Chapter Forty-Nine Fia
Chapter Forty-Nine
Fia
Dusk on the Bealtaine moon came too soon, lowering like a dark blade over the throat of the world.
“My friends.” Sunset burned a warning through the windows as I stood in the center of our shared apartments and addressed my friends—my family.
We were most of us dressed for war. I wore armor I’d commissioned from an armorer in the Underbrush—crafted from lightweight, flexible leather and dyed black as night, it was embossed all over with the same design as my tattoos—sharp thorns interspersed with sharper feathers.
The pauldrons were spiked, fanning out from my shoulders like dark wings; the helmet I carried in the crook of my elbow bore lofting silver antlers.
Beneath it, I wore the green dress from the council, yet again cut away above the knees for ease of movement.
New skeans hung from my hips, heavier than I was used to, along with a pouch where I carried some of Wayland’s forgings.
The Heart of the Forest rested atop my breastplate, green as moss.
Irian wore his customary black, with the Sky-Sword singing a melancholy dirge at his waist; Laoise, her red-gold scale mail.
Wayland was naked to the waist but painted all over in blue, with Fáilsceim strapped to his back in leather bracers.
Sinéad was fearsome in dark leather and darker kohl, her daggers already drawn.
Only Chandi and Idris were not prepared for war—neither was a warrior, so they had been tasked with watching the draigs too young to join the battle.
Hog hid beneath the divan, crying softly; Enfys and the twins curled in the window, watching their three eldest brethren soar above the massed armies of the Folk.
In the days since Irian and I had returned from our sojourn, I had spoken to each of my friends privately.
I had shared the last of my plans with them, told them everything Marban had told me.
It had not been easy; there had been tears and recriminations and anger.
Yet here we all stood. None of us wanted to say goodbye to who we’d been.
To who we were to one another. To who we might never be again.
And yet… no goodbye at all would be so much worse.
“My friends, you all know my plans. The plan I have told the bardaí… and the plan I have told you. Heed me well when I say, for the last time—although it may controvert everything you hold dear, let the bardaí lead their hosts in the vanguard.”
“It would be dishonorable for them to do otherwise,” Irian grumbled.
“They have no honor,” I reminded him. “Instead, we count on their pride. Even as you deny yours. You must stay to the back of the host. All of you. Protect the Willow Gate. And when midnight approaches—when the full moon is at its zenith—you must retreat to the Heartwood. Do you understand?”
They all hesitated, then nodded. Grimly, I returned the gesture.
“Good. Then it is time to go to war.”
“Just like that?” Wayland huffed a laugh. “Thorn Girl, we have got to work on your motivational speeches.”
Irian growled, low in his throat, even as Wayland slung an arm over his foster brother’s shoulders and dragged him in for a half-willing hug.
His other arm, he looped around an equally enthused Laoise.
But then Laoise was throttling her brother, who slung a familiar arm around Sinéad’s back.
Sinéad reached for Chandi, pulling her tentative figure firmly into the tightening circle.
Irian’s gloved hand rested at my waist. We bent our heads, reveling in this last quiet moment of camaraderie.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “I never had a family before. But I think I finally understand what all the fuss is about.”
“Wait until we all get back here at dawn, bloodied and starving, and start fighting over the last piece of Idris’s cloudberry pie,” Wayland quipped. “Then you’ll really get it.”
Irian punched him on the arm, hard, and we all broke apart, laughing and brushing away surreptitious tears as we reached for weapons and helms.
At the bottom of the tree city, near the Underbrush, Balor waited—a huge, terrifying outline against the blood-streaked sky.
Beside him were Linn and Abyss, their noses close together.
Beyond, the sweeping golden plains churned with the waiting host—all gleaming armor and deadly weapons and keen, hungry gazes.
All the bardaí save Siobhán and Seaghán watched as I briefly conferred with Balor, then mounted Linn.
“Do you have the keys?” Dualtach asked, his voice like the shriek of an eagle upon a cliff. “We will not march without them.”
Silently, I handed out the Gate Keys Wayland had crafted, glittering with strange symbols and shimmering with the heirs’ entwined blood. Each bardaí grabbed one, gazing at them as if they finally had the human realms within reach.
