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Sloga’s huge hand settled on my back. “The Carlin’s self-serving motives have prepared you for this moment, Lonan. You have spent your whole life preparing for this moment.”
“How? All she taught me was how to kill. But being good at killing doesn’t help me with this. She’s the queen. Slitting her throat won’t work.” My lip curled with self-loathing. I wrapped my arms back around my knees, hunching in on myself. “I haven’t spent my whole life preparing. I have spent my whole life doing nothing except what she told me to.”
“Exactly.”
After a pause, I frowned at him. “What?”
“Think it over.” He patted my back before removing his hand. “Will you stay here tonight, Lonan? I would like to… I would very much like to tell you more about your father. If you want to hear it.”
I slowly uncurled my stiff body and stretched out my legs. “Yes. I would like that.”
Sloga got to his feet, the trinkets on his horns jangling in the quiet night. “And will you allow me to give you food and a comfortable place to sleep?”
“Yes,” I reluctantly repeated, because I desperately needed both. “I appreciate it.”
As we made our way down the side of the mound, Sloga ducked his deer-like head and hesitantly asked, “Would you… would you like to see his resting place?”
I froze, breath catching in my throat. “It’s… He’s here?”
“Yes. I brought him back here. It was his home.”
Sloga pointed at a slender tree in the darkness, a short distance from the sidhe. Swallowing, I made my way over and stopped to look at it. Its pale trunk stood out in the darkness, and I realised it was the only tree nearby that didn’t have trinkets and talismans strung on its branches.
“A silver birch.” Sloga rested his big hand reverently on its trunk. “I planted it on his grave. Just a little sapling then. I knew he would want to give something back to the forest.”
Slowly, I reached out and touched its trunk too. I didn’t have any tears left, but a lump formed in my throat as I felt the smooth bark beneath my fingers.
Sloga’s silhouette was hunched in the darkness. Grief rolled off him in heavy waves, and his voice was thick when he spoke.
“I’m sorry that your life has been so painful, Lonan. And I’m sorry to tell you such terrible things, but… I want you to know how hard he fought for you. I want you to know that even though you have suffered so much, and been offered so little love by those around you, his love for you is endless. He is waiting for you in the afterlife, and I hope it comforts you to know that when Ankou takes you there, a long time from now, you will finally get the time together that she stole from you. I only wish that I would one day get to join you both there. To see him one more time.” He let out a shuddering breath, his hand slipping from the tree trunk. “But I take comfort in knowing that he will have you.”
I couldn’t speak, my throat aching. I was mourning the abstract idea of my father, but Sloga was mourning him. Sloga had spent years with him, had loved him, had been left alone once he was taken away too soon.
He was right. One day, I would finally get to meet my father, when the time came for Ankou to escort me to the afterlife. But Sloga was a Higher Spirit. He would never move on from this world. He would remain here for eternity, without the one person he had loved more than anything else.
Before I even realised I was moving, I found myself stepping closer and burying myself against Sloga’s front. Slowly, he wrapped his long arms around me and hugged me back.
I didn’t say anything else, and neither did he.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lonan
Already, Sloga’s sidhe was starting to feel safe when we made our way back inside. It was rare for anywhere to feel truly safe to me, and I suspected it had more to do with the Higher Spirit’s gentle presence than the actual place.
And with the fact that this was where my father had been happy. And alive.
“Everything you just told me…” I said quietly as Sloga made his way over to the hearth to put on more tea. “Does Idony know?”
“No.” He shook his head, picking through his bowls of herbs and leaves. “That’s not something to share with others. Only you.”
“How did you all end up… friends?” I sat down by the fire in the same spot as before. “How did you meet my father?”
“Oh, just…” Sloga chuckled with a shrug as he settled on his cushion. “A chance encounter in the forest. But that was all it took. We met one day when I was returning from visiting Fioda.” His expression grew wistful. “I was instantly captivated. More than any other creature, he looked like he belonged in the forest. Like he was truly a part of it. Beautiful and wild and so alive. He jumped down from a tree right in front of me, gave me a huge grin, then shifted into a stag with little horns just like mine.”
Sloga smiled at the memory and stretched for the sideboard, his long arm reaching with ease. On the floor between our seats, he set down several jars and a small square of cloth, which he unwrapped to reveal a stack of flatbreads. Idony’s foraged fruits had been tipped into a wooden bowl, which he placed between us as well.
“That was a hundred or so years ago.” He sighed, picking up my cup from earlier and dumping the cold tea into the fire. “I’m grateful I had those years with him.”
