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Sionnach whispers. “My darling. My love. Teacht orm. Find me.”
I pull my grandmother’s ring from my finger and slide it onto his pinkie. “Teacht orm. I will. I swear I will.”
Helping one another to stand, we walk hand-in-hand to the window. I can’t tell if the pain in my chest heralds the end of the Celtic day or the splitting of my heart. “Wait. You don’t have a key.”
His eyes glitter in the dying torchlight. “Eala bán, your compassion is the seventh virtue in this soulfall and my key.” Our lips brush and then take each other in a last kiss filled with all the passion of future kisses that will never be.
Sionnach’s voice is rough as he sings scattered phrases of the song, “An Eala Bhán,” about a white swan, dreams, clasping hands, and promises fulfilled.
With the tips of our fingers still touching, he steps onto the sill. “Send me to the mercy of fate, Anamchara. I’m too weak to fly on my own.”
I can’t do it. The love of my life will not enter grace without me. As Finnbheara loved Máthair, I love Sionnach. I will follow him to eternity.
I send final thoughts to the air.
Goodbye, Colleen. I’m grateful Charlie is a good man. He’ll love you. I know it.
Máthair’s farewell letter to me promised—Go and ye will be found. I did, Grandmother. I found more than dreams. I found wonder. I found love.
I throw my arms around Sionnach’s waist. The momentum carries us into the sky before Beltane’s rising sun. His spirit blazes within my arms into flecks of golden light that cling to my body as desperately as my soul strains to keep him next to my heart. A flock of Veil Sprites bursts from my skin, flowering around his soul. I’m surrounded by the brilliance of my anamchara as whispers pass through my body. “Teacht orm, Eala bán, find me.”
My beloved’s soul and the Veil Sprites flutter upward to chase the stars fading from the sky. I reach for them, begging all the powers of the earth and mystery to let me follow, but I slip downward away from the light.
This is my end. I’ve pushed fear aside and fulfilled the task I was created for.
Eala Duir will be no more.
The tip of my boot touches the rock that blessed or destroyed each spirit in Sionnach’s soulfall. I hug my body, preparing to disintegrate into the sludge of a spent soul, but my arms float upward, lifting my body after them. Wisps of white feathery hair fly before my eyes, blinding me to the force that elevates me away from the earth. Then my arms accept the power of wind beneath them.
I fly.
Gold-flecked white wings beat in rhythm with my heart. Below me, the firelight of dawn streaks across emerald hills. With every stroke of my wings, I push the shadow of night from the land.
In the distance, I hear a symphony of chimes as the soulsongs of Tír na nÓg call me home. I’m bound no more by one hundred thousand heartbeats. An aurora of dazzling lights breaks through morning mist as the gates of my maker’s Fae kingdom are thrown wide to receive me.
On my threshold of forever, a russet streak flashes through the rolling sea of green grass below my flight. Across the blessed soil of Ireland, banishing shadows from the ground as I chase them from the sky, is my fox.
One from earth, the other from sky, we enter the land of dreams together.
Chapter 27
The Epilogue
I float through opalescent splendor. Ribbons wearing endless colors dance around me through a brilliant white mist. The spectral wonder of the Veil pales in comparison with the unparalleled beauty surrounding me. The delicate ting of bells accompanies strains of violins to mimic the song of a gentle spring breeze.
Tír na NÓg.
Soft currents beneath my wings keep me aloft as I slowly twist, searching this new horizon for Sion. Within me, Veil Sprites melt and spread throughout my being to fill my spirit with undulating warmth instead of their usual bursts of heat. I’m certain I will find him as soon as we pass through this threshold to our forever. For now, I revel in being joy personified, lacking fear or any other earthly weight of longing or want.
Until within a thunder strike, I hear the desperate cry of a fox.
The strands of color whip out of view as if wind has torn a flag from its mount. Veil Sprites reform within me, stinging until my consciousness begins to shift from ethereal bliss into reality. I plummet downward. My wings slow my descent enough to escape a painful landing.
When the mist peels away, giving shape to the void, my heartbeats quicken. Looming above me is the colossus I left only moments ago on the sea cliffs above the Loho cottage.
Finnbheara.
The light reflecting off his white-gold armor is as unforgiving as blazing sunlight. I shield my eyes and search high above the ground for the source of the agonizing cries my heart will always recognize.
