Page 25

I strain against the current of Sorcha’s memories, fighting to resurface in my own mind. But the Cailleach’s volatile power drags me under, demanding submission, obedience. It crashes against my skull until her defences shatter.

And I step into her memory.

The air thickens with the scent of new growth and old decay, a cloying mix of fragrant spring blossoms and mouldering leaves that coats my tongue. It’s the smell of a world trapped in an endless cycle of endings and beginnings, where nothing ever truly dies.

Disoriented, I reach out to steady myself against a nearby tree, seeking an anchor in the rough solidity of bark. But my fingers pass right through, finding only empty air. An illusion, then. A moment plucked from time, its edges worn soft and hazy with age.

A shudder ripples through the scene, and suddenly Sorcha shimmers into existence beside me. I barely stifle my flinch at her sudden proximity.

She looks nothing like the cruel, imperious creature I’ve come to despise. Her once lustrous hair hangs lank and dull, her pallid skin stretched tight over blade-sharp cheekbones. In the thin light, her eyes glitter with a wild, feverish intensity.

Desperate. Stripped raw and bleeding.

“I can’t come with you.”

That voice. As familiar as my own heartbeat.

I whirl to see Lonnrach emerging from the trees. I brace for the onslaught of contempt and malice that defines my memories of him, ready to confront the male who once shattered my mind.

But as his features resolve in the moonlight, I’m brought up short.

The haughty lines of his aristocratic face are the same, but the startling vulnerability in his eyes gives me pause.

The vicious cruelty I’m so accustomed to is conspicuously absent, replaced by something far more unsettling: concern. Tenderness, even.

The realisation barrels into me, knocking the breath from my lungs. This is Lonnrach and Sorcha before everything went to hell—before feuds razed kingdoms to ash and dust, before they carved their hatred into my bones.

Back when there was still something soft left in them to break.

Sorcha’s mocking laughter rings out. “Don’t tell me the mighty Lonnrach is frightened. What are you so afraid of? Worried the Morrigan will gobble you up if you say her name too loudly?”

“You think this is a game?” Lonnrach rounds on her, his voice deadly soft. “That the Morrigan is just one more vapid courtier to outwit and outplay? I’ve heard whispers that the Cailleach couldn’t kill her, and the bitch is trapped inside a prison realm. For your sake, I hope that’s just a story.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Sorcha scoffs. “Even if it were true, centuries of imprisonment would have left her a husk. Stripped of power and—”

“Still stronger than you,” Lonnrach cuts in. “Don’t delude yourself.”

“Then come with me.” Sorcha’s words snap between them. Beneath the steel in her voice, I sense an undercurrent of desperation—a need so acute it verges on madness. “If you’re so concerned, then help me find the Book.”

I watch the war play out across Lonnrach’s face as he scans the trees, shadows slanting over his stark features. When he finally looks at her again, his eyes hold nothing but regret. And pity.

“I can’t.” A pause, weighted. His tone is carefully neutral when he continues, “I gave my word that I would lead you to the doorway, and I have. But my oath is to Aithinne. If she discovers I aided you . . .” He shakes his head, unwilling to voice the consequences aloud. “I won’t risk it. Not even for you.”

Sorcha’s lip curls back from her teeth in a silent snarl. “Yes, I’m quite aware of where your loyalties lie. No need to remind me.”

Something flickers over Lonnrach’s face as his gaze drifts to the strange mark carved into the tree. When he finally speaks, the words rasp out of him. “You should let him die, Sorcha.”

“Not an option,” she replies. “Never. Kadamach is my friend. My consort —”

“Your obsession,” Lonnrach says, almost gently. “This fool’s crusade to win his affection . . . it’s killing you.”

Sorcha recoils as if he’s slapped her. “You presume far too much.”

“Do I? Look at yourself.” He closes the distance between them, grasping her chin.

Studies her face. “You’re wasting away in front of me.

There isn’t a soul in either realm who hasn’t heard the rumours—that your precious king is content to let his subjects wither into dust. And for what?

Because he’s pining after some Falconer? ”

She wrenches free of his hold. “Be quiet.”

“No. You need to hear this.” Lonnrach captures her shoulders, giving her a sharp shake.

“Is this truly what you want? To sacrifice everything on the altar of Kadamach’s indifference?

Do you honestly believe that if you find this Book and break his curse, he’ll suddenly lavish you with the love and devotion you’ve always craved?

That he’ll magically transform into someone capable of giving you what you need? ”

The curse. Understanding detonates through me.

Sorcha wanted the Book to save Kiaran, too. To release him from the hunger gnawing at him.

My pulse roars in my ears, nearly drowning out Lonnrach’s next words. “Finding that book won’t change his nature. He’ll never love you back. He’s not capable of it.”

The blow lands, and I see Sorcha flinch. “He’s my king.”

“Your king, yes. That much is true.” Lonnrach’s gaze darts pointedly to her hand, to the unblemished skin where a consort mark should rest. Damning in its absence. “But not your mate. Not in any way that matters. He won’t ever be yours. You need to accept that.”

Sorcha stares at her own palm, and I swear I can hear the moment her heart splinters like a gunshot in the too-still clearing.

