Page 7 of Of Shadows & Ash (Land of Shadows #1)

Chapter Six

NIALL O’LEARY

“Mortals graced with eternity totems are bound to serve as our eyes among their kind. Faithfulness is an oath—betrayal, an undoing.”

Wraithwind Accords, Article IV

I don’t want to be here. Bitterness twists in my chest, the byproduct of the autopsy of a parental relationship long since decayed. This morning’s magic duel in the throne room with my king still hums beneath my skin, an electric itch I can’t quite shake. He used my love for Maelíosa like a blade. I’ll be damned if I let him carve me up with it.

My breaths come sharp and shallow because the visions are stronger on this cursed island. I press my back against the cottage wall, forcing myself to steady the ragged rhythm. I don’t want to be in the Ironlands, but what I want doesn’t matter anymore.

I’m not going to ceangal because he demands it, thinking he can twist my life to suit his grand plans. No. I’ll save Maelíosa on my terms. I’ll find the first mortal that catches my eye, drag her through the Veil, and transfer the Gloaming mark. A stranger for my sister’s freedom. It’s ugly and cruel, but it’s the only way. And if it spits in my father’s face in the process? All the better.

Too much of our magic and history has been lost since the Book of Shadows disappeared. If we truly understood where Gloaming marks came from, maybe we could remove them without hurting anyone—but we don’t. Father’s half-baked idea to form a deal with Madden might be our only opening. That, or at least earn a private audience so I can slit his throat myself.

The Veil is thinning, magic stretching too thin to hold it together. But first, I’ll deal with the mark. A winsome human to appeal to Madden and shoulder my sister’s burden. Even as the thought solidifies, draíocht stirs under my skin. Its power makes my sigils burn. The magic in my veins twists like a serpentine, coiling with a hunger I don’t yet understand.

But if I ceangal ? I’ll be Madden’s next target. Letting Maelíosa slip free would make me the new leash he can jerk at will, a weakness he can exploit the moment I try to dismantle the Gloam.

Fuck . I close my eyes. Another vision presses hard, fragments of someone else’s life bleeding into mine. I shove it down, but it slithers back. I steady myself, leaning into the wall for support.

The Meadowsweet stalk tastes bitter on my tongue. All I care about is her . Beautiful wild land stretches ahead of me but I only see her . She’s somewhere else, and there’s this pull, this impossible, magic-saturated heaviness in my chest, dragging me toward her.

Her dark hair lifts in a breeze I can’t feel. Lavender eyes—impossible and otherworldly, meeting mine through the haze of the vision. They shouldn’t feel familiar, but they do, like they’ve been carved into the edges of my soul long before I ever saw them. I’m in love with her—if this intense connection could be called something as trite as love—which is absurd because I don’t even know her. I’m far too old for such indulgences and as Father helpfully pointed out, unable to entertain that kind of relation. Yet, the hollowness in my heart disagrees. It feels like she’s siphoning my magic, leaving nothing but this dull, empty ache.

I can’t shake the vision. Her face is blurred, like peering through murky water. I can’t make out many details, but those lavender eyes hold me as if they know me. She’s brushing her hair, her brow furrowed, frowning at her reflection as though it’s a stranger looking back.

Her hand stops. Her eyes lift, locking on mine as if she sees me, too. And for a second, the surface ripples, like I could step through, reach right out?—

“Niall.” A hand clamps around my arm.

I blink. The vision fades like smoke, replaced by Caitlin’s face. She jerks her fingers free but doesn’t look away.

“Settling in alright, then?” Caitlin asks, calm and polite, but her sharp gaze doesn’t miss a thing. “I thought I’d see if you needed anything before I head to my shift at the pub,” she adds, nodding toward the village path. She’s plain, and twice as stubborn than her aunt, but she comes from a line that knows its place. As long as she does her job, she’ll be rewarded. Anything more? Not my problem.

I spit out the Meadowsweet, its taste suddenly gone stale. “Still following the Court’s orders like a good little servant?”

My stallion stirs. Don’t trust her, he mutters.

She raises an eyebrow. “Takes one to know one, doesn’t it?”

I give her a slow grin, hiding how she hit too close to home. I may be here on my father’s orders, but I don’t owe her an explanation. “I’ve got my own reasons, but they don’t involve cleaning up after anyone.”

Caitlin huffs a laugh like she knows something I don’t. Then she turns and heads down the path without another word.

