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A isling was gone. Raif and Lyre he couldn’t care less about, but Aisling…her hand had been in his; he thought he’d held onto her tightly enough. He was sure she was keeping pace with him as they fled those savage hunters.

Frantic, Rodney risked a glance back over his shoulder. He hoped she’d be there, just on his heels. Hoped, maybe beyond reason, that they’d somehow stumbled their way to safety. He was met only with silence, with stillness.

There was nothing behind him—not Aisling, not the hunters.

He skidded to a stop and turned, panting, to peer into the trees.

There was a flash a short distance back: the tail of a centaur, flaring behind him as he retreated.

The trilling horn calls and thunderous hoofbeats quieted as they moved further and further away.

Even still, Rodney was far too fearful to call out to any of his companions.

He may have outpaced the centaurs for the time being, but there were plenty of other things lurking in those woods.

He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than he already had as he’d crashed through the underbrush.

Raif had told them to meet him at the tree line.

Rodney spun in a slow circle, searching for any sign of a break in the forest. But it all looked the same—every tree, every fallen log and rock and patch of brambles.

Solid walls of foliage in every direction but ahead.

Rodney cursed under his breath, then again, slightly louder.

He would never have guessed he’d miss the sight of that barren, black sand plain so much as he did now.

He’d been aiming for what looked like a clearing, so he reoriented himself back in that direction and began walking on trembling legs.

If nothing else, Aisling would wind up there if she continued on in a straight line.

She’d be furious at him, surely, for once again leaving her alone.

Rodney swore a third time. Building a lexicon of curses was one of the things he took the most pleasure in during his years in the human realm, though the harsh words brought him no relief now.

A sob broke through the silence—broke through his anxious, addled thoughts. Aisling. He couldn’t yet see her, but she didn’t sound far ahead. She’d passed him somehow, or maybe he was even more turned around than he thought.

“Ash?” he called out cautiously. The ground turned wet and marshy underfoot. Rodney’s work boots were too heavy for the terrain; they stuck in the mud as he plodded on. Though she didn’t respond, her cries grew louder and more fervent as he approached.

The clearing Rodney came upon was hardly a clearing at all. Even smaller than the one they’d camped in, he thought he could likely stand in its center and touch the trunks of the trees on either side with his fingertips if he really stretched.

There was a faerie there—a young female, kneeling with her back to him on the sodden ground.

Pale teal hair hung down over her shoulders in long waves.

Around her, ashes lay scattered. Rodney looked up; they were falling from the sky like snow, drifting bits that floated silently down, some swirling on a gentle breeze.

The faerie’s shoulders shook with loud, keening sobs.

Her cries were raw and primal, with so much pain underlying them that Rodney could feel the ache in his own chest.

Something seemed familiar about it all: the ashes, the faerie, the sounds of her grief. Utterly familiar, and yet distant in a way. Dreamlike; almost uncanny. Rodney stepped forward, closer to the figure.

“Sítheach,” he murmured to her. His mouth formed the name before his mind could register what he was saying. “Sítheach, what happened?”

He took another step, closing the distance so he could hear what Sítheach said as she wrapped both arms around her waist and bent double over her knees. The ends of her hair dragged in the mud that had already stained the white dress she wore.

“She’s gone,” the faerie whispered. She said it again and again and again, repeating it so that it came out as one long, unbroken refrain: “Shesgoneshesgoneshesgoneshes—”

It hit him then, hit him so hard it took his breath away: he knew this scene.

He remembered that day. The realization drew a shudder through him, violent enough that his teeth began to chatter.

He hadn’t thought about it in so long, hadn’t let his mind stray back to the precise moment when he felt his heart ripped from his chest. When he felt it shatter irreparably.

“No,” he choked out. “She can’t—you saw—” This wasn’t real; it couldn’t be. But the tears streaming down his cheeks felt real. The pain felt real, too. So, so real.

When Sítheach finally turned to face him, her agony had twisted into pure, unbridled rage. She set her fearsome eyes upon him and her lips pulled back into a snarl.

“You did this,” she accused. Her voice was harsh and grating, ruined by her anguished wails. “You did this!”

Rodney shook his head, raising both hands.

This was wrong, somehow. All wrong. This isn’t what happened.

But the warped memory playing out before him wouldn’t let him escape.

Sítheach’s fury was a living thing, wrapping around him, binding him in place.

He could see the hatred burning in her eyes and he knew she believed every word she was saying.

“I didn’t mean to,” he pled. “I tried…I tried my best.” His breath hitched, coming now in shaky gasps as he sobbed too.

He’d told them—begged them—not to make him do it.

Told them over and over that he wasn’t good enough to Create what they wanted.

But they were so sure, and his love, his love …

he couldn’t deny her anything. Not when she looked at him with so much faith in her eyes.

She’d believed in him when no one else would.

She’d been a fool for it, and she’d paid with her life.

Sítheach rose to her feet, her movements stilted and unnatural as if she had no real control over her own body at all. The air around her rippled and wavered with energy, the falling ashes swirling up into a cyclone.

“Liar!” she bellowed, raising a shaking hand to point at him. Crystals jutted from her nail beds like talons. “You’re weak. If you truly loved her, you would never have failed her. You would never have killed her.”

The force of her accusation struck him like a physical blow and Rodney staggered back further. Sítheach had never said as much, but he’d heard those words before in his own voice, coming from the recesses of his own mind.

From the recesses of his own mind.

Rodney shut his eyes tightly as Sítheach advanced on him.

He needed to recall the real events of that day, to ground himself in the truth.

He had tried. He had done everything he could, the best he could.

He knew that; he thought he’d finally come to terms with it.

But this version of the memory was so vivid, so cruel, that it began to unravel his sense of reality.

The sky darkened and the trees bent towards him, branches reaching like greedy, grasping claws.

On the ground, the ashes hardened like cement around Rodney’s feet.

He struggled to move. Everything in him shouted at him to run, but he was rooted in place.

Sítheach’s voice echoed all around him, relentless and accusing: “You killed her! You killed her!”

Rodney’s mind raced, searching for a way out. This was the manipulation of Drinealain; he knew it was. The same dark magic of the broken realm that had corrupted the centaurs and polluted the morgen was twisting his memories, preying on his deepest regrets.

He sank down to his knees as Sítheach charged, pressing his palms over his ears and shaking his head, hard, back and forth. Trying to bring himself out of this part of his past. He couldn’t bear it much longer.

But just as his mind began to splinter, the vision dissolved around him.

As he used the last scrap of clarity he possessed to wrench himself from that dark place, he felt a new sort of agony entirely: his body rending, his skin splitting open.

His glamour peeled back, tearing away violently from his own flesh beneath.

He’d been in this form for so long—in this skin for so long—that the pain of having the heavy magic ripped from him now was blinding.

He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t reach out to pull the glamour back together.

Couldn’t weave the threads of Rodney back into place.

All he could do was scream.