Chapter 4
“WHAT HAPPENED?” PA comes rushing from the house, pale in the gloom, Annem not far behind. A harsh sound escapes him as he sees Lowen’s hands, but when he sees the wall, his whole body lurches.
“No,” he says softly, like his voice is broken. “No. What have you done?” A great breath wracks his body, and another. “Get them inside,” he growls.
Annem fusses over Lowen and I stand there, watching Pa pick through the remains of the wall.
“He was trying to—”
“Get inside!” he roars, almost as loud as the thunder.
I go still. I tried to stop Lowen destroying his hands. Yet somehow that has upset my father… disappointed him… angered him.
The beat of my heart suddenly feels hollow.
I hover there, wanting to crouch and help, afraid I’ll only make things worse.
Caws pierce the night air—not the usual shriek of gulls.
The dark shape is no longer a smear but a flock of birds—crows or ravens—their flight as swift and true as any arrow aimed at our home.
Annem’s hand closes around my wrist as Pa leaps up, swearing. They bundle me into the house, but I can’t help glancing back.
The ravens—they’re too big to be mere crows—gather into a seething mass, almost at the tufty grass that stands between the garden wall and the cliff edge.
Dozens of black eyes glint between the ferocious flap of wings and snap of thick beaks, then the door slams shut.
While Annem and Pa clatter through cupboards and drawers searching for I don’t know what, I tear a clean cloth in two and wrap it around Lowen’s hands. I find myself peering out the window as I tie the knot.
As one, the ravens swirl and lengthen into a tall form, and from those feathers and shadows steps a man.
My fingers fall still.
A pale face, set hard. Gold eyes fix upon the door to our home. A man—no, not a man, too beautiful, too untouchable, with ears too pointed.
A fae.
He strides forward, long black hair unruffled as the last of the ravens’ wings seem to fold in on themselves, disappearing into the darkness of his tailored coat.
A sound comes from me. Shock. Fear. Denial. It isn’t a word, but it conveys all those things together with the breaking of my understanding of the world and how it works.
My mind stumbles in its attempt to form questions. It certainly finds no answers.
With a calm economy of movement, the fae steps through the gap Lowen made in the wall and approaches the house.
“There’s a man,” Lowen blurts. “He’s coming. Fae—he’s fae!”
Pa strides past us, brow set in a low line. With shaking hands, he slips something over the door handle and stands back, eyes wide as he waits.
From a ribbon hangs the shape of an eye made of dark, silvery metal, and he holds several more.
My own eyes widen. “Is that iron?” Can’t be—that stuff’s illegal. Only smithies are allowed it and that’s kept under lock and key, then prayed over as it’s worked into steel.
There’s a bang at the door. Once. Twice. Three times. It shakes with the force but remains shut.
“Fisherman,” the fae calls, voice cold and clipped. “I have come for the bargain that was made.”
Satisfied the door will hold, Pa turns to me and ducks his chin. “Aye. It’s iron. It’ll keep the bastard out.”
“Will it?” the fae calls with a mocking lilt. “Do you dare defy The Morrigan?”
Lowen and I stiffen as one, and I give Pa a questioning look.
Jaw set, he ignores us and joins Annem, circling the ground floor, hanging the charms at each window.
The Morrigan. The goddess who rules fate, war, death. Tales say she takes insult if anyone writes her name without a capital T, and even in my thoughts I give weight to the word The when it comes to her.
I’m not about to add an insulted deity to my troubles.
“Pa?” I follow him into the living room. More charms, including one at the front door. Annem has lit the lamps, casting a cheerful golden light around the room that’s at odds with the chill clinging to my skin. “A bargain? What’s he talking about?”
He shares a glance with Annem and comes to me, taking my hands between his calloused ones. “We only wanted to protect you. You need to remember that.” His mouth curves slowly, like it hurts to even try to smile.
The way he looks at me, the talk of protection—it makes dread unfurl in my chest, a cold counterpart to the spring flowers outside.