My lips press into a hard line. She’s stuck here because of a twisted family legacy, bound to the court by a contract keeping her years ticking along well past due. Fae magic. Glyphanna beo agus totemanna , granted for loyalty, allowing extended life for mortals that serve us. A life dragged out longer than it should be, a duty she didn’t ask for, full of secrets I’ll never pry loose.

Her footsteps fade. My stallion huffs again. She’s trouble, he grumbles, and I find myself chewing over his reservations longer than I’d like.

With a grunt, I push open the cottage door. Peat and old wood wrap around me. I step inside, shutting out the wind, the visions, and whatever Caitlin is scheming. But that same image flickers behind my eyes, a flash of dark hair and eyes that hold shadows as deep as the night.

Tomas sits as solidly as a mountain next to the fire. I stretch out on the rug in front of the fireplace. Crackling flames settle over me, but don’t soothe my vexation. All I see are those lavender eyes brimming with something too complicated to name. Returning to the island feels like stepping into a trap rather than a homecoming. Avoiding this place was intentional, a choice I’d stuck to—until now. Bonding with a human? I never wanted to risk the curse or bring pain to a mortal. She’s dragging me back to a world I swore I’d left behind, one I’d buried, but those haunting eyes won’t fucking let me go. A place where fear runs deep and hate poisons everything. I can feel its ache like an old wound that never healed. And yet…

Do you think you can change the world? my stallion intrudes. Stop the universe in its tracks? It’s all they know.

I ignore him, mostly because he’s probably right. The older fae—like my father—are too damn set in their ways to believe the Ironlands can change. Centuries of pain and bloodshed don’t open people to the idea of progress. And sometimes, I’m afraid he’s right. Fear doesn’t solve anything, so I’ll shove my beast aside and throw on a mask before we head into Kilronan. A cocky grin, a bit of irreverence, and enough sarcasm to keep everyone guessing. It’s easier than answering questions from mortals, especially with the curse muttering promises of doom and ruin. Every choice will tear me apart, but nothing like a little annihilation cataclysm for motivation.

Great pep talk.

This island is one of our last connections to the Ironlands. It’s a bridge built on old, forgotten truces. Caretakers live longer than they should, guarding the bones of that bridge as if that’ll stop it from crumbling. Every time I come here, I’m reminded that immortality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Infinite rules and duty don’t inspire swells of gratitude.

I keep my eyes shut, but I can feel Tomas staring, probably cataloguing every one of my flaws for later use. He’s seen me at my worst and fought beside me through hell and back. He hasn’t blinked once at any of the horror along the way. Part of me thinks he deserves to know about the prophecy, Aisling’s warning, and all the bad shit that’ll affect everyone’s lives. But my throat remains tight. Each time I try, the enormity of inescapable fate squeezes the air out of any truth I might give him, so, I let the silence stretch between us.

Tomas is still staring. Bastard. It’s not a ‘grab your weapons, let’s go kill something’ stare. No, it’s a ‘spill your soul, and I’ll bring the tissues’ kind of stare. Fuck that.

I’d rather face down a Gnáthmharfóirí , one of those hollow-eyed creatures with teeth like broken glass and skin that shifts to look like people until they get close enough to strike. They blend in, mimicking human gestures until they decide to tear you apart. They slip through like shadows, driving fear and despair wherever they go. They’re smart enough to leverage the Sluagh, bending them like pawns in a game none of us want to play, or so the stories go.

At least with a Gnáthmharfóirí , you know where you stand—squarely on the menu. My stomach growls.

“Going to keep me in suspense,” I ask, finally, because the anticipation is gnawing on me, “or are you waiting for divine inspiration to say whatever’s got you fixated on me?”

“It’s been a long time since we were here,” he muses. “Back when I was still navigating bachelorhood.”

I crack one eye open, squinting at him. “So the grand plan is to hound me into matrimonial bliss, is it? Because there’s nothing quite like being pestered into lifelong submission.”

“Mock if you want, but I was once as sceptical as you.” A faint smile creeps over Tomas’s face. “Then I met my bond. It was like breathing for the first time.”

My stallion, who I swear exists purely to torment me, releases a mental snort. More like wrapping a noose around our neck, let’s be honest.

“Breathing is overrated,” I mutter, staring into the fire. “Especially if it involves hitching yourself to another soul with a connection that…” Will set a curse in motion that ends two worlds . I exhale sharply. “…feels like an iron chain.”

“Chains, eh?” Tomas raises an eyebrow. “More like a tether. And before you go on about how fae are better off untethered, most of us wouldn’t last two centuries alone. The years get to you. Always have. And don’t forget about the Decline.”

