Chapter 3
For the first time since they crossed into Tír na nóg, the rain had stopped.
Cold daylight spilled through the trees instead, pale and brittle, laying bare the aching beauty of Talamh na Sí. Frost silvered the moss and clung to the low branches, each breath rising faint and white in the air. Within it, Elara felt painfully human, out of place in perfection.
They turned east, following Aoife’s Draoth.
It drew them onward through tangled roots and wind-worried boughs, where the forest swallowed her tracks. But when the path failed, Aoife’s Draoth did not—a cool, silver current of wind and frost and distant storms—guiding them where no trail remained.
Aoife was not fleeing this place, but moving through it with purpose.
But why lead them here?
Why split the group?
They stopped only long enough to eat, and Elara lost count of the miles somewhere behind them—her legs burning, threatening mutiny—but momentum, and something far more stubborn, kept her moving.
By the time the sun sank low and the light thinned to ash and gold, another day in Tír na nóg was already slipping away.
Nearly five days she had been in this new world, and still it did not feel real.
Perhaps it was because she had seen little beyond the next tree before her, but she felt as though she were still running from the nightmare she’d left behind.
There was no relief in distance—only the sense of something unfinished, waiting to catch her.
Ahead, the land began to rise. The forest loosened around them, something vast waiting beyond—faint at first, then solidifying with every mile.
Stone teeth along the horizon.
Mountains.
Their silhouettes took shape as the canopy thinned—peaks veiled in drifting fog, their tips catching the last light of dusk.
As they climbed, roots gave way to stone, and the forest fell behind until only open hillside remained, carpeted in frost-silver moss and pale-dusted shrubs.
By the upper slopes, the light had cooled to amber and violet, pooling in the gullies below.
At the crest, Elara stopped, her breath catching.
A kingdom clung to the cliffside, its towers and bridges carved directly from the mountain.
Broad terraces stepped down the rock face in long, sweeping levels, supported by pale limestone walls.
The city stretched for miles along a ravine, a vast crescent of homes, courtyards, and walkways built into the stone.
At its center, a waterfall plunged from the heights, scattering silver-blue mist through the air.
Elara lifted a hand to shield her eyes, her pulse knocking hard at the base of her throat at the scale of it. Something restless stirred beneath her ribs, and she pressed her palm to the bloodstone, willing it still.
“Cruithneach,” Reynnar said softly. “The land of the ancients.”
She turned toward him, but his gaze remained fixed on the kingdom below, dark and distant as the stone it clung to.
“It is the Turlaith’s first and only kingdom.
These Sídhe are not apart from the mountain, but of it—stone in their bones, root in their veins.
Here, the cliffs remember their steps, and the earth answers their songs. ”
Elara’s throat worked, but no sound came. It was too much—all of it—to put into words.
“It’s beautiful,” she managed.
Reynnar’s gaze returned to her. “It is. But beauty can conceal ugliness as easily as truth.”
She turned to face him, caught off guard by the bitterness in his tone. “You’ve been here before?”
His exhale was slow, his eyes distant. “Long ago, yes. Before—” He stopped, shaking his head.
“Before many things.” His gaze drifted back to the kingdom.
“I had a feeling this was where Aoife would come, though I won’t pretend to understand what’s going on in my sister’s head.
It’s been an age since we were here, and we didn’t leave on peaceful terms.”
She studied his profile, the tight line of his mouth, the unease he kept carefully bridled beneath. “We should follow Aoife,” she said firmly. “If she’s inside—”
“I will go.”
Relief flared—then stalled.
“You will remain here,” he added. “Not because you lack the strength—but because this place is not meant for you.”
She let out a short, incredulous breath. “Reynnar, there is nowhere in this world that is meant for me.”
He inclined his head, conceding the truth of it. “Perhaps not, but there are dangers here that will see you before they see anything else. I will not have you walk into that unprepared.”
“I’m not unprepared,” Elara snapped.
Reynnar’s brows drew together slightly. “Eilíara—”
“I’m not,” she insisted, heat rising in her voice. She drew her dagger, and it caught the light, drinking it in before bending it oddly back. Power whispered through the blade, faint but unmistakable.
Reynnar’s gaze dropped to it, then—very deliberately—he looked back up at her face.
Her spine stiffened. “Don’t laugh.”
“I am not laughing.”
“You’re thinking about it.”
