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The laugh that left her lips was as sharp as a knife’s edge.
“Danu must have been right, then. We retained more of ourselves than we thought.”
Turning, she took in Kian, who said nothing in response to her words. Perhaps he was thinking about her being more like his old enemy when he was only just beginning to see her as Bryn. His face was pensive, and she wanted to know where his thoughts were right then. Would have paid good coin to know, but he shook his head.
Bryn pulled her sticky nightgown away from her skin, the sweat cooling her now and giving her a chill. Cyerra stretched out her wings before disappearing, and Bryn wondered if the crow watched over her while she slept. She knew the crow was in the sky while Bryn moved about, seeing her move through the lamplight at night and taking up a perch to be near her, but never overtly in her way.
Sitting back against the headboard, she rubbed her eyes, exhaustion lingering like a heavy blanket over her weary body.
“What did you dream of?” Kian asked, and she wondered if there would be any harm in telling him. None if her vision, and his part in it, happened the way she had seen it.
“The wraiths will come soon,” she told him, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the headboard. After a long silence, she finally gave in and looked up to see his face in profile as he looked out the window toward where the town was winding down for the night.
“Then the king knows you are here. I wondered how you were able to stay out of his all-seeing eye for so long. Balor is not one to let things go unmissed.”
“It’s Bres,” Bryn whispered, watching Kian as he turned a shocked look to her.
“What happened to Balor?”
“Do you not report to anyone now that you are back in our world?” she asked, wishing she’d thought of this earlier and blamed it on him being a shadow. That he was unable to physically harm her made it so that her questions about him were not at the forefront of her mind with everything else happening, yet if he could talk to another as he did her...
“I am only able to communicate with you. When I am not here with you, I am in a dark place where there is no light or sound. I come and go as I can, trying to avoid that place until my reserves are too low to be here.”
Bryn knew he haunted his killer. That his death at her hands tethered him to her. While she also knew she’d haunt anyone who killed her, that was for sure, the thought of being in a place where all of your senses were blinded... that was a horrible punishment. Who knew how long he’d had to endure that. It wouldn’t be but mere hours of it before Bryn went mad.
“What happened to him?”Kian asked as he settled into a chair near the window.
“I don’t know. All I know is the Tuatha Dé Danann gave up their,our, powers to cross the veil and be reborn, sealing off the gateway, so Balor’s army was unable to get through. He apparently slipped by and is imprisoned there.” Standing from her bed, she took the chance of being near him. He was her enemy, but he had lost the entire world he had been used to along with his life.
Bryn settled on the edge of the bed closest to where he sat.
“I wish I could remember something more.” He put his hands into his hair, his elbows digging into his knees as he leaned forward.
“Same here,” she joked, but he didn’t respond. She waited in silence for him to process the changes to his reality while she looked out the window.
“He was so determined to rule Faerie, or the Otherworld as I’ve heard Danu call it, as he was to rule this world. His greed must have finally won but at great risk to himself,” Kian finally whispered before looking up at her, his hair in his eyes making him all that more attractive, yet so very broken, and she felt pained at the sight.
“The worst part, Phantom Queen?”
She nodded for him to continue.
“Is that you’re my enemy, yet I am glad he is dead, and I do not know why.”
Bryn couldn’t find the words to reply.
Chapter 32
Brynheardthechurchbells ringing while she pulled her long curly hair up into a ponytail, waiting for Callum to meet her by the pyres. There were no bodies tonight, thankfully, but she wanted to learn everything she could about the magic she held underneath her skin.
The nip in the air was making her nervous, but it would be a few days or so before the cold winds brought the freezing season in.
Before her vision came true.
We still have time, she tried to remind herself before the worry took over,just not as much as I hoped.
Her eyes moved to the north of Ifreann, her thoughts going to her father and why he would move them here. Obviously, Arawn had a lot to do with that, but if her father had made a life elsewhere before coming here, why did he choose to come to Ifreann just because some strange man promised safety for Bryn? Was it so bad to be there after her mother had died in childbirth? Why would her father have trusted him in the first place?
She had a hard time believing her father had thought religion could cure her no matter what he said to the contrary.