He’s not wrong about the Aithreach Decline . That rot started long before my father took the throne, and it’s on us. Our own damn doing. We chose isolation—we tore ourselves from the Ironlands, from mortals—and now we’re paying the price.

The Decline creeps in, subtle and insidious. First, it’s the magic—misfiring spells, dimmed auras, the kind of weakness that gets under your skin and stays there. Then it’s the land—its magic faltering, losing its colour and vibrancy as if it, too, feels the absence of humans. And eventually, it’s us. Generations born with thinner veins of power and a growing emptiness that eats away at what made us fae in the first place.

But how could we not isolate? After the cages, after the camps? After they drained our magic, siphoning it from our veins like we were nothing more than vessels to be emptied? They experimented on us, dissected us, and broke us just to see what made us tick. They feared us, and that fear turned into cruelty. So we made them forget. We ripped ourselves from their world and sealed the Veil shut.

And now we’re dying for it.

Lowering the Veil is a fool’s dream. We remember the cages too well to ever make that mistake twice. And Father, the truly fucked part, doesn’t see beyond his own shadow. He’s so preoccupied with manipulating my sister and me into bonding for the sake of the court, he’s blind to the Veil tearing at the seams.If we snap the Gloaming with desperate spells, we risk tearing it further. Then it won’t be just Maelíosa we lose, but everything.

I throw him a sidelong look. “I’d rather rot in the Crimson Court bastille.”

His scarred face catches the firelight in a way that makes the burned tissue look almost molten. “You say that now, but the ceangal is relentless. Like a starving wolf that’s caught your scent.”

A bitter laugh escapes my throat. “Always with the beast metaphors. The ceangal isn’t some mindless predator stalking the courts.”

Yet I feel its magic trying to sink its claws into my carefully constructed world, flooding my senses with visions that fracture my control. The sinful curve of her hip beneath my palm, dark hair spilling across silk sheets, the phantom taste of her skin on my tongue that promises addiction. My fingers flex involuntarily, imagining the sweet pressure of gripping her waist, claiming what the magic whispers is already mine. It’s a need that burns through my veins like liquid iron, sharper than bloodlust and twice as dangerous.

I inhale sharply, forcing myself to focus on the rough-hewn walls of the cottage, the firelight catching on Tomas’s scars, the bite of my nails into my palms—anything to ground myself in the here and now, not on the shadowy promise of someone I haven’t met, someone I definitely shouldn’t want with this consuming hunger that makes the ancient magic in my blood sing with dark possibilities.

Tomas snorts. “No, not for precious royal blood like yours. The ceangal doesn’t like to bother with your gilded cages and arranged alliances, all very neat and tidy.” He leans forward, and I inhale the scent of steel and woodsmoke that always clings to him. “But for the rest of us?” He shrugs. “The ceangal sometimes chooses for you.”

“Chooses?” I repeat, arching an eyebrow.

He gives me a look that screams, how are you this dense? I resist reminding him that I’m still his prince, scarred hands and battle wisdom be damned.

“Like fate’s own blade. It carves into your soul without permission or mercy. One moment you’re free, the next—” He snaps his fingers, the sound sharp as breaking bone. “—you’re bound to someone who turns your whole existence upside down.”

“Speaking from experience?” I croak, my voice rough like I’ve been gargling gravel or regret. “I can’t afford to let magic shape a bond that will be the foundation of our court. There has to be another way. What would you have me do?”

“Use your father’s ultimatum. Stop fighting it, maybe the magic will run its course. You might be shocked by its gifts. Or its price.” His lips twist into something between a smirk and a grimace. “And when it hits, trust me, you won’t see it coming.”

“Let’s hope it aims for someone else,” I mutter, trying to ignore the prickles sliding up my spine. Is the island listening to every damned word?

I draw in a slow breath, catching the faint tang of magic on the back of my tongue. A dark current, one that crackles with raw power and a hint of menace.

Tomas straightens. “What are you picking up?”

I hesitate. The connection with my stallion flares with warning. “There’s magic here. Old magic. And under it, something darker. Something…wrong.”

I’m halfway out the door with Tomas on my heels. His shadow merges with mine as we speed through the night. Magic in the Ironlands may be faint, its human kind twisted and corrupting, but these islands are alive, potent, brimming with inviting power so near to the Veil’s edge. But whatever is pulling me feels like a thousand-year-old heartbeat.

We’re close to Kilronan when something flickers at the edge of my vision. The magic in my veins turns arctic cold. Almost paralysing. A warning that something ancient and deadly has slipped through the Veil.

