Chapter Thirty
It could’ve been hours or days that passed.
Time in the Otherworld passed strangely, after all.
The sky had darkened, and the reflection of the moon scattered across the lake in a band of glittering white.
The two of them lay across the benches, their heads side by side.
Sweat cooled on their skin. Their breaths came slow and easy now.
The boat rocked and swayed beneath them.
Ciara turned so that her nose rested against Shea’s temple.
“When you win, what will you ask for?”
Shea absently traced her cheekbone. “I don’t know. You and Daniil are both counting on me.”
“No. What do you want?”
This, she wanted to say. You.
There was nothing Midir could give her that she wanted.
She wanted lazy evenings at Ciara’s side.
She wanted to play chess without fear. Maybe she wanted freedom, too.
Freedom from all of the guilt and expectations she’d placed on herself.
The freedom to find out who she was. She couldn’t have any of that unless she won.
“It would be good enough to defeat him. But I don’t know if I can. ”
Ciara took hold of her wrist. She held on until Shea met her eyes. “I do.”
Shea smiled. It was sweet, how easily she offered Shea her confidence.
Shea couldn’t share in it. There wasn’t a player alive capable of matching him.
Even Fuamnach’s only solution was sorcery.
Shea sat upright as the memory came back to her.
Fuamnach had suggested she had a way to counteract the magic of his eye.
“I think Fuamnach knows how to stop him.”
Ciara eyed her warily. “I can take you to her. But I am not sure that is a wise idea.”
“Why not?”
Ciara grimaced. “You did get her imprisoned.”
Shea supposed that would make things difficult. Fuamnach had an impressive ability to hold a grudge. “Then tell me you have a better idea.”
Ciara sighed but offered no further protest.
The underside of the boat scraped against the rocks as they pulled ashore. After they finished tethering the boat to the docks, Ciara led Shea back into the castle. The guards stationed at intervals saluted Ciara as they passed. No questions asked, no suspicions voiced.
They made their way to a spiral staircase, and Shea expected to be taken into some damp, cold chamber beneath the earth. She envisioned stone walls and oppressive darkness, the rattling of chains, and maybe some instruments of torture. Instead, Ciara guided them upward.
On the top floor of the tower, a chandelier swung from a chain overhead, casting eerie shadows across the walls.
A silvery limb of the apple tree pierced the room from floor to ceiling.
It was hollow, Shea realized; a narrow sliver in its trunk was sealed with bars of solid iron.
If that wasn’t enough of a cruelty, someone had woven strings of rowan berries and other magical wards through them.
Ciara shuddered violently and stopped dead in the threshold. “This is where I leave you. Do be careful. She may be contained, but she is still dangerous.”
“I will be.”
Reluctantly, Ciara withdrew into the hall. Slowly, Shea approached the bars. In the swaying columns of light, she could make out a shape huddled within the prison. A pair of wolf-yellow eyes blinked open, as brilliant as full moons in the gloom. They locked onto Shea and burned with resentment.
“I have seen enough of you to last a thousand lifetimes,” Fuamnach said dispassionately. “I take it you’ve come to gloat.”
“No. I came to talk.”
“Wow.” Fuamnach’s voice oozed sarcasm; she sounded like Lily again. “It must be my lucky day.”
Shea lowered herself onto the floor and sat as close as she dared.
The stone beneath them was bitter cold and bit into her very bones.
She almost pitied Fuamnach. She’d drawn her knees into her chest to ward off the chill, making herself seem smaller.
Her hair was snarled with mats of blood.
Her dark makeup was smeared like war paint, her cheekbone stained plum with the beginnings of a bruise.
Despite all that unshakable, battle-won pride, she looked wretchedly exhausted.
“Was it worth it?” Shea asked quietly.
Fuamnach’s eyes flashed defiantly. “Say what you’ve come to say or leave.”
She’d get no remorse out of her, then. Shea flashed her a smile. It was not a friendly one. “I want to bargain with you.”
Through the shadows, Shea detected a glimmer of interest in her expression. Still, Fuamnach scoffed. “There’s nothing I can do for you now.”
“You told me you knew a way to defeat Midir. What is it?”
“Did I?” she drawled. “And why should I part with that information?”
“Because.” Shea curled her fingers around the bars and lowered her voice. “You want him to lose as badly as I do.”
Fuamnach laughed, a sound as cold and dark as a new moon night. “You are in no position to make demands of me. You are the one who doomed me. I may enjoy Midir’s humiliation, but that alone will not set me free. How did you manage to get around my enchantment?”
