21. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
The woman’s sobs faded as we walked on, swallowed by smoke and the crackle of distant pyres. My chest ached, but I forced my feet forward, not daring to look back.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Little Seer,” Tairngire said at last, voice threaded with gravel.
I snapped my head toward him. Somehow, I knew that’s what he would say. Even though I’d had a brief moment thinking he could possibly understand.
What a fool I was.
Something inside me shattered, no longer able to contain my overwhelming emotions. “She’s lost everything, Tairngire. Everything. Where’s the harm in giving her a godsdamned moonstone?”
He twisted his lips into something harsh. “You think the Fates won’t take notice? You think weaving sacred comfort into her grief comes without cost?” His gaze flicked to the rising embers, shaking his head. “Mortals cling to things as if they can stop death. Strange creatures, all of you.”
“Strange?” I scoffed. “Most gods are Na hArdaithe. Ascended. Mortal-born, aside from the An Chéadchumtha…” I stopped on a breath as the possibility hit me.
His stride halted. His jaw stilled. When his gaze slid to mine, it carried more depth than I’d ever seen in it—something heavier than anger or his usual amusement. Then he spoke the words that confirmed my realization.
“I am not mortal born,” he said each word deliberately. “I am First-Crafted, shaped from the soil of Anamcroí, breathed into existence by Cernunnos. His forest made flesh. My blood has never known mortal death, nor the climb of ascension. For my soul cannot be removed from my flesh.”
The air left my lungs in a gush. I felt it in my bones—the enormity of what he had just revealed.
Na hArdaithe were stories. Mortal men and women who clawed their way into eternity. But him? He had never clawed. He had been created. By a God of Old, no less. Cernunnos. One of the oldest beings to walk the realms, covered in the skin of a mortal. Not his true form.
I swallowed hard. “So you were never...human.”
His gaze flicked to me, intense as the wild forest. “No.”
For once, he didn’t sound smug. It almost sounded like a curse.
The words stuck in my ribs like a blade.
Not mortal born. Never knowing death, unable to understand empathy.
A walking travesty, created by the Old Gods.
I’d always thought that being mortal was a weakness to be endured, seeing the choices that led to destruction time and time again.
But what if it wasn’t that? What if mortals were stronger for the pain that they withstood, while others were forged, never having to face it?
I kept walking, though inside, everything stilled. First Crafted.
He had never known loss. Never knelt at a grave.
Never starved until the ache lived in his bones.
Never had he been doomed to an interim bond, his Fate tied intrinsically to another, only to forget about it in his next life.
Never loved like mortals did—fragile, desperate—because nothing for him had ever been fragile.
The First Forest had made him whole. Untouchable.
But did that mean that he’d never known betrayal?
The struggles of a mortal existence? He claimed to know what it felt like to be chained to a duty he didn’t ask for—and maybe that particular Fate was worse than suffering one thousand different human lives until your soul earned the right to ascend.
Maybe he carried a different burden: being the flesh of the Old Gods.
The mouthpiece of the Tuatha, with the ability to feel everything and not understand the source.
What startled me most wasn’t the truth itself, but the way he spoke it, like there was something jagged lodged in his chest. Something he could never spit out.
I thought of the woman at the pyre, clutching her dead daughter’s memory.
I thought of the miserable Fates of those that I’d seen before soul bonding rites.
The plague decaying this realm, cries rising into the smoke.
If he was truly forest-born, eternal, then of course he couldn’t understand why I had given her the moonstone.
Of course, he couldn’t fathom why I had to.
For the first time since this dreaded bond was forged by the Fates, I realized how deep the chasm between us truly went. It made my stomach twist. Because part of me wasn’t sure if I wanted to bridge it—or shove him into it.
My heart and mind were in a ferocious battle with each other, trying to make sense of…
well, everything. I couldn’t help but wonder about the burdens he might deal with, if the sadness of carrying eternity around clung to him like a weight.
I hadn't considered that before, and honestly, I wasn’t sure what to say to him.
So the silence stretched, heavy with what he’d revealed, and I was sure he’d let it stand until I broke it. He always did. He thrived on my questions, on my frustration.
But this time, it was him. His voice came low, steady, almost out of place against the crackle of the pyres.
“What does it feel like?”
I blinked. “What?”
