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“They are guards,” Roisin said. “They know the risks. Besides, they are still alive.”
I glanced at Palon, wondering if she would have been so giving if it were him that Badb had made fall.
She stepped forward with the plate of food. “Please, eat. As a parting gift to me.”
“Okay.”
I sat up, close to the bedpost, my shackles clanking against my wrists, but with enough loose chain I could get food into my mouth.
When I finished eating, I set my fork down. Roisin watched me closely, then smiled, clearing the plate from my lap before motioning to Palon. “Release her.”
I stared at her, confused.
“I will not send you to the bog dressed like that,” she huffed. “You will have clean clothes and appropriate shoes.”
Palon came to the bed and unlocked my chains and they clinked against the bedpost as they fell away. Roisin and I went to the bathroom, and she helped me undress. I sponge-bathed myself trying not to feel the wetness on my skin, trying not to see the rouge tint to the water, knowing I’d never forget this most recent instance of the sword in my hand sliding into flesh, of the dark red blood everywhere.
Something deep rose in me, clenching around my heart. I swallowed it down, recapturing that deadness inside—the feeling I needed to get me through the next couple days till I got to the bog and left this world behind for good.
“You ran off to yell at Dagda yesterday before I finished my story,” Roisin said after wrapping the soft robe around me. “If you want to destroy your connection to the king, fine, but you are going to hear the full tale first.”
“Dagda explained to me what happened,” I said, my voice flat.
“Did he? Then he told you that before Morrigan left, the Fomori had released a dark magical plague that was spreading through the Otherworld, destroying everything in its path? He explained that only Morrigan had the full ability to keep that plague in check, but a few years after she left, the magic she had used began to wane?”
I stared at her, my stomach twisting. “What are you talking about?”
“The Fomori.” Roisin threw up her hands. “They released a magical plague, and only Morrigan’s knowledge of sorcery was extensive enough to contain it. Not destroy it, mind you. Contain it. But after three years, her spell began to wear off. The dark magic started to spread again, placing the Otherworld in danger.”
I paled, remembering the tapestry I’d seen in the Hallway of Memories—of Morrigan holding off a dark magic. That tapestry had come right before the one of the faerie queen sneaking off into the human world.
“What does this have to do with Dagda?”
Roisin stood rigid, but then a sorrow entered her face. “We could not contain it the way the queen did. We only knew one way. Faerie blood kept the magic contained, but not just any faerie’s blood. It responded to Dagda because of your bond. It was the only thing that held your spell in place. But because it was not you, it had a waning effect. It wore out more quickly. Eventually, we were completely draining him once a week.”
Horror built in my chest. Draining a faerie of blood—what must that feel like? A torture I didn’t want to imagine. For years and years, Dagda had done it.
“As weeks passed, the time it took for his body to recover went from a day to almost the full week. He was in no condition to rule. So he let Niamh take over. Even after he suspected her, what could he do? If he removed her and tried to rule, surely the court would have seen his weakness and moved against him. The same court Niamh, by that time, had been tampering with.”
I let out a long breath. “And Dagda let the people of the Otherworld believe he was just pining over Morrigan’s absence. That he couldn’t get over her. Why?”
“Morrigan had already abandoned the Otherworld. What would the faeries think if they discovered that her abandonment resulted in almost releasing a plague that could destroy the world?”
“So… Dagda made himself appear as if he was suffering from a broken heart to keep the faeries from hating me?”
“And to prevent the creatures of the Otherworld from panicking. From discovering that the dark plague was one drop of Dagda’s blood away from destroying everything.”
I sank onto the bed, feeling like Roisin had rammed an arrow into my heart. “He’s not still giving his blood now, is he?”
“No. Thankfully, after the Fomori were defeated, the plague vanished, freeing Dagda. Over the past three years, he has recovered and can now live life again.”
All those years he’d made himself vulnerable, let people believe a lie when really he had been protecting the Otherworld. That day in the Hall of Memories, Illya had implied that Dagda’s motives hadn’t been everything they seemed.
“But why didn’t Dagda tell me this?” I asked.
Roisin’s shoulders slumped a little, but then said, “He worried that Badb and Macha might use it against you to gain favor with the people while making you appear uncaring and incompetent.”
“He could have put it in the heartstone, he—”
