reflecting it. Along the plane run faint grooves—straight lines and angled marks carved with patience rather than haste.

Alex leans to inspect further. “You’re telling me that sat somewhere for four thousand years and didn’t just… crumble?”

He has gone noticeably pale over the course of the telling, as if the story has been carving colour out of him from the inside. Even his sarcasm arrives half a beat late now.

Mannie’s mouth tilts faintly.