Shadow paths, Niamh had called them. The name fit, for Bran couldn’t see anything once they’d entered the inside of that tree and the hidden way through. Niamh’s words rang in his mind, and Bran took them as the warning they were. He couldn’t see Cillian, but he could feel the leash between them, the metal pulled taut, and that soothed him somehow. He walked through darkness, feeling as if he were falling, stomach twisting uncomfortably like he was in free fall, until a flicker of light in the far distance became a way out.
They crawled out of a gap between two boulders, back into the wyrding, and found Niamh waiting for them with her crew in a clearing that was empty of bones this time. Bran didn’t know how cold he was until he left the shadow path behind, teeth chattering, grateful for even the weak daylight filtering through the fog. Cillian didn’t appear bothered by the chill at all, but he eyed Bran with concern.
“I’m fine,” Bran said. “Where are we?”
“Where your magic said your sister would be,” Niamh said.
The wyrding looked the same as it had before. He wanted to believe she hadn’t led them astray. “You’re sure?”
“I know how to bend the shadow paths to my will.”
That sounded a lot likeintent, and Bran decided he wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, he focused on Aisling’s witchmark on his bracelet, pulling it free with a twist of his fingers and a tiny pulse of magic. The sparkling ball of magic was the size of a grape, and he fed it to Jupiter with cold fingers. “Find her.”
Jupiter launched herself from his shoulder, flying silently away, the urge to follow singing through their bond. Bran didn’t think twice about running after her, Cillian keeping pace so the leash wouldn’t hold him back. He wanted desperately to call out Aisling’s name but didn’t dare, not wanting to draw any attention from the lights. All he could do was go where Jupiter bade him, the wyrding a blur of gray as he ran.
His lungs burned by the time he skidded to a stop on a hillside, Jupiter circling overhead, silent when she’d becawingloudly if they were back home. Magic coursed through him, eradicating the chill from the shadow paths. Bran stared around frantically, forgetting, in that moment, to be quiet.
“Aisling?” he cried out. “Aisling, it’s me!”
Nothing but silence met his ears over the sound of his harsh breathing. Bran called out for her again and again, sliding down the hill with Cillian right beside him. He didn’t care about Niamh or her crew, didn’t care about the lights, didn’t care about anything when he caught sight of movement at the base of a tree. A dirty, pale head peeked over a gnarled root, and Bran let out a choking gasp that somehow became a name. “Aisling!”
Bran raced toward her, the leash flying free behind him as Cillian let him go. Aisling scrambled over the root in jerky motions, mouth open on a silent yell, her voice still gone, still stolen, but she wasn’t anymore. Then he had her in his arms, squeezing his little sister tight, Jupiter sendingfound, found, foundthrough their bond as Bran cried into Aisling’s dirty white-blonde hair. She clutched at him, shaking in his arms, getting the front of his shirt wet from her tears as she sobbed so hard her entire body shook. She barely made a sound, breath coming out in ragged little gasps.
He didn’t know she was trying to warn him until it was too late.
“Bran!” Cillian yelled behind him.
He jerked his head up, Jupitercawinga sudden warning as aroundthem, the fog peeled away from Fae soldiers marching between dead trees, an emblem of a deer head with horns etched into their armor chest plates. They were led by a Fae riding one of the massive deer they’d seen in that meadow days ago. The sight of him made all the blood drain from Bran’s face.
“So Lord Ainmire’s words were true. The Winter Prince lives after all,” the Fae lord who had stolen Aisling said.
Chapter Nineteen
“Bran!” Cillian cried out, hell-bent on pitching himself down the remainder of the hill to get to the other man’s side, but a viselike grip grabbed him by the arm, holding him back.
“No,” Niamh said through gritted teeth. “You cannot stand against Cernunnos as you are now.”
Mortal in every way that mattered save the skin he now wore. Cillian couldn’t even control the magic Bran swore was his. “Let go.”
If anything, Niamh’s grip tightened, her voice coming out low and harsh. “That is Cernunnos who speaks your title and knows your face. He is old, even amongst our kind, and one of the most powerful High Fae in the Four Lands.”
Cillian stared at the Fae lord in question, taking in that too-beautiful face and long brown hair, the antlers that protruded from his head, and the richly tailored and embroidered courtly outfit he wore. He sat straight and proud on the deer he rode, exuding a sense of power that even Cillian could feel, the way it made the air crackle, pricking at his skin.
Cernunnos and his Fae soldiers ringed the area at the bottom of the hill where Bran and Aisling stood, cutting off any chance of escape except the way they’d come. But to move would risk dying from thearrows nocked to bowstrings or the magic that curled around Cernunnos’ hands like some brightly glowing living thing.
“I don’t care who he is. He’s not taking Bran,” Cillian ground out.
He was tired of Fae threatening them both, of speaking as if they knew him when they didn’t. Bran was his best friend, had always been that—a permanent presence etched into his bones that not even seven years of silence could erase. Knowing Bran was a witch would never change that. In this strange and dangerous world, the only person Cillian knew he could trust was Bran.
The last thing Cillian was going to do was give him up again.
Cernunnos stared at Cillian, and he met the Fae lord’s eyes with a glare of his own, finally yanking his arm free of Niamh’s grip with a strength he was still getting used to. He took a step forward, then froze as half the Fae archers at the bottom of the small hill aimed their arrows in his direction. Niamh hissed something in the Fae language, forgetting that Cillian couldn’t understand a word she said.
“Back off,” Cillian growled.
“You are in no position to give orders,” Cernunnos said, nudging his deer forward. The massive animal trotted closer to where Bran and Aisling stood.
Cillian groped desperately for an argument that was the only one he thought the Fae lord would acknowledge. “I collared Bran. That makes himmine, not yours. Don’t you dare touch him or Aisling.”
