Chapter 32
Taking some chains from underneath the Fodder wagon, she bound Senan before rolling him to lie hidden behind some rocks. Then she opened the Fodder wagon. The old woman who’d warned her was sitting by the door.
“Do you want to try to run?” éadha asked.
The woman shook her head. “There’s nowhere we can get to.”
None of the other Fodder said anything, and after a moment éadha nodded. “I’ll bring you back to the Fodder Wing. You shouldn’t be blamed for this. Then I have to run, before he wakes.” She nodded in the direction of Senan’s unconscious body, his feet just visible behind the rock.
The woman’s eyes widened in shock before she said, “Grianán, they’ll kill you for this. Take the boat. If you use your power, you might be able to make it to the mainland before they can catch you.”
Now it was éadha’s turn to shake her head. “There’s someone I need to find first.”
So, with hands that trembled, éadha drove the Fodder wagon back to the hold’s entrance shaft, slipping away before any Keepers saw her.
Stopping off only to grab her satchel from her dorm and sling it across her chest with Magret’s book, the amber tower, and Seoda’s dress inside, she hurried through the still silent cloisters.
Ahead of her the Hall of Illusions was lit from within by a rainbow of circling lights.
Ionáin was inside, practicing in the early hours as he always did before classes began.
As she came through the doors, the lights started to fade.
Ionáin shook his wrists in frustration, not understanding why his power was faltering.
éadha hadn’t gifted him anything since the morning before, and he was almost out.
He looked up and saw her in the doorway. The remaining lights above his head snapped out, and the room slowly filled with sunlight as a look of relief came over his face. “éadha.”
éadha stared at Ionáin from where she stood in the doorway of the hall.
He looked so different, she thought, from the underfed seventeen-year-old he’d been when they first arrived on Lambay last spring.
He’d always been beautiful, but back then he was still underweight from the years of austerity in Ailm’s Keep.
Now, though, after the months of training and plentiful food on Lambay, he looked like a warrior prince.
He was in his training gear—short-sleeved combat tunic and slim-fitting black pants—his bare arms taut and muscular, his body far stronger looking.
His face was leaner now, too, the high cheekbones and strong jaw more defined, though his eyes were still the same endless midnight blue they’d always been.
Eyes that stared at her now as a question overrode his initial relief.
“éadha, what is it?” he said, taking a step toward her as she still didn’t move.
A lump came into éadha’s throat then as she thought of Senan, bound on the stony shore but not for long. Soon he’d come around and raise the alarm. She had no time; she had to run.
But how could she give this up, this beautiful boy she’d loved her whole life? How had she denied herself this? And then she was moving without conscious thought, or rather with only one thought, that she needed Ionáin to know how much she still loved him.
With only a few steps she crossed the short distance between them, and her arms were around his neck, pulling him down toward her.
As his lips met hers, she kissed him fiercely, desperately, and all the pain, the loss, and the loneliness of those last dark weeks was in her kiss.
Ionáin met her with a ferocity and a need of his own, his lips covering hers, claiming hers as if his life depended on it.
As if he understood, too, without needing to be told, how much she needed this.
That with every touch, she wasn’t just loving him but healing herself, erasing Senan’s violation from her skin, from her bones.
Bringing herself back to life and to love.
Deeper and deeper they kissed, standing there in the center of the Hall of Illusions, lost in each other, and it was as if time ceased to exist for them for a little while.
But time can’t be denied forever, and so at last they both pulled back, Ionáin resting his forehead against éadha’s and dropping his hands to take hold of hers.
“Hi,” he said softly. “I missed you.”
“Hi,” she said back, just as softly. “I missed you too.”
“What happened, éadha, after the ball?”
Taking a deep breath, éadha began. “You were right. About my dress making people want to hurt me. Senan, he dragged me to an alcove, and he…he hurt me.”
At her words Ionáin’s body went rigid, though he didn’t say a thing as éadha continued. “He didn’t get far, but it was like he broke something in me. I couldn’t trust my body anymore because it made him want to hurt me. It’s why I couldn’t…these last few weeks…”
“I’ll kill him,” said Ionáin, his voice low and savage. He dropped her hands and straightened up to his full height, a look of pure fury on his face.