Everything worth having came at a cost. I hoped they were ready to pay the price.
“Shall we?” asked another barda, nastily. “The moon will soon rise.”
I held up a hand. Drums thundered, rolling like a tide.
A carnyx sounded, the wailing ululation raising the hair along my nape and twisting my stomach beneath my armor.
The Folk host marched toward the Willow Gate, silver-shod hooves pounding the earth beneath them.
The tiny bells braided into the horses’ manes and tails warbled like captive nightingales, the merry tune dancing amid the grim cacophony of scraping armor and clanging shields, marching boots and shivering spears.
We passed beneath silver beeches, thick branches pulsing with veins of moonlit metal. Bone foxes already paced us in the undergrowth—their slim-sharp forms eager for carnage. Rooks flapped amid the boughs, keen cries echoing between glass-bright leaves.
Beyond, the forest. Trees forged like spears and hammered into swords.
Trees with masts like a great armada, sailing toward a sky etched with a million imperious stars.
Trees like soldiers—each one brave as a lion and fearful as a lamb, their faces caught between life and near-certain death.
Reaching beneath them, the bones of the earth: roots that would go on living even if this whole forest was burned to ash and ruin.
And us. The procession of grim, uncanny Folk was as strange to me as the first time I glimpsed such a parade, so many moons ago.
Only now, I marched with them. Our songs of war sounded like howling wind over a cliff; our drums sounded like hollow bones; our horns sounded like the bugling of the Wild Hunt.
We shone of metal and menace; we glimmered bold as bloodstains in the falling dark.
The Willow Gate’s glade was a marvel of springtime—waterfalls of flowers, blossoms of white splashing the trees like spilled starlight.
My wall of thorns stood, glinting in the dim like a mouth full of fangs.
A balmy breeze caressed my skin, but it was scented with death.
I did not need eyes to know they were still there. Impatient. Waiting.
I waited until the moon knitted silver between the leaves and the glen churned with restless fénnidi in all their regalia.
Then I placed my antlered helm upon my brow, wheeled Linn in a tight circle, and cried to the host, “When the barrier falls, you must push through no matter what approaches us! Dualtach: You will lead with your key—the rest will follow in formation!” I raised an arm. “One… two… three!”
I shattered my barrier of thorns and branches and flowers, disintegrating it into sawdust and flower pollen.
Dualtach galloped forward, and a cry went up as the host surged after him, slamming toward the Gate.
The outlines of mangled bodies rippled its silvery surface, held back by the barest thread of magic.
The moment Dualtach breached the Gate, they fell toward us.
Bodies—ghouls and revenants—gushed through the opening, all dangling limbs and staring, empty faces.
They met the Folk with a clash, the bright weapons of the host colliding with the thick thud of decaying meat.
One of the draiglings—Blodwen, I thought—arced overhead, disgorging flames to harrow the dead.
Linn sallied, half rearing as warriors streamed around her and fire caught in the undergrowth. I looked around for Balor’s huge shadow, then nudged her forward. But a large strong hand wrapped around my vambrace. From Abyss’s back Irian stared down at me, his grip tight and his eyes hard as metal.
“I will find you, mo chroí.” He leaned down.
Hesitated for barely a second. Then slid his gloved hand beneath my chin, lifted my shining face toward his, and captured my burning lips with his mouth.
He kissed me slowly, though his flesh blanched; ferociously, although it must have been agony.
He tasted like whetted metal and dark water, dawn after an endless night.
His hand on my jaw trembled as the host streamed screaming around us.
When at last he drew back, he was burned—his lips cracked and blackened where he’d kissed me.
He let me go, his hand slipping away from my vambrace to settle on the hilt of the Sky-Sword. “Live, Fia. Live.”
Irian’s arms flexed as he drew his claíomh, tattoos lengthening and sharpening beneath the cut of his armor. Thunder grumbled above the canopy of the trees, and tendrils of lightning crackled along the length of the blade. He kicked Abyss forward, and together they plunged into the fray.