Chapter Forty-Seven Fia
Chapter Forty-Seven
Fia
We stepped out into a fine early evening. Breezes winnowed over the moor, sending patches of vivid heather and vibrant gorse nodding. I inhaled, tilting my face toward the setting sun and letting it chase away some of the sorrow Moira’s curse had conjured in me.
“I’m sorry.” I turned to Irian, whose eyes were shadowed beneath the hair sweeping over his face. “I daresay she didn’t like me much after all.”
He laughed a little. “She is an ancient cantankerous recluse. She liked you as much as she likes anyone.”
“From your lineage, that’s practically a confession of love.” Irian’s smile grew, and I reveled in it, his joy more precious to me than sunlight. “But I am sorry. I think I ruined the afternoon with my prying.”
“You ruined nothing.” Irian’s smile faded.
“What my mother and I had was ruined by my father long ago. It is I who should apologize, for clinging to the fragments of something I once cherished but is now broken beyond repair. The edges never grow less sharp. And now I have cut you, as I have myself.”
“No.” I longed to embrace him, to let closeness comfort us both. “These are the hurts that matter. For if we did not feel them, we would know we had stopped truly living.”
Irian’s gaze burned hot on my face, and his hand drifted as if he wished to touch me. He reluctantly forced it back to his side, dragged his eyes to the horizon. “The sun lowers. If we wish to make it back to the Summerlands by nightfall, we should return to the aughiskies.”
“Let them frolic,” I suggested, letting a note of wickedness creep into my voice. “Unless I am much mistaken, we may be blessed with one or two new little murder horses come next spring.”
“Scandalous.” Irian raised his eyebrows. “And us? Are we to bed down in Moira’s whimsy ram barn?”
“The night will be warm.” A sudden burst of nerves made my voice meek. I surreptitiously patted my pocket, ensuring what I’d brought from the Summerlands was still stowed securely. “There is something I wish to see before we return.”
Curiosity flared to light in Irian’s eyes. His voice thrummed low as he asked, “What, pray tell, is that?”
“Once, in a time of hidden heirs and harmless adventures, a little boy found his way into a garden where he was not meant to go.” Irian’s eyes flashed, and I inhaled, battling my own hollow hope.
In the Deep-Dream the Bright One had told me, Deirdre lives.
I doubted she had spent the last twenty years languishing in the garden where she’d once been imprisoned.
But I wanted to see the place where my mother was shaped by earth and sky, where she and young Irian had woven their friendship through whispered tales and shared wonder.
I might never lay eyes on her, never hear her voice.
But perhaps, in standing where she once stood, I might brush the edges of her memory.
“Will you take me there? Will you show me Deirdre’s garden? ”
An emotion stronger than regret and sharper than hesitation arrowed over Irian’s face. Then he straightened, threw his cloak over one shoulder, and beckoned me forward.
“It would be my honor, mo chroí. And my delight.”
The moors ridged away from Moira’s cottage like a restless sea, punctuated by great smooth stones curved like the backs of whales. We followed a white-capped river scything sleekly through the rock until we reached the edge of a moss-draped woodland painted gold by the dying sun.
Though I saw no path, Irian stepped confidently through verdant undergrowth studded with flowering vines and barred by saplings.
How long had it been since anyone had come this way?
I brushed my hands over the smooth, sighing trunks of the trees, but their concerns were root deep and earth dark and had little to do with our passing.
At last, Irian stopped, glancing around in the falling gloom.
“Now, let me see if I remember…” He frowned, took two sweeping steps, slanted his body sideways, and disappeared.
“Irian?” A thread of panic twined my voice. “Where are you?”
A hand reached from nowhere, gripped my sleeve, and tugged me sideways. Vertigo spun me, and I nearly stumbled. When I looked up, Irian and I stood in a world wholly changed.
The garden shone with dark beauty. Although overgrown and neglected, it had once been magnificent. Unlike a normal garden, which basked in daylight, this one stirred awake with the falling dusk—drowsy blossoms unfurling, fronds aglow in twilight’s hush. I turned, breath caught in quiet awe.
“I thought you said it was walled,” I managed to whisper, looking back the way we’d come.
