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They had been together for over a century. I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing Ash even now, after we’d had so little time together.
“Did he and Idony get along?” I asked.
Sloga chuckled. “Oh yes, but not at first. Both headstrong and unwilling to admit defeat. They clashed, but never with any true malice. I enjoyed watching their heated debates when we spent evenings together, but any disagreements would be forgotten within an hour. They cared for each other deeply.” He paused, watching the fire flicker between colours. “It was hard for her, when he died. She couldn’t show that she was grieving when she wasn’t here, hidden from the rest of the Folk. It was too dangerous for the Carlin to find out that they had been close. The Carlin couldn’t retaliate against me, but she could have taken her festering resentment out on Idony.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest, staring into the fire. “At least my mother never ordered me to kill her for some perceived slight.”
He nodded. “That was one of the reasons she kept her distance. Not that there were many opportunities for any of the Folk to get close to you.”
“It was easier that way,” I said woodenly.
“I know. She began making friends with some of the palace staff so she could hear what went on there, so she could watch out for you that way. But it didn’t help much.” His voice grew thick with guilt. “When we found out how your mother and her other sons were treating you, I tried speaking to the Carlin. I tried to get her to stop. But it just made her worse. She couldn’t kill me, or you, but she could punish us both. I’m sorry, Lonan.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what she did.” I kept my head down, picking at the ruined sole of my boot. “At least it makes more sense now. Why she didn’t love me.”
“The Carlin isn’t capable of loving anyone, Lonan.”
We fell silent as Sloga poured our tea. My head throbbed from dehydration, so I took a sip as soon as he handed me my cup, burning my tongue. He offered me a flatbread smeared with chutney and lumps of crumbling cheese, and I forced myself to take a bite even though I was past the point of hunger.
“Will you tell me more about him?” I asked quietly after swallowing my mouthful.
Sloga’s mouth stretched into a fond smile. “He liked to explore. I daresay he probably saw more of this forest than any other fae. He would spend hours wandering, shifting between forms. He said it made him feel free.”
“What animal forms did he favour?”
“A stag.” Sloga chuckled, gesturing at his head. “With stubby horns like mine, because it made me laugh. A polecat. A goshawk. A barn owl. On lazy days, he liked to shift into a cat and sun himself on top of the sidhe.”
I flushed as I admitted, “I like to do the same.”
Sloga laughed. “I am not at all surprised. You are like him in many ways. And”—he shook his head—“you could be his reflection.”
“I look like him?” I asked quickly, even though I already knew that I must. I looked nothing like my mother or brothers.
“It’s striking.” Sloga got to his feet and lumbered over to an old chest of drawers. When he returned, he was carrying a sheaf of parchment papers, which he rifled through as he sat back down. “I sketched him often. Here.”
He handed me a sheet, and my breath hitched when I looked at the charcoal sketch.
Sloga was right. I looked just like him. The portrait of my father showed a slightly older version of myself, with the same long black hair, though his was wild around his narrow face. His eyes were just as dark. Eyebrows and nose and mouth almost identical.
And he was smiling. A wide grin, almost like Sloga had captured him mid-laugh.
I stared down at it in silence. He looked so happy. I knew I had rarely smiled like that in my life. Ash was the only person who had ever given me the kind of joy that radiated from this drawing.
“His skin wasn’t quite as pale as yours,” Sloga told me. “He was tanned from spending so much time outside.”
I could see a cluster of freckles across the bridge of his nose in the drawing, and a single larger one beside the tail of his left eyebrow. One of his front teeth was slightly crooked.
“Here is another,” Sloga said quietly, handing me a second sheet.
This one showed my father sitting back against the base of a tree, his head tilted towards the sky and his eyes closed. He looked peaceful. One leg was drawn up, and his hand was resting on his knee. My gaze snagged on the rough band sketched around his finger.
“I…” I licked my dry lips. “I have a ring of his. I think. Is it the one he’s wearing here?”
“Yes. I did wonder if you remembered me giving you that.”
My head jerked up. “You gave it to me?”
Sloga nodded, still carefully clutching the rest of the papers like they were the most precious thing to him. “You were very young, and it was a… traumatic moment, so it makes sense that you might not remember. I had gone to the palace to try and speak to your mother about her treatment of you, and instead I found you shivering in the snow. You told me your brothers had locked you outside.”
