“This story sounds distinctly familiar. I think I might have heard it somewhere before.”
I shush him and say not to interrupt. “If anyone asked her how she felt about the king, she would have said she loathed him. He ruthlessly trained her to fight his own kind. He taught her to kill. She learned from his lessons how to quiet the rage that burned inside her. But she had already decided that one day, when she had grown strong enough and learned everything she could about battle, she was going to murder him.”
Kiaran goes still, his eyes glittering in the darkness. He says nothing.
“Her opportunity came one night when he decided she was ready to hunt her first faery. It was a skriker that had been terrorizing a nearby village, slaughtering children in the night. The king handed the girl his sword and ordered her to kill the goblin-like creature.
“She barely won. But in the end, as she thrust the sword deep into the monster’s gut, she felt something so profoundly that she thought it would consume her. So she told the king. She whispered the words and meant them with every part of her rage-filled soul: ‘I hate you. I hate all of you.’ When she lifted the sword again, she intended to pierce it right through his heart.
“That was the first time the girl had ever seen the faery king smile.”
I lift my hand and press my palm to Kiaran’s cheek. “You’ll have to finish the story. She never knew why he smiled. Just that one day, she wanted to see him do it again. So she dropped the sword and spared his life. And she never told the king what really happened that night.”
Kiaran looks amused. “The king knew the girl’s plan all along. He smiled because he decided he liked her. She kept things interesting.”
I stare at him. “So the faery king is a deranged sort. As the girl always suspected.”
“How about his side of this story?” He pulls me close, his lips soft on my shoulder. “He never told the girl that during a hunt, when she ran alongside him with the wind in her hair and the moonlight behind her, that she was the most magnificent thing he had ever seen and he wanted her.”
Then Kiaran’s hands are in my hair, lips brushing mine. “And when the king watched her in battle, she’d look over at him with a smile and he desired her.
“It was never at once,” he continued. “It was after everything they had gone through and then it was the king and the girl facing an entire army together. And he knew the truth. His heart was hers. It always was. It always will be.”
A shadow crosses Kiaran’s irises. A reminder that he’s still fighting. Just to be here. With me. He shuts his eyes, expression strained. Before I can ask if he’s all right, he pulls me against him and holds me close.
His next words are spoken under his breath, so low I wonder if I heard them at all. “The girl helps the king keep his darkness at bay.”
In the hours before dusk, I know it’s time to tell him everything. “Don’t go to war with Aithinne.”
He sighs. “Kam—”
“She doesn’t want it,” I interrupt. “I’m the one who killed your soldiers.”
“I gathered that when you announced it in my hallway,” Kiaran says dryly. “And when you made quick work of my men outside.” He’s counting my vertebrae, fingers sliding up one at a time, inch by inch. His touch is gentle. When he kisses my back, his lips are as light as moth wings.
“I had to get your attention. It was Aithinne’s idea.”
“I thought that dramatic entrance had suggested-by-Aithinne all over it.” His fingertips sweep down, down across my spine. So slow that I shiver. “I can feel the pulse of power straining beneath your skin,” he murmurs. “I know it’s not yours. You’ve made a terrible decision, haven’t you?”
“How do you know?”
“Easy. You have a knack for attracting mayhem.”
“I think it was a wonderful decision, all things considered. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You’re using my affections to garner sympathy. It won’t work.” He pulls back and looks down at me, serious now. “Tell me what you did.”
“What I had to do,” I say.
There was no other choice. The decision between death and one final goodbye isn’t truly a choice. The Cailleach gambled on me saying yes.
She placed her bet and she won.
I tell him about what happened after Sorcha killed me. “If we find the Book, you don’t have to kill Aithinne,” I say softly. “It’ll end the curse. We can change everything back to the way it was before all of this. All the people we failed to save will have their lives back, their homes back.” When he doesn’t respond, I press closer, whispering in his ear, “You and I will run through the night again. We’ll dance in the rain and watch the sun rise over the sea. This time I won’t even mind if you show up unannounced at my house as long as you don’t break my father’s vases again.”
Kiaran doesn’t return my smile. He gently pushes me away, eyes searching mine. “What haven’t you told me?”
My heart thuds in my chest. I let out a breath. “The Cailleach gave me her powers as a short-term solution. My body wasn’t meant to hold them.”
As he stares down at me, I know he understands. But I have to say the words. They stick in my throat at first and I shut my eyes.
Outside, the waves crash against the rock. The wind rattles the windows. Then everything goes quiet and all I can hear is my pulse in my ears. “I’m dying, MacKay,” I whisper. “If we don’t find that Book—”
Kiaran doesn’t let me finish. He kisses me, pressing me into the pillows, and the words disappear on my lips.
I never get the chance to tell him that each time I use the Cailleach’s powers, they kill me a little more. I never get the chance to tell Kiaran about needing Sorcha to find the Book. Each kiss interrupts my words. His hands pave a path of heat down my body. He touches me like he wants to forget the world. Forget our fates. Forget everything. Like he wants to drown in this, in us, in me.
I let him.
I let myself drown in him, too.
CHAPTER 19
I WAKE TO find myself alone in Kiaran’s room. The side of the bed where he slept is cold to the touch; he hasn’t been there for hours. The duvet is even undisturbed, as if I dreamed the whole thing.
It’s early morning. The first vestiges of daylight spill through the open window and I can hear the faint crashing of ocean waves as the tide rolls in—the only sound in the still, massive room.
I rise from the bed and grab my discarded clothes from the floor. It’s so drafty in that empty space that I slip on my coat and boots as I head to the door. I don’t know if Kiaran wants me wandering the vast halls of this nightmare palace, but I’m not comfortable staying in his room alone, either.
I push the door open and slip into the great hall.
“MacKay?”