She looks up at Lonnrach, and the raw anguish contorting her face steals my breath.

“I don’t care if he loves me,” she breathes, the admission scraped out of some dark, secret place. “I just need him to live.”

And in that moment, I understand with devastating clarity that Sorcha didn’t merely lust after Kiaran’s body or crave his power.

No, once—lifetimes ago, before bitterness and centuries of war twisted something vital in her—she had loved him.

Loved him with the same ferocious intensity that would have me crawling over broken glass for him.

Once, before war and wrath corrupted it, her feelings came from a place of staggering purity. Of absolute conviction.

No wonder she can scarcely stand the sight of us together. The thousand shared looks and casual touches, the synchronised beat of our hearts. Each one must be a barbed reminder of everything she’ll never have. Everything she’ll never be.

Everything he gave to me instead.

“If you won’t help me for my sake, then do it for the kingdoms,” Sorcha says, changing tack.

She reaches for Lonnrach, curling her fingers into his sleeve.

“The Book can broker peace between the Courts. It can unite us again. We can be a family again.” Her voice cracks on the last word, and she takes a steadying breath.

Holds his gaze, unflinching. “We can have a home, Lonnrach. A real home.”

Lonnrach’s face twists with grief. Then it smooths out, remote and unreadable.

“No,” he says, stepping back. Putting careful distance between them once more. “I won’t betray my queen or my Court. Not for—” He clamps his mouth shut, trapping the rest of that thought behind clenched teeth.

Sorcha’s lips peel back in a vicious smile. “Not for what, brother? A filthy Unseelie? Is that what I am to you now? No better than our mother? How terribly noble you’ve become.

But we both know this isn’t about loyalty or duty. No, this is petty vengeance for my part in Kadamach’s war against your queen.”

“Don’t insult me by pretending this is about anything more than him,” Lonnrach hisses. “You want to play the saviour. But when the dust settles, and he tosses you aside like a child bored with yesterday’s bauble, where will you be?”

Her expression turns feral as she snarls, “That’s my concern. Not yours.”

“So be it.” Lonnrach grasps his blade from its sheath. He flips it and extends the hilt to her. “But if you go down this path, you’ll die alone in the dark. And Kadamach won’t spare you a second thought.”

Trembling, Sorcha accepts the blade. Her emaciated frame radiates fury and resentment and something more fragile.

More human. When she speaks again, her words are tight.

Controlled. “How fortunate I am to have such a devoted brother. So quick to offer support and encouragement. Tell me, does your precious queen reward you for such steadfast obedience? Do you sit at her feet and wag your tail when she throws you scraps from her table?”

Lonnrach’s eyes flash silver, a muscle leaping in his jaw. But he doesn’t rise to the bait.

Sorcha presses her advantage, scenting blood in the water.

“You’re a dog on a leash. And like a good little lapdog, you’ll whimper and cringe and lick her hand, pathetically grateful for any mote of affection she condescends to grant you.

” She laughs again, mocking and hollow. “But what happens when Kadamach kills her? When he rips out her heart and leaves her broken body for you to find?” She leans in close.

“On that day, dear brother, I’ll beg him to spare your miserable life.

So you’ll have an eternity to remember that your cowardice sealed her fate. ”

She’s goading him. Baiting him past reason, past sense. I know these tricks intimately. How to wield words like knives, slip past armour to the vulnerable places beneath. To cradle your opponent’s weaknesses in your palms like precious things before ripping into them without hesitation or mercy.

And oh, does she know her brother’s soft spots. His shame.

Lonnrach’s upper lip curls in a silent snarl, his power crackling against my skin in pinpricks as he fights for control.

“If you were anyone else,” he says, deathly quiet, “I would kill you where you stand.”

Sorcha cants her head. “If you had a spine, you would have killed me centuries ago. The day I first drew breath outside my master’s cage. The day Kadamach freed me.” A beat, taut with unspoken history. “While you cowered behind your queen’s skirts.”

The breeze stills. Even the ever-present sigh of leaves has gone quiet, as if the very world is holding its breath.

“An oversight I won’t make again,” Lonnrach says. Softly. Gently.

Unease prickles at the base of my skull, insidious and biting. Pieces click together in my mind.

Kiaran saved her.

And something monstrous lurks in the tangled history ensnaring these two siblings. Something that left wounds too deep to scab over, much less heal.

“I should have killed you,” she continues, “after you guided me here. It would have spared us both this tedium.”

He sucks a sharp breath through his teeth. Reasserts control, until his face is a mask of neutrality once more.

“It’s your death warrant, sign it however you want,” he finally says. “Go through that portal and take your chances with the Morrigan.”

Sorcha holds his stare a moment longer. With exaggerated care, she brings the dagger to her palm and scores a deep line. And then she slams her bloodied hand against the trunk of the ancient oak, directly over the symbols that look suspiciously like a ward.

A pulse of light. The stench of ozone. A clap of thunder that rattles my bones.

And everything . . . shatters.

The scene before me, the forest, the two fae—all of it splinters and dissolves. Whirling away into nothingness until all that remains is a blank white void.