The creature moves between the trees like a liquid shadow, its grace too smooth, too calculated to be anything natural. Darkness pools around it, twisting and curling in its wake like it’s part of the damn thing.

It spreads its wings. They’re jagged and cruel, hook-tipped like shards of obsidian, spanning wider than any earthly bird. Predator. Every instinct I’ve honed over the years screams it, but nothing prepares me for the dread that slams into me like a punch to the chest.

It moves with impossible silence. When it glides overhead, its form cuts against the moon like a wound in the night sky. Its sharp angles and void-dark feathers seem to drink in what little light remains.

The copper tang of old blood and grave soil thickens in the air, choking out every breath, every thought. And underneath it, faint but indisputable, are the whispers. A chorus of the dead trails behind it, like the bastard’s got an audience from hell itself.

The Sluagh drops back into the canopy, gliding through branches like a nightmare out of tales told to me as a wee lad. I thought they were bedtime stories, creatures driven out of the Ironlands to the far reaches of the Otherworld. But one is flying like some ancient warning brought to life.

I tear after it, ignoring Tomas’s shout to stop. I don’t know what I’ll do when, or if, I catch it, only that something like this could sweep through a village in a matter of days, spreading fear and darkness. The Sluagh slides deeper into the shadows, vanishing as swiftly as it appeared, leaving lingering dread behind.

Magic dances over my skin as we slow our run into a walk at the edge of the village. Moving steadily along the road, I see him; a priest entering Tí Joe Watty’s. To anyone without magic, the man appears ordinary. To me, the air around him shimmers like it’s cloaked in something otherworldly. Sluagh can shift their forms, imitating mortals seamlessly, until you catch the wrong glint in their eyes or the unnatural way their shadows move. Or Sluagh can jack a human body, riding shotgun in their head until they’re nothing but a meat suit waiting to drop.

If Sluagh are nearby, you can bet the Gnáthmharfóirí aren’t far behind. They look normal enough—until you notice the dead, empty eyes that reflect nothing back. They’ve learned to play human better than humans do, climbing their way into power and spreading despair like it’s an art form.

You see them on the telly all the time—politicians smiling through their teeth as they spin lies, counter-protesters frothing at the mouth as they scream at peaceful marchers, police pulling the trigger on the innocent and calling it justice. Every move is calculated, every outrage another spark tossed onto the pyre, feeding the fear, the anger, the slow, creeping rot. Until one day, the Ironlands boil over, and the people beg for someone—anyone—to take control. And that’s when the Gnáthmharfóirí step in, all too happy to oblige, ready to rule from a throne of managed decline. Convenient, isn’t it?

They’re hard to kill, and the only thing keeping them in check is purity, kindness, and the Shadowborn. The last is in short supply these days. Seems Aisling’s stories weren’t for scaring us kids. They were warnings, and I’m starting to believe I’ve become a main character in one.

“ Gnáthmharfóirí ?” I murmur to Tomas, who falls into step beside me.

He nods. “You feel it?”

I nod. “Aye. Like a wire about to snap.”

The priest vanishes inside, leaving a thread of magic that practically dares us to follow. I glance at Tomas. “Fancy a pint?”

Tomas snorts. “Because we’ll look so inconspicuous, won’t we?”

With a muttered word, I cast a quick glamour to hide my pointed ears. Tomas follows, pulling his hat low, and together, we step inside. My senses are instantly overloaded. Smells, sounds, and conflicting energy war to dominate my attention.

“Focus,” Tomas murmurs, settling into a seat at the closest empty table. “We’re just two lads settling in to enjoy a pint.”

My chair’s legs scrape across the scarred floor, causing a few patrons to glance my way. I attempt to offer them a smile, but I doubt it looks genuine since I’m still battling to dampen the influx, agitating my senses. Settling onto the hard seat, my gaze aimlessly wanders across the crowded room, then freezes. It’s her. Holy fuck. She’s sitting beside a woman I can’t really see and across from the priest with a smile on her beautiful face. Two realities rub together; one where she belongs and the other where she absolutely doesn’t. The pub fades into nothing as I gape. A magnetic potency exudes from her, drawing me in and begging me to touch even though I know I’ll burn.

This connection isn’t as simple as attraction. It’s deeper, more profound. No time to brace for impact. The invisible rope wrapped around my chest knots in a way I’ll never untie. I swear it feels like I’ve known her for a lifetime. Which again, absurd if I said it out loud. I wish I knew to prepare to have my fucking world upended twice today. Seeing her—physically seeing her—outside of my visions…I can’t even describe it to myself. Every cell within me has a reaction ranging from elation to disbelief to life-altering terror.