He exhaled through his nose. “Eilíara. I saw you fight in the Pit. We both know you don’t know how to wield that.”
Her fingers tightened. She stepped forward and lifted the blade in a fierce, cutting motion.
Light burst from it.
A narrow lance ripped through the air, grazing Reynnar’s head close enough to make him duck with a curse. It struck a distant tree, splitting bark and frost in a hiss of steam.
Reynnar straightened slowly. He stared at the smoking trunk—then at her.
“What,” he said evenly, “was that?”
Her face went pale. “I—” She lowered the dagger. “I meant to hit the rock.”
“The rock,” he repeated, a thin curl of smoke rising from a lock of his hair near his temple. “You missed.” He shook his head. “Why didn’t you use it in the fight?”
“I didn’t know I could,” she admitted. “Not until the end. And by then—everything was chaos. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t plan. I was just running. Following you. Trying not to die.”
He studied her for a long moment. “All right.”
She blinked. “All right?”
“You stay by my side,” he said. “You do not draw attention if it can be avoided. You only use the blade if it’s necessary—or if we’re separated.” His eyes flicked again to it. “And when this is over, we work on your aim.”
She sagged a little, the fight draining from her stance. “I can do that.” She meant it, even if her pulse said otherwise.
A beat passed. Wind tugged at his shirt.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “Scout the approach. Map what waits beyond that ridge.” His eyes met hers, steady and sure. “If it’s clear, I’ll signal. Then we move together.”
Elara’s brows drew together. “You’re not just—”
A sound split the air.
Dry leaves skittered as something small and quick darted through the underbrush.
Reynnar moved first—a flash of motion. One step, and his frame eclipsed hers. The scent of leather, steel, and forest clung to him as her pulse kicked hard.
“What is it?” she breathed, the words brushing the back of his neck.
He pressed a finger to his lips, and her heart lurched higher as his gaze dropped to the forest floor. She followed it, breath catching as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. Roots coiled over slick stones, faint fungi glowing between them—and then one of the rocks moved.
Goosebumps swept her arms as it twitched again, slowly turning to reveal beetle-black eyes set in its rough surface. She couldn’t look away. The tiny, lichen-covered creature blinked up at her, its mouth curling into what might’ve been a smirk—if stones could smirk.
Elara stumbled back as it vanished with a soft rustle.
Reynnar cursed under his breath, and in one swift motion, his arm hooked around her side, yanking her to him.
“Get on my back.”
“What—”
The word had barely left her lips before he lifted her. She yelped, legs locking around his waist, arms tightening as he shifted her higher.
“They’ve caught your scent.”
One moment, there was solid ground. The next, only motion—so sudden it drove the air from her lungs.
Elara clung to Reynnar as the forest tore past them, the world breaking into streaks of green and pale light.
Her thoughts scattered. Wind bit at her face, laced with pine and river-cold, wrenching tears from her eyes. Each stride jolted through her bones.
Whatever had caught their scent was close enough that Reynnar didn’t dare slow or speak. His breath rasped against her arms looped around his neck. He ran with brutal grace, power held tight on a razor-thin leash.
And as the ground blurred beneath them, the truth struck hard—
He’d been slowing for her. Matching her pace, despite the cost.
All this time.
Each of his footfalls struck like embers against the earth, but the sound behind them kept closing in. The woods stirred—a breath through the leaves—and shadows threaded between the trees, quiet as death.
Elara risked a glance back. Her pulse hammered against her ribs.
Through the shifting foliage, movement flickered—two Sídhe warriors, little more than blurs.
Swift. Impossibly fast. Their feet skimmed the ground, the wild itself seeming to carry them forward.
They wore armor the color of wet bark: layered leather over shifting scales, green in shadow and brown in stray shafts of light.
Moss, stone, forest floor—they all but vanished into it.
“They’re right behind us.”
“I know.” His breath came tight. “Hold on.”
Reynnar cut sharply left. Ferns lashed at her legs, leaving thin, burning lines across her skin.
Then a whistle tore through the trees. A net dropped from above, silver threads twisting in midair like strands of moonlight.
He spun hard, the mesh slicing past them—missing by inches—but the maneuver cost him.
His footing slipped, boots skidding on loose stone.
Elara’s breath punched out as a tall, lithe Sídhe stepped from the mist, spear leveled low.