“Walled by magic.” His smile was little more than a lush lip curled over a gleaming canine. “Folk see walls and want to climb them. It is far harder to covet what you cannot see.”
Deirdre’s garden was certainly worthy of coveting.
Rambling beds of flowers nudged over arbored pathways arched with hanging roses.
Hedges made labyrinths studded with statuary and jeweled with broken lanterns.
The paths meandered up a gentle rise, necklaced by once-shimmering fountains and crowned by a delicate pavilion gleaming like mother-of-pearl.
“She… lived here?” Unexpected sorrow gnawed at my heart, sharp-toothed and seeking. Whatever hope I carried of finding my mother here disappeared—this place had clearly been abandoned for decades. “Alone?”
“She had Folk nursemaids,” Irian told me. “I remember a ghillie named Lanae, who used to shoo me away with a thistle broom. I’m sure there were others. It is common for Gentry children to be tended by lower Folk.”
I was silent, remembering my own strange adoption by the Folk of the forest. I supposed it had not been so different an experience to my mother’s upbringing.
“She never left this place until she came of age?” The garden was exquisite, ethereal. But it was quiet and very, very empty.
“Deirdre was incredibly lonely.” Irian’s voice thrummed, ghostly, in the descending dim.
“I like to think I brought her some companionship, in her darkest times. But I was young and brash and boyish. She was elegant and wise beyond her years. I doubt I was much to her beyond an amusing distraction.”
“I’m sure you brought her great comfort.” I longed to squeeze his hand, to curl my arm through his. The thought sent a sizzle of heated anticipation buzzing along my skin. I inhaled and pointed toward the knoll. “I’d like to see the pavilion.”
We wended our way along the paths, huge milk-white daturas nodding at our thighs. Roses the color of shining beetles’ carapaces tangled around our boots. Still fountains caught the last of the sunset’s carmine rays until they looked filled with wine.
Shallow steps led us to the pavilion, where quartz-streaked pillars lofted toward an arched ceiling.
Diaphanous curtains—now tattered by wind and streaked by rain—sighed softly.
Scattered pillows, frayed and filthy, lumped between divans with broken legs and shredded upholstery.
Gossamer lanterns in the shapes of stars and moons and nameless marvels swayed gently on chains hung from the ceiling.
Twenty years ago, this would have been utterly beautiful.
A gilded, glamorous prison for an heir with a cursed destiny.
Different by far from my childhood in Rath na Mara—Deirdre would have been bored, not bullied.
Cosseted, not trained. Doted upon, not driven to prove herself to those who did not understand her.
Irian leaned against one of the cobalt pillars, watching me intently. “What are you thinking, mo chroí?”
“How did she while away all those long years by herself?”
“She was educated in the manner of all Gentry heirs.” Irian tapped one of the hanging lanterns—once, twice, thrice.
A cool, pale light blossomed. “History, law, magic, warfare. And when she was finished with her lessons, she loved to dance. She was agile as a doe, and as sure-footed. She sang like a nightingale. But mostly, she adored stories.” He lit another lantern in the center of the pavilion, illuminating a far wall ridged with rows of empty, broken shelves.
“There were once a thousand books upon those shelves, stacked three deep and towering far higher than even I dared climb. Scrolls from the farthest reaches of Tír na nóg, parchments in languages neither of us spoke. She would read me her favorites, on the nights I snuck into her garden, again and again, until the rhythm of the telling became music on her lips.” His eyes, silver now as night descended, glittered far away as stars.
“That is what she did to while away the hours. She devoured stories and, in turn, was consumed. In stories the tyranny of her fate was transcended, the mundane transformed to marvels.”
“So it is with all tales.” I lifted a hand and beckoned Irian toward me. “Come here, mo chroí. There is a story I wish to tell you.”
Irian did not move a muscle. “Fia—”
“Come.” I unfastened my cloak from my shoulder and swept it onto the cool pavilion floor. I knelt, lifting my eyes to Irian once again. “Please.”
He made that glorious noise in the base of his throat, then pushed off the pillar. His steps were careful as he approached. He unclasped his own mantle and layered it over mine, then knelt to face me. His eyes were full of muted longing and harsh uncertainty.