Page 91 of Immortal Game

Fuamnach’s eyes flashed defiantly. “Say what you’ve come to say or leave.”

She’d get no remorse out of her, then. Shea flashed her a smile. It was not a friendly one. “I want to bargain with you.”

Through the shadows, Shea detected a glimmer of interest in her expression. Still, Fuamnach scoffed. “There’s nothing I can do for you now.”

“You told me you knew a way to defeat Midir. What is it?”

“Did I?” she drawled. “And why should I part with that information?”

“Because.” Shea curled her fingers around the bars and lowered her voice. “You want him to lose as badly as I do.”

Fuamnach laughed, a sound as cold and dark as a new moon night. “You are in no position to make demands of me. You are the one who doomed me. I may enjoy Midir’s humiliation, but that alone will not set me free. How did you manage to get around my enchantment?”

“I didn’t,” Shea said cautiously. She hadn’t outright refused the bargain yet. Maybe there was still ground to break. “Daniil figured it out himself, actually. He took that game you played hard, you know. He might be as coldhearted and vindictive as you are.”

Fuamnach let out a long-suffering sigh. Shea couldn’t begrudge her. A thousand years of patience, a thousand years of bitterness, to be undone by a sore loser with a trust fund. “How?”

“You left a trail. There were photos of you—paintings, too, and letters. I don’t get it. You lived full lives in the mortal world. Better lives, I imagine.” Frustration edged into her voice. “Why give that up? Why do this?”

“Full lives,” Fuamnach echoed wonderingly. “No, you are mistaken. For centuries, I have lived half a life. All thatremained of me was the desire to make Midir of Bri Leith suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered. I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t rest. Knowing Aideen Echraide might return to him one day…”

“Then why didn’t you kill her when you had the chance?” Her voice was little more than a rasp. “Ciara told me what happened. You could’ve done it twice over. But you didn’t. You spared her.”

“I had to keep his hope alive. That is a far greater torment.”

Shea let her grip on the bars loosen. There really was no scrap of kindness in her. “You doomed yourself, then.”

“Judge me if you must, Shea Fury.” Fuamnach smiled ruefully. “We are always our own undoing.”

That, at least, Shea thought she could understand. “I can still help you. What if I find a way to punish him? If I could help you get your revenge before they do away with you?”

Fuamnach frowned. A wary, uneasy hope bloomed over her face. “Is that the bargain you wish to make? A spell to nullify the power of Midir’s eye in exchange for enacting my vengeance?”

She’d be an idiot to treat with a fae as old and powerful as Fuamnach. But what other choice did she have? “What happens if I lose?”

“I will place you under bonds of weighty enchantments,” Fuamnach replied serenely. “You will stand atop this tower and take no food, save for what the wind will blow through the eye of a needle fixed before you.”

“Absolutely not. You lose nothing if I fail. I’m not dying for this.”

“No sense of humor,” Fuamnach chided. “If you reject those terms, nothing will happen if you lose.”

“Fine,” Shea said warily. “It’s a deal.”

“Very well, then.” Fuamnach rose from the ground. Shea followed suit. Fuamnach approached the bars that divided them with steps so fluid, she seemed to glide. “Give me your hand.”

Reluctantly, Shea slipped her arm through the bars. Fuamnach took hold of her wrist in one hand. With the other, she pushed up the sleeve of Shea’s jacket, baring her pale forearm. Fuamnach whispered something under her breath, a sibilant flow of sound that resembled no language Shea had ever heard. The sorceress traced shapes on Shea’s skin, and the smell of saltwater rose in the cell—along with the scent of burning flesh. A bolt of terror gripped Shea. No pain followed. It was notherburning but Fuamnach.

The wards.

Fuamnach’s jaw clenched tight, but she finished writing. She collapsed in a heap at Shea’s feet. Black smoke curled through the gaps in Fuamnach’s fingers. In a wrecked voice, she gritted out, “It is done.”

Shea inspected her arm. At first, she saw nothing. Then, faintly, words in a strange alphabet flickered into view and glowed a lurid, banked-coal red. “What is this?”

“Instructions on how to cast my counter-spell. As you requested.” Fuamnach’s golden eyes bored into hers. They glowed through the thin veil of smoke. “I’m afraid they will be of little use to you, unless your princess is adept at sorcery.”

Shea had thought herself spiteful, hellbent on destroying Midir. Clearly, she did not know how deep the well of hatred could go. Her fingers curled into a fist, so tight her knuckles ached. “You tricked me.”

“Hardly.” Fuamnach’s eyes fluttered wearily closed. “I have given you only what you asked for.”