“Could you live without him? Could you let him walk away? Or would you do anything in your power to keep him safe? Would your heart wither and die without him in your life? Do you feel a bond between you both even when he is not there?” Verlin turned his head, staring at Seamus, something warm coming to his eyes, features gentling. “I knew Seamus was my mate the moment I saw him centuriesago. He was one of your personal knights, long before he became captain of them all. He was in the throne room when I was presented to you at the Winter Court.”
Cillian winced. “Please tell me we weren’t?—”
Verlin laughed, none of the cruelty that Ainmire had possessed in the sound. “Betrothed? No. We were not suited, especially not after I found my mate. I was sent to the Winter Court to be a companion, to learn to be your right hand. You trusted me above all others, and I followed you everywhere. I would have followed you into death itself if my mother hadn’t convinced me to live for our people, to care for them in your stead amid Medb’s atrocities. And I could not do to Seamus what had been done to my mother when she lost her mate.”
“Your father?” Cillian asked carefully.
“He died in the purge. Medb made an example of him in exchange for my life. My mother…she wasn’t at the Winter Court. She was here. She has been here ever since.”
Grieving with the entirety of her being. Verlin didn’t have to say it, not when it was so easy to see in the fragile lines of Lady Fiadh’s figure.
“My father’s body rots in his armor in the Great Hall of the Winter Court, as do others who tried to stand against the Dagda and his lies,” Verlin said, anger and grief riding his voice.
“I’m sorry.” Cillian meant it. No one should experience the loss of a parent in such a way.
Verlin pressed his lips together for a moment, skin paling at the seam of them. “Are you sorry for leaving us?”
“This isn’t my home.”
“So you keep saying.” Verlin sighed, turning at the sound of the door behind them opening. “Mother, what are you doing? You should be resting.”
Lady Fiadh stepped into the courtyard, a servant hovering behind her. Verlin reached for her, letting her lean her weight on his arm. “I am fine, my dear. I could not miss Cillian’s departure.”
“You wouldn’t have to if he stayed.”
“He has always been stubborn.” Lady Fiadh looked at Cillian, a gravity to her gaze he couldn’t escape. “You take after your mother in that way.”
“The Mórrígan would stay. She would fight.”
“Hush,” Lady Fiadh said before Cillian could argue that he didn’t know a Mórrígan. “You cannot be angry that Cillian leaves to keep his heart intact. Your father begged and bargained for such an escape for you once upon a time.”
Verlin’s jaw twitched. “And he died because of it, half killing you.”
“And that is why I do not want Cillian to ever experience the despair and emptiness I live with. But I have survived to see the Dagda’s downfall stand before me once again, and I do not regret that.” Lady Fiadh patted Verlin’s arm before letting him go to stand in front of Cillian. They were nearly of height, making it easy to look her in the eye, to see the faint crow’s feet at the far corners of hers and the shadows that stained the hollows of her cheeks, even in sunlight. “Every word you have spoken, every action you have done, has been for the benefit of that witch. It is anathema among our kind to care for the enemy, but there is no reasoning with the heart when a mate is involved.”
“I don’t know if Bran is my mate,” Cillian said slowly, reeling a little from her words.
“Sometimes the only lie a Fae can tell is one of the heart because we believe it to be true.” Lady Fiadh raised her hands, and Cillian stiffened as she framed his face, her gaze boring deep. “The witch is your mate, and as much as I loathe that, I can’t ignore the truth of it. There is no Fae who will ever accept it, and they will use him to ruin you.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt him.”
“I thought the same for my mate, and he for me, and now I live without him for all days. I mean this as a warning and nothing else, my prince. You get to decide what kind of love this is, but I will tell you what kind of loss it could be—one you never recover from.”
Cillian had to look away from her, searching out Bran where he stood across the courtyard with Aisling, the other man staring back at him. He remembered how it had felt last night, when they’d been tangled up in each other. The way Bran had drawn him close, drawn him in, how kissing Bran had wiped away seven years of uncertainty and regrets and loneliness, settling some inner clawing need he’d done his best to ignore for years.
The idea of letting Bran go was an impossibility he would not fathom.
The thought of turning his back on the Fae forever didn’t sit well with him.
“We have to get Aisling’s voice back,” Cillian said, meeting Lady Fiadh’s eyes again. It wasn’t a promise in any way, but the faint, satisfied smile Lady Fiadh gave him told him she heard what was left unspoken, even if Cillian couldn’t.
“You cannot appear as you are in the mortal world. You will need to use your magic to glamour yourself again.”
“The glamour Etain tore apart wasn’t mine.”
“You still need to use your own magic. Now, close your eyes and listen to my voice.”
Cillian hesitated before doing what she asked, closing his eyes and letting her words wash over him. It was difficult for him, at first, to turn his awareness inward, to actively search for a power that had so far only exploded out of him without his conscious control. Remembering Bran’s words in the wyrding was what ultimately enabled him to grab hold of his magic and draw it out of him.
