Tuathal strode beside her, long strides eating up the distance effortlessly.
“Come, Claire!” he encouraged.
Claire scowled at him and jogged to keep up.
“Where are we going now?”
He glanced at her and slowed his pace a little, offering her his arm in a gallant gesture. “Time is running short,” he murmured.
“Time for what?” Claire’s fingers gripped his arm, the lean muscles tight beneath her fingertips, and the contact sent electric desire through her. He placed his other hand lightly over hers for an instant, the touch as fleeting as the kiss of a butterfly wing, then drew back.
“I live by your command. You have all the evidence you need!” His voice cracked, and he did not look at her.
I live by your command.
She stared at his profile.
I live by your command.
She had wished he would have the strength to fight the barghest, and he did.
She had wished he would wake, and he did.
“What have you done?” she breathed.
His nostrils flared, but he said nothing. His lips pressed into a white line.
“I wished you would save me and you did.” Her voice sounded strangely flat.
“No. You wished I would have the strength to save you.”
She swallowed. “And then you chose to save me, didn’t you?”
“I did.” His arm tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Does that mean I have power over you?” Her voice rose, fear and anger crowding each other for prominence. “I don’t want it! I didn’t mean to take it!”
He stopped abruptly, his eyes sharp on her face. “You still don’t understand,” he breathed. “You did not take power. It was entrusted to you!”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
His lips twitched, as if he wanted to explain everything but could not. Perhaps the rules of Faerie prevented it, or perhaps it was only his pride.
“I gave it to you,” he said finally.
“Why?” Her voice cracked, and she pulled away from him.
He took a deep breath and let it out softly. “Come,” he murmured. “Whatever argument you have with me, let us walk as we speak.” He offered her his arm again, inclining his head graciously toward her.
She hesitated, and he waited, motionless and silent, his lightning eyes strangely dull. His lips tightened, and he swallowed, but he still waited as the seconds drew out, as a thousand contradictory thoughts and emotions swirled through her head.
Finally she slipped her trembling fingers into the crook of his arm, and he closed his eyes.
“Come away with me, oh human child,” he murmured.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
He glanced at her, his steps quickening. “Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild, with a fairy, hand in hand…” His voice tightened.
At her questioning look, he added softly, “For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”
“Weeping for what?” A terrible fear crept through her limbs, as if something dreadful were about to happen that she could neither understand nor prevent, but would suffer anyway. “What is going to happen?”
He looked down to meet her eyes with a melancholy smile. “Nothing that concerns you.” He raised a hand to cup her cheek, his thumb grazing softly over her cheekbone. “I’d thought… I’d hoped things would end differently. But there is not enough time.”
“What do you mean ‘end’?” Her heart thudded raggedly.
The fading sunlight caught his long lashes, pale as moonlight, and the sharp edge of his jaw, the faint lines of strain around his eyes. “When you wake, tell Lord Faolan, whom you know as Feighlí, that I thank him for his service. He is both wise and good, and I could not have wished for a better friend.” His eyes swept over her face. “Tell him also that there is not enough time for what we had hoped, and he must send you back. I would do so from here, but I need all the power I have, and more, for the fight. Faolan can use the mirror in my study to send you; it will make it much easier. After sending you back, he is to come here with all who can fight, and send all who cannot to a safe place. Not the palace; he will know the place I mean.” He licked his lips and hesitated, then lightly pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I thank you, Claire Maeve Delaney, for all that you have done, and all that you have suffered on my behalf. You are, indeed, a hero.” His lips trembled, and he clenched his jaw.
He raised one hand to cup her cheek again, then brushed his fingers gently over her eyelids as he said, “Now you must wake up.”
Claire blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she was facing the grand front entrance of a magnificent palace. An expansive set of marble steps rose before her, leading to a wide portico lush with vines dripping with fuchsia blooms.
The marble was smooth beneath the soles of her feet, lightly worn with age but spotlessly clean. The door, when she reached the top, was of dark, heavy wood inlaid with what appeared to be gold. The pattern was floral and elegant, rising in bright, intricate symmetry far over her head; the door must have been fifteen feet tall.
The king was gone.
Claire turned slowly on her heel, replaying the dream in her mind as she looked over the palace grounds. Intricate arrangements of flowers and little pools of water spread out before her within a network of interconnected paths. It was the palace, but not the door she had exited long days before.
Walking with him had been a dream, hadn’t it? It must have been.
Yet misgiving twisted inside her. If it were a dream, how had she come here?
Claire knocked tentatively, unsure whether anyone would answer.
A moment later, a little peephole opened a little lower than her chin. She bent to look in, but the door swung open before she had a chance to see more than a sharp brown eye.
“Oh. It’s you.” The voice that greeted her was flat and a little unfriendly. The creature looked to be an imp like Faolan, though quite a bit younger. “Wait there.” He pointed to a spot on the floor just inside the door and swung the door closed behind her.
Then he disappeared through a hidden door.
Claire waited with her hands in her pockets. Her right pocket was filled with the gritty, dry crumbs of the scone, and she rubbed them between her finger and thumb. She felt slightly dizzy with hunger, but she imagined that if food were offered, she would probably be too nauseated to eat anyway.