“I didn’t,” Shea said cautiously. She hadn’t outright refused the bargain yet. Maybe there was still ground to break. “Daniil figured it out himself, actually. He took that game you played hard, you know. He might be as coldhearted and vindictive as you are.”
Fuamnach let out a long-suffering sigh. Shea couldn’t begrudge her. A thousand years of patience, a thousand years of bitterness, to be undone by a sore loser with a trust fund. “How?”
“You left a trail. There were photos of you—paintings, too, and letters. I don’t get it. You lived full lives in the mortal world. Better lives, I imagine.” Frustration edged into her voice. “Why give that up? Why do this?”
“Full lives,” Fuamnach echoed wonderingly.
“No, you are mistaken. For centuries, I have lived half a life. All that remained of me was the desire to make Midir of Bri Leith suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered. I couldn’t let it go.
I couldn’t rest. Knowing Aideen Echraide might return to him one day… ”
“Then why didn’t you kill her when you had the chance?” Her voice was little more than a rasp. “Ciara told me what happened. You could’ve done it twice over. But you didn’t. You spared her.”
“I had to keep his hope alive. That is a far greater torment.”
Shea let her grip on the bars loosen. There really was no scrap of kindness in her. “You doomed yourself, then.”
“Judge me if you must, Shea Fury.” Fuamnach smiled ruefully. “We are always our own undoing.”
That, at least, Shea thought she could understand. “I can still help you. What if I find a way to punish him? If I could help you get your revenge before they do away with you?”
Fuamnach frowned. A wary, uneasy hope bloomed over her face. “Is that the bargain you wish to make? A spell to nullify the power of Midir’s eye in exchange for enacting my vengeance?”
She’d be an idiot to treat with a fae as old and powerful as Fuamnach. But what other choice did she have? “What happens if I lose?”
“I will place you under bonds of weighty enchantments,” Fuamnach replied serenely. “You will stand atop this tower and take no food, save for what the wind will blow through the eye of a needle fixed before you.”
“Absolutely not. You lose nothing if I fail. I’m not dying for this.”
“No sense of humor,” Fuamnach chided. “If you reject those terms, nothing will happen if you lose.”
“Fine,” Shea said warily. “It’s a deal.”
“Very well, then.” Fuamnach rose from the ground. Shea followed suit. Fuamnach approached the bars that divided them with steps so fluid, she seemed to glide. “Give me your hand.”
Reluctantly, Shea slipped her arm through the bars.
Fuamnach took hold of her wrist in one hand.
With the other, she pushed up the sleeve of Shea’s jacket, baring her pale forearm.
Fuamnach whispered something under her breath, a sibilant flow of sound that resembled no language Shea had ever heard.
The sorceress traced shapes on Shea’s skin, and the smell of saltwater rose in the cell—along with the scent of burning flesh.
A bolt of terror gripped Shea. No pain followed. It was not her burning but Fuamnach.
The wards.
Fuamnach’s jaw clenched tight, but she finished writing. She collapsed in a heap at Shea’s feet. Black smoke curled through the gaps in Fuamnach’s fingers. In a wrecked voice, she gritted out, “It is done.”
Shea inspected her arm. At first, she saw nothing. Then, faintly, words in a strange alphabet flickered into view and glowed a lurid, banked-coal red. “What is this?”
“Instructions on how to cast my counter-spell. As you requested.” Fuamnach’s golden eyes bored into hers. They glowed through the thin veil of smoke. “I’m afraid they will be of little use to you, unless your princess is adept at sorcery.”
Shea had thought herself spiteful, hellbent on destroying Midir. Clearly, she did not know how deep the well of hatred could go. Her fingers curled into a fist, so tight her knuckles ached. “You tricked me.”
“Hardly.” Fuamnach’s eyes fluttered wearily closed. “I have given you only what you asked for.”
“Why?” Shea demanded. “Why bother to put yourself through this, if you weren’t going to help me?”
“I can’t do more for you than this. This is the only guarantee at satisfaction I have. Now, for both our sakes, I hope you can hold up your end of the bargain.”
Heavy and defeated, Shea trudged back to her old bedroom.
She could think of little else but collapsing into a dead sleep.
When she stood outside the door, warm light and the faint sound of familiar voices reached her from the other side.
She shoved through the door to find Daniil and Ciara seated across from one another and a chessboard set up between them.