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Tension crackles through him, and I’m embracing a pillar of granite.
“Soulfall.” He threads fingers inside his stiff white collar to rip it from his neck and stuffs it in a pocket.
I unbutton his jacket and ease it off his shoulders. He hums approval and sheds his vest as well, draping both over the railing.
Sliding my hands up his chest and over his shoulders, I knead his muscles until they shift from stone back to flesh.
He rests his forehead against mine. “Does your well of questions ever run dry, love?”
This isn’t my first dance with intimacy but with Sion, there’s a pull, a surprising sweetness wholly new to me. My body understands the language his is speaking, one of longing—of lost objects being found. I don’t question or overthink. I let us happen. Has the Veil or Finnbheara’s machinations guided me to Sionnach Loho? Maybe there is something to the anamchara business after all.
Sion undoes another button of my dress, sliding the black wool off one shoulder. His lips brush my skin, and our dance resumes. The heat of his mouth momentarily scrambles my attention from the soul journey and spiritual triage. I force myself to refocus. Instead of a vision of Saint Peter at the pearly gates, I picture Jeremy Olk standing at a lectern in a classic New England college classroom with fall leaves splashing oranges and yellows outside the windows. He’s got two enormous stamps—one dripping with red ink that says REJECT and the other doused in silver with the word ONWARD. People line up holding passports to receive Jeremy’s yay or nay. Heaven’s Gate might not be pearly and golden after all.
My vision is so absurd, I giggle.
Sionnach stops swaying to hold me at arm’s length, one eyebrow raised. “A soul’s journey sets you to laughing?”
I sober quickly as the soulfall comes to mind. “Sorry. I mentally stalled on the judgement piece.”
His tiger curls bob as he rubs a hand under his nose. “I ‘spose you being in the thick with me, ‘tis your right to hear truths.” Treating me to a saucy smile, he tugs my dress back into place. “Limiting my distractions while I elaborate.”
We settle on a wide bench topped with several well-worn damask cushions probably pilfered from a grand salon in Birr castle. I picture the earl dragging them up the Leviathan ladder for comfort as he spent countless nights drifting off to sleep, gazing at his beloved heavens. I run my tongue over my lips. “Just momentarily.”
“Aye to that.” Sion sighs, gazing pointedly at my mouth. “When souls rise instead of—” He makes a motion with his hands to indicate the splatter and drip of souls we haven’t yet freed. “They return to the judgment place.” His eyes shine with longing. “The Glade of Chimes.”
As usual, he doesn’t give me enough. “Glade, as in forest?”
His storyteller cadence clicks in. “It’s a bit of a clearing in the middle of a forest of sacred oaks, yews, and rowans so old there’s no telling when they first greeted the sun. Some branches stretch out of sight while others trail along the ground.” He wiggles his fingers. “Like a tangle of wooden octopi.”
Duir, my real last name means oak. I am the branches he’s describing. Parts of me reach toward the sun and the moon, to powers that surround me, defying understanding. I’m also the gnarled and twisted limbs of sorrow from losing my grandmother, too heavy to rise above the ground.
“At the edge of the trees is a lake. The water’s not what you’d call blue exactly. It’s got a thin layer of crystal over teal-colored waters. The surface shines like diamonds.” He takes in a deep breath. “When a soul arrives at the glade, they reach into the water three times and are gifted three rods of silver. Spirits dwell in the trees. One of them will beckon, and the soul hangs the chimes on the branch of their tree. The spirit within bark and leaf will play the three notes of your soulsong on the chimes.”
A memory stirs deep inside me. Máthair used to hum a tune I’d never heard anywhere else. I swear she called it her soulsong.
“Once you sing the sacred tune designed for your soul and no other, the places beyond—” He sweeps an arm across the stars. “Hear you calling and bring you home.”
“All souls pass through the Glade of Chimes?” I can picture Máthair, dipping her hand into the gemstone lake and lifting her three chimes from its depths. Her soulsong must be beautiful, full of love and faith, and her hopes for me—all things that cannot die. I miss her desperately.
His expression darkens. “All souls enter. Not all earn their song.”
The enormity of the soulfall presses against my body, squeezing to the point of pain. “We must free them.”
“Aye. Every soul deserves their song.” He stares at the moon. “I’ve told you this is my last chance to end the soulfall in my care. If I fail again, the Glade of Chimes will be my penance.”
“Penance?”
His chest rises and falls. “Himself will banish me there.” A smile wilts on his lips. “My last name Loho means yew. I’ll become a yew tree spirit in the glade, writing soulsongs but never passing to the perfect place myself.”
“Souls with tainted virtue become tree spirits in the glade?”
“No. Most are condemned to soulfalls.” His lips twist. “I’m what you might call a special case.”
I want to pry for more detail, but the melancholy in his voice prevents me. When we’ve freed the souls, I’ll ask more. With every step closer I get to him, Sionnach is a bigger mystery. Why is this his last chance to save the souls in his charge? Forever is a long time. Why put a limit on helping people find a virtue they’ve lost? There must be a reason he’s not destined for a soulfall. Surely a place that sounds as wonderfully magical as the Glade of Chimes isn’t a punishment. The biggest why buzzing in my mind is his belief I was sent to him. He’s so convinced, but I’m not. I can’t deny our connection, but was it really designed and not discovered?
We sit in silence, listening to the shush of wind and calls of night birds. My inquiries definitely doused his passion. I need it back. It’s time for my well of questions to run dry.
“Thank you for telling me.” I drop light kisses along his jaw, pausing shy of his lips.