Why am I here? How did I get here?
He was saying goodbye.
But if I’m here, then where is he?
Probably back at the riverbank. He can’t fight the Unseelie. Even if he has his magic back, and his mind back, he couldn’t fight the Unseelie when he was well. He can barely stand up!
I haven’t come all this way, and endured everything, to give up now.
“You didn’t find him?” Faolan stood in front of her, his expression bleak.
“I did.” Her voice sounded strange and distant. Her pulse thundered in her ears. “He said I was to tell you…” She blinked, and considered the words. “I was to tell you thank you for your service. That you’re wise and good and he couldn’t have wished for a better friend. And…”
Tell Faolan to send you back.
But… what about him?
Tell him to send you back.
And what next?
It’s not about being the hero. It’s about doing the right thing.
Can I leave him there to die while Faolan sends me back to safety?
“I need to go back,” she said. “He’s at the riverbank with the naiads. They’re fighting, and—” her voice cracked, “—and I should be there. I don’t know what to do, but I should be there. He wants you to come and bring all those who can fight and send everyone else away from the palace to somewhere safe. It won’t be here. Take me there with you!”
Faolan’s eyes glittered strangely. “You’ll not leave him, then?” he asked “Perhaps you’ve learned something after all.”
Claire’s throat closed with emotion. “Maybe I’ve just grown up.”
All manner of Fae rode toward the river in a bright and glittering cavalcade.
She rode at the front with Faolan, sitting nervously on a tall bay horse that entirely too intelligent and cooperative to be entirely animal.
“Don’t worry. He’ll behave for you,” Faolan had said when a tall Fae had effortlessly boosted her into the saddle. “He understands our purpose.”
At first she was cheered by the noisy strength of the army behind her. But when she looked back a few minutes later, she realized she had overestimated their numbers. Only a tiny force rode out to Tuathal’s aid. They were no more than three hundred, including tiny fairies that buzzed furiously above their heads.
I wish I could see the little green fairy. I hope he got better.
Guilt sat dull and heavy in her belly, and she focused on it, feeling that if she understood and regretted it enough, it was almost like making amends.
But it’s not really, is it? I can’t make it better. I can’t take it back.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she did not let them fall.
A buzz beside her ear did not at first catch her attention. Then a little voice cried, “Oh, it’s you!”
The fairy danced in the air before her, keeping pace with her horse, his wings a blur behind him.
“You’re alive!” she cried. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
“Are you?” he glared at her fiercely. He darted forward to stab her cheek with his tiny sword, and then flitted out of reach.
She winced and frowned at him. “That’s not very nice, but I suppose I deserved it.”
“And this too?” His needle-like sword jabbed her just below her eyebrow, drawing a startled cry and a drop of blood that she smeared over her temple when she wiped at it.
She growled in frustration. “Yes! Fine. I do. I won’t lose my temper again.” She frowned at him. “I’m sorry. I really and truly am. I wish I could make it up to you, but I don’t know how.”
His frantic buzzing slowed a little. “You’re not angry?” The fairy drew a little closer, hovering within her reach.
“Not really. Maybe a little. Mostly I’m just glad you’re all right.”
His eyes widened. “You’re different.”
“I certainly hope I am.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back, tiny teeth white in the sun and emerald eyes shining.
As they continued, the road seemed to fold strangely ahead of them, and Claire had the disconcerting feeling that she was missing moments every now and then, like the micro-sleeps she had experienced when she was driving home from college exhausted after finals.
“What’s happening?” she asked finally.
“We’re taking shortcuts,” the fairy said a few inches from her ear. “The border is many miles distant, and we must travel with all haste.”
Claire frowned. “Even the king couldn’t transport us before. How can you now?”
“That was on Unseelie land. These ways have been established for generations, upheld by Fae magic.”
“How do you know where the king is?”
“I wouldn’t, but the pull of the Unseelie upon the border can be felt throughout the entire kingdom. Like a spider’s web pulled taut, we feel the disturbance even at the palace, we who have magic in our blood. You may not yet, but to us it is obvious where the king is.” He glanced at her, tiny eyes bright and ferocious. “Even without his full strength, he is formidable.”
Faolan said in a low voice, “And just as we are his subjects, he is our king. We will spend our lives to save him if at all possible.”
“Do you love him that much?”
Faolan turned toward her, his mouth open in surprise. “Love, duty, allegiance, pride… why do you seek to parse these out into discrete motivations? Are they not entwined together for humans?” He frowned at her confusion, and said doubtfully, “Love is one of many ties that bind us, some more deeply than others. But duty and allegiance bind us all, and he has borne the weight of the conflict for long years to protect us. If we can help him now, we will.”
The world folded into itself again, and then snapped back out into reality. By chance Claire had kept her eyes open for the transition, but it felt as though she had merely blinked, a flicker of darkness and light within which the world rearranged itself.
And again.
Then the river thrashed before them, the water seeming as tall as a tree, tinted silver and blue and gold with reflected sunlight.
Claire walked into the water, and it swallowed her.