“It’s all right. At least, it is now,” said éadha hurriedly. “I don’t need you to fight him. I’ve dealt with him, trust me. But, Ionáin, I need—I need to tell you everything now. There’ve been too many secrets between us, and it’s killing us.”
With an effort, Ionáin brought himself back under control. He was too angry to speak, but he nodded once, abruptly, for her to go on.
éadha said, “Gry was there when Senan attacked me, and he helped me to stop him. But he’s paid a terrible price for showing his true gift and is locked away down in the Fodder Hold.
It’s my fault he’s lost his future, and it’s another part of the reason why I couldn’t come to you.
Because I don’t deserve to be happy when he’s suffering like that because of me. ”
Now there was only pain in Ionáin’s blue eyes, and a dawning loss as he took in what she was saying and the unconscious ache in her voice as she said it. “Do you love him?” he said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I chose you,” she said simply. “But you’ve made it so hard, Ionáin. Ignoring me, insulting me in front of Senan, dancing with Ailbhe. I know you’ve always said you’re playing a game, but at some point it got too real. It hurt too much.”
Ionáin stared at her for a long moment, then said at last, “I’m sorry, éadha.
I hurt you, and I’m so sorry.” He paused.
“This is on me. But, éadha—you’re the strongest, bravest person I know.
You know that, don’t you? All our lives, you’ve been the strong one.
The one I looked up to and wished I was more like, ever since I was eight years old and you came into my room the first night and made everything all right.
Why do you think I love you so much? Your courage, your strength—I’ve loved you for that my whole life.
It doesn’t make it right, what I did. But please, éadha.
Tell me I haven’t lost you because I was too in love with you to remember you’re human too. ”
éadha took a shaky breath, overcome by the simple need in his voice, in those blue eyes, but there was one more thing she needed to say: one question she needed an answer to.
“You told me in the Blackstairs that you knew you had to give your life to saving your Family. And I understand that. But I need to know how far you’d go. If you’d sacrifice us for that.”
Ionáin stepped back, his hand going to his hair as he shook his head and turned away from her slightly before turning back, a look in his eyes more intense than any she’d ever seen, as he said, “Every single choice I’ve made on these islands has been about protecting you.
Not my Family. You. I’ve spent the last year doing things I hate, pretending to like people I despise to protect you.
“It’s easy for someone like Gry to be all cool and laconic, openly looking down on the whole thing like it’s beneath him.
His Family is literally the oldest, the most powerful, and the furthest away on all of Domhain.
He can afford to insult Senan and those other idiots.
I don’t have that luxury. The Masters hate a failed Family more than they hate Fodder, and they’re just waiting for me to fail so they can write us out of existence—send you, me, my father, everyone we know for Fodder.
“I despise Senan, I always have, a lot of the other guys too. Ailbhe’s just trying to survive her own shit hand, but she knows I never cared for her.
I was just a means to her end. It’s why me and Linn pretended to get together these last few weeks.
Ailbhe wanted us married as soon as we graduated so she wouldn’t have to go on dragon patrol.
She even organized a posting behind the front lines with her uncle for me as a bribe.
The only way I could get out of it was to go with Linn because she’s higher status.
She’s like us—there’s a girl at home she’s been in love with forever, and Senan was pushing her really hard.
We realized we could solve each other’s problems. Pretend to pair, let the other two’s egos do the rest, then split up after we graduate.
But it’s all for you, éadha—so I could be free to choose you. ”
And even though she’d told herself he’d been playing the game, éadha still felt relief, even joy, to hear Ionáin’s words as he caught up her hand and said, “Please, éadha, don’t give up on us.
We just have to hold on. Don’t do anything stupid, don’t give them any cause, then it really won’t be long until we can go home to the Keep.
” He turned to look at her. “I just hope you won’t mind that I won’t be much of a Channeller. ”
She froze.