“The Sight.” His eyes stayed on the smoke-laden horizon. “I can hear the Weave, feel it hum in bark and stone, root and river. But I have never seen it. Not like you. So…what is it like, Little Seer?”
I just stared at him. No one had ever asked me that. They either didn't care for my answer, or demanded it, but they never simply asked.
“It’s…” My chest rose, unsteady. “It’s subtle.
The air around people doesn’t just move—it binds.
Threads, bonds: gold, silver, green, violet, black, red.
They tether. They burn. Some pulse with love.
Others choke like chains. I see them all.
Before I see faces, I see them.” Bitterness laced my tone, but if he noticed he didn’t show it.
I could feel his eyes boring into me. “And what of the Weave?”
A breath left me ragged. “Alive. Multi-colored, like a rainbow. It winds through everything in Anamcroí. But here?” My eyes swept the dim streets, the smoke rising. “Here it hides, like it’s ashamed.”
For a heartbeat, I thought I saw something akin to sorrow flicker across his face. His silence lingered long after my words, his brows pinched in thought, as if he was trying to understand the unfathomable. Then at last, he spoke again, lower, almost unguarded. “And ours?”
I stared at him, slack jawed.
“Our bond.” His eyes caught mine as he continued. “The thread the Fates bound between us. What does it look like?”
This time, he was the one asking. Wanting something that only I could provide.
I let my mouth curl into a slow smile. “Oh…so the Stagborn god who struts about like he knows everything wants an answer only I can provide, hmm?”
His emerald depths hardened as his runes flared bright against his leathers. He hated that smirk on my lips. Hated this leverage.
“Tell me.” Not a plea—never that—but a crack in his marble exterior.
I rolled my neck, savoring it. “Maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll keep it to myself. Isn’t mystery half the fun?”
That muscle in his jaw jumped again. Now he was the one unraveling. And gods, it felt good.
I let him stew in his thoughts for a moment, then sighed, conceding.
“It’s red,” I said, my voice steady. “A thread the color of blood and fire. The Fates bound it tight, so tight I feel it even when I don’t want to.
It glows like it has no right to dim. Permanent.
Unbreakable. It hums in my chest whether I call for it or not. Whether you do or not.”
His eyes narrowed, locked on me as though every word struck.
“And it feels…” I hesitated but forced it out. “Like a chain. One that stretches no matter how far you are. No matter how far I run.” My jaw clenched. “It feels like a second pulse, like it wants things from me I never agreed to give.”
He stepped closer, voice an octave lower somehow. “Another chain, Little Seer?”
I couldn’t tell whether he was curious or angry, and if it was the latter, I really was going to throttle him. “Yes.” My chin lifted as I reiterated, enunciating each word. “Another I never asked for.”
The bond thrummed in my chest, alive with the words. The truth was that it felt good to get them out. I wanted him to know how much I despised this bond, our entire hopeless situation. How much I couldn’t stand him. Even if deep down, I wasn’t so sure of that anymore.
“Then learn quickly,” he said, voice rough, steady. “Some chains don’t just bind. Some chains protect.”
I couldn’t help myself anymore. I laughed, though it held no humor. I couldn’t believe it. Was that truly what he thought he was doing here? Acting like some holy savior while mortals in Morhaven suffered in their own filth and misguided fates?
“Protect? They bound me against my will, Tairngire! You tug on this thread when you need me for something, and you have the audacity to pretend it’s some sort of gift?”
His expression flickered like that was exactly what he thought of it. It was subtle, but enough to further enrage me. I stepped closer. The red thread was hot, daring the clash.
“You think this is protection?” I hissed. “Chains are chains, Tairngire. Doesn’t matter if they’re spun by the Fates or forged in some gods-damned pit. Dress it up how you want—but it isn’t freedom. It isn’t choice.”
His eyes flashed bright, with his pupils dimming behind the glow. He didn’t flinch when I stood on my toes to look him in the eye, leaning close enough that my words brushed his mouth.
“Tell me, Forest God,” I snarled. “Was that the plan? To keep me on your leash? To keep the Seer tethered so you can tug the thread whenever it suits you?”
The bond shivered—angry, alive, too hot.
His temper broke like a storm.
“You think I wanted this?” His rolling voice thundered through the decrepit forest, rattling my bones. “You think I chose to bind myself to you? Conspired with the Fates? To feel this gods-damned thread pulling at me every time you breathe too hard?”