Chapter 7 #3
When he looked at her again, he had a crooked smirk.
“I was a dumb shit when I was young. Too stubborn to hear anything except what I’d already decided was true.
I had these…grand philosophies about life.
” A snort. “Mostly built on arrogance and poor impulse control. Didn’t matter what the spirits showed me, I pushed back just to prove I could.
I spent most of my existence running from responsibilities I never asked for. ”
“What kind of responsibilities?”
He exhaled, long and low. “My family always expected me to become something I wasn’t built for. A leader. A negotiator. Someone who’d settle, sit still, hold court.” His mouth twisted. “But I’ve never been good at being told what to do.”
She tried to imagine him contained within a throne room—commanding, yes, but unable to move, unable to wander, unable to breathe. It didn’t fit.
“Besides,” he added, voice softening, “Aoife was born for it. More responsible. More dependable. She came first. Only a few years ahead, but enough to make sense of all the things I never could.” A bitter smile ghosted his lips.
“It would’ve been her task if the Spioraid hadn’t been feeling cruel the day I was born. ”
Something electric moved through the air, and the hairs rose along her arms.
“When I came here—during my fifth or sixth Rove—everything changed. The path I’d been pretending didn’t exist…suddenly I couldn’t outrun it anymore.”
“How so?”
Reynnar didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walked toward the cliff’s edge.
The drop yawned beneath the lip of stone, wind curling upward in a cold, spiraling breath.
He stopped at the brink and looked down.
“This overlooks where our Circle trained.” Wind lifted strands of his hair.
“If you look far enough down, you can see the ridge where it happened.”
Elara followed his gaze to what looked like a training ground far below—what remained of them. The stone rings lay collapsed, scorched and half caved in.
“The life-debt,” she whispered.
He nodded. But the set of his shoulders changed—something old, heavy, and unspoken settling between them like another presence in the cavern.
“Eamon and I were in our eighteenth year. Our Circle was studying mountain navigation. A cavern collapsed during an exercise—stone and ice everywhere.” His throat worked.
“Eamon shoved me out of the way. Took the brunt of the collapse himself.”
Elara’s breath caught.
“I dragged him out. Alone. And when the healers said he wouldn’t last the hour…I gave him my Fuil-Chroí.”
Elara blinked. “Your what?”
Reynnar’s jaw ground once before he answered.
“It’s a gift,” he said, “one a Sídhe can give only once in a lifetime. A pouring-out of the heart’s strength…
the oldest Draoth our people carry. It’s meant to be shared between ma—” He cut himself off, throat working.
“It’s meant to be shared between partners or offspring.
Someone bound to you by blood or fate.” His eyes flicked to hers, something raw in them.
“It tethers the dying long enough for healing to take hold. But it leaves the giver…less. For a while.”
“And you gave that—to Eamon?”
Reynnar looked back toward the ridge below. “He was my brother in every way that mattered,” he murmured. “He was slipping away, and I wasn’t going to let him.”
“That sounds like it could have killed you.”
“It nearly did.” Reynnar breathed out slowly.
“And Eamon…he did not simply survive it. What I gave him altered the order of things. Each race has its own Tuatha Dé Danann—separate, equal. A balance old as the land itself. Eamon stands above the rest now. The most powerful of the Sídhe. The highest Tuatha Dé Danann among all peoples.”
Elara’s voice was quiet. “Because of you.”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “The balance is broken. Nations feel it. Clans war over it. Old oaths no longer hold.” A pause. “I am reminded of that cost often.”
Elara hesitated. “Do you consider it a mistake?”
Reynnar was silent for a long while. The roar of the falls filled the space he left untouched.
“No,” he said at last. “I would do it again. Right or wrong no longer matters to me in such moments. If I am given the chance to save a life, I will take it.” A faint, crooked smile touched his mouth as he looked at her.
“I have always been careless that way.” His gaze lingered. “Much like someone I know.”
If this was carelessness, she thought dimly, then perhaps it could be the kind that changed worlds.
She drew a steadying breath, letting the moment pass. “And now he owes you a debt?”
“By Turlaith law,” he said, turning his gaze back to the falls, “when a life is saved by sacrifice, a debt is born. Eamon carries it. He doesn’t like to speak of it, but it binds him regardless.”
He looked at her then—fully, openly. “It’s why I trust him with yours.”
Her chest tightened. “Reynnar…”
“Eamon will grant you clemency,” he said, his voice low and sure. “He owes me that much. We only need to survive the next few days—set our plans in motion.” His gaze hardened. “Then we leave this place behind.”