“How touching.” The fae stands at the window. “But you cannot protect her from your own promise. Tell her the truth, human.”
Eyebrows drawn together, Pa bows his head. I glance at Lowen in silent question. He shakes his head, face ashen.
This has to be some fae trick. They can’t lie, but they can manipulate humans, cast glamours, wear shapes that aren’t their own, hunt us through the forest and commit a hundred other cruelties. They aren’t beyond casting doubts among a family, trying to crack us apart.
I square my shoulders and glower out the window at him.
“Sweetheart.” Pa squeezes my hands, hunching over.
A gnawing silence stretches on until Annem speaks.
“You remember I told you about the storm? Not long after we married, it tried to take your father and his boat. He was out of sight of land and would have surely drowned if she’d gone down.
He didn’t want to leave me alone in the world, so he begged the sea for help and then the land.
And when they didn’t answer, he called for the Lady of Fate herself. ”
“A hand reached out from the dark and thunder,” he says softly, face hidden in the shadows, clinging to my hands like I’m the one who saved him. “She pulled me from the waves and stilled my boat, but she said she would cast me back to my doom if I refused to pay the price.”
“What price did she name?” Lowen growls the question, a bristling tightness at my side.
“My firstborn daughter.”
Lowen hisses out a breath.
I can’t react.
“I refused to leave your ma alone, so I agreed and the Lady steered my boat back to shore, though it should’ve sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
She told me her son would return one day to claim on our bargain, then she was gone.
When I got home, your ma told me she was pregnant and in the spring we had you.
” At last he looks up, eyes gleaming. “We hoped for a boy. I only have brothers, and your ma’s the only girl in her family.
We thought we’d escape the bargain. That it wouldn’t matter. But…”
I stare at him. I turn over his words, trying to make sense of the impossible. But the shapes of my life slot together, leaving space for this thing he’s just told me, making it suddenly seem not just possible but… the only piece that could fit.
He moved across the country, not to escape the memories of almost drowning, but because he hoped The Morrigan wouldn’t be able to find him and his firstborn daughter.
He chose this remote cottage even though village life would have been easier for us all, because he thought it would keep us—me—safe.
The wire in the wall—iron. It stopped the fae entering, and when I cut through it with the hatchet, I made it so the one outside could cross.
Her son. That means…
I’ve read that The Morrigan’s sons are the Kings of Death. Unseelie fae who rule the Underworld as demi-gods, each with their own cruel domain. And one of them stands at our door.
“I had to promise you to her before I even knew you existed. My little girl.” He shakes his head, brow creasing. “My Annon.”
I’ve always thought laughter a happy sound, warm and lively. But the laugh coming from outside is cruel and mocking without the slightest trace of anything so warm as happiness.
“Annon. Annon.” Another harsh laugh. “You called her ‘Anonymous’ because you thought it would stop us finding her.”
“No,” I find myself blurting. “It’s Rhiannon…” I search Annem and Pa’s gazes. “I’m Rhiannon, not…”
But their gazes slide to the floor.
No name.
The realization is a sudden pain deep in my gut. My chest squeezes, heart on the edge of betraying me.
I have no name. Does that mean I’m even… real? A person? Or just a thing?
Part of me understands the logic. They did it deliberately, like the old superstition that says parents shouldn’t name babies until they’re six months old—too big to be carried away by the fair folk and replaced with a changeling.
But I’m not a baby. I’m thirty-three years old and fucking nameless. “Rhiannon” is a lie.
“Oh, that is precious,” the fae goes on. “The foolishness of humans will never cease to astonish me.”
I whirl, something hot and ugly searing my skin. “Shut up.”
“Why?” Lowen bites out to Pa. “She made you bargain Annon away—what does a goddess want with her?”
“Oh yes.” Outside, the fae smirks, golden eyes locked on my father. “Do tell her the full nature of your bargain, fisherman. Tell her what you agreed.”
“I agreed…” Pa takes a shuddering breath. “To give you to her son, as his bride.”