Her gaze shifts to mine. I brace for the flash of lavender from my visions. But, no. Her eyes are now a dark grey. Why do they make her seem even more…risky?

I swallow, taking a slow, steady breath. Recognition thrums deep in my bones, and my stallion feels it, too. I clench my fists, pushing away the pain from the fingernail marks digging into my skin.

For a second, the thought strikes: maybe this isn’t my king’s punishment but something far worse— her . My stallion shifts, his usual lazy arrogance replaced with instinct that makes his muscles coil like springs about to snap. It’s a warning I can’t ignore, even as I try to deny the implications twisting in my gut. The truth burns like iron against fae skin. She could be the match that sets our whole world on fire. The first domino in a line that ends with our world in ruins.

Except magic doesn’t care about destruction or consequences. It pulses through me with dark, greedy promises of claiming her against rough stone walls and marking that delicate throat with my teeth, of letting the bond between us take everything—pride, reason, sanity—and grind it down to raw need. Politics, survival, none of it matters to the connection. It only craves completion, and gods help me. It’s starving.

Ceangal…

That single word reverberates with a power that reshapes everything. My stallion’s muscles bunch like he can taste its gravity. His mind screams against mine, desperate to remind me of the blood-soaked promise I made in the aftermath of Kaida and Vicious—a promise written in ash and bone and grief that I’ve spent forever trying to forget.

I shove the memory down, but my beast’s presence pushes forward, dragging some half-dead ember back to life. There’s nothing concrete in the sensation, just heat behind my ribs that burns like fire. It spreads through my chest with the inevitability of fate, refusing to fade no matter how hard I try to smother it with logic and duty and the thousand reasons I should turn back now.

How much longer can Maelíosa fight her Gloaming mark before she’s lost forever? How much of her has to die before the rest of us realise there’s no going back? If I fail, if this new ceangal to replace my sister shatters beneath Madden’s wrath, then our attempts to break the Gloaming could rip the Veil wide open. And Father still won’t see the bigger picture—he’ll expect me to fix it all, never mind the cost.

Another memory rises through my mental shields, foreign yet achingly familiar—like trying to catch starlight between my fingers. It’s hers , it has to be, this fragment of someone else’s soul bleeding into mine. The scent of wildflowers after a storm floods my senses, carrying with it feminine laughter that makes you remember why the ancient fae courts worshipped wicked things that danced beneath midnight moons. It might even make an immortal believe in gods and goddesses again, even after watching them turn their backs on us all.

And then it hits me, sharp and cold like a dagger pressed to my throat. The ceangal wasn’t some clever strategy to save my sister—it’s already formed. With her .

My stallion gives a little snort. Mocking me. Brilliant. But that word— ceangal —embeds itself in my thoughts like a splinter. I inhale, tasting magic and possibility on my tongue, and remind myself that we are the iron that holds the courts together. We’re the shadow that keeps the darkness at bay. Some bonds transcend the petty games of politics, duty, or even that dangerous thing called love. They’re the threads that stitch you back together when everything else has burned to ash. And they’ll find you, ruthless and inevitable as death, whether you’ve armoured your heart or not.

They don’t care about plans or bargains. I was going to drag back some unsuspecting mortal to transfer the Gloaming mark and take my sister’s place. Simple. Clean. But the joke is on me. The bond doesn’t just call me out. It sinks its claws into my soul, shreds my plans to ribbons, and leaves me with one truth. Her. She’s mine in ways I can’t ignore, can’t deny, no matter how hard I try. And now? Now I have to fight the bond’s pull, find another mortal to carry the mark…because this one? She’s untouchable. Off-limits. And gods help me, I’ll destroy anyone who tries to change that.

My tattoos buzz against my skin like angry wasps, the draíocht in my blood flaring hot. My stallion quiets. His earlier mockery is replaced by a bone-deep stillness that speaks of predators scenting something worse in the dark.

Shadows now kiss her skin, weaving themselves into her very being. They writhe and twist like living things, darker than the spaces between stars and hungry in a way that makes my power recoil.

Not human.

She can’t be. The truth of it hits like a blade between the ribs. Whatever she is, the ceangal has already chosen, leaving me no choice but to work out this wreck. I need to get close to her and figure out what it means. The stakes of failure remind me that being too late often means being dead—or worse.