A pity, that. Only the strongest monsters grow in the darkness. Mab proved that. I will too.
Who is this? Where am I? The magick in this place is corrupted and dying.
“You.” The bastard Seelie prince—the unlikely seed of all Faerie magick—stares at me and I fight the urge to preen under his awed scrutiny.
“Me,” I agree.
He lifts one arm, exposing the healing punctures on his wrists. I can almost taste his untouched power, and I marvel as every injury inflicted on him closes without a trace of trauma.
“Fascinating,” I whisper. What will my body be capable of once I’ve cracked open his shell and devoured the magick inside?
I’m young. I can feel it in the push and pull of my muscles, in the timbre of my voice. And my flesh is warm, the world is warm, not cool like it usually is in these memories... I’m alive and I don’t know how or why...
“You’re healing so quickly now,” I point out. What a joy it will be to cut into that unmarred flesh as I free the promise within. A blank canvas awaiting the perfection of my artistic vision.
To cut?
The draugr howls and shakes against its prison. Its talons scrape and peel, but I hold it back. Refuse to give it this moment. I need to see this. I need to know who I am.
The seed doesn’t understand. If I had a heart, it would ache for him and his stupidity. He’s such a pretty, foolish thing. Laudine never told him the truth of his power. She thought she was protecting him. She thought banishing him from the Summer Court would prevent me from leading him back here. Thanks to his naivety, I didn’t have to lead him anywhere. He came back to me. Somewhere in the depths of his heart, he knew his purpose and he chose me to help him fulfill it.
A blessing, indeed. He deserves to know. I must show my gratitude.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?” When he doesn’t respond, I fight down the hurt and try again. “Centuries. I’ve spent centuries trying to find you again.”
“You’ve seen me at Mather’s. At Domovoi’s.”
Roark went to Mather’s. I don’t know the other place, but Roark might. I have to hold on to those names. I have to tell Roark, but there’s a pressure growing in my skull and words are so hard to cling to—
He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t understand. He understood the last time I witnessed his sacrifice, when he was held aloft over pale marble floors by a spear and offered his blood to rebuild the world. Except, the king denied me my right to the last drop. He stole the power that was rightfully mine and wasted it. His greed led to the Accords, to Oberon’s distrust of me and Mab’s tight grip over the balance of Faerie. Through all the time that passed, I waited. I practiced patience and reminded myself every day my chance would come again.
It’s come at last, a gift from the High Prince and Princess of the Faerie Courts.
The seed listens to me lay bare every secret about our intertwined paths. I plead and beg him to remember me, to remember his power, but he’s been lost for too long. A sacrifice poorly treated.
Oberon and Mab failed him. They failed Faerie. I will not.
“I don’t understand,” he tells me when I finish speaking. He’s pale. With his dark hair and darker eyes, he looks like a ghost already. He’s ready to blossom. He just needs that last push. The last nudge.
“Of course not,” I reassure him. “But that doesn’t matter. I know who you are.”
I lift my hands and the world rips apart, the draugr roaring and drawing blood behind my eyes and in my throat, covering everything in red and rage and pain while the body is held above me. The shades howl a chorus of agony from every corner of my mind. They try to flee from this horrific sight, only to slam against a barrier they can’t claw through. I think I’m shattering, breaking into too many pieces to ever come back together again.
And he’s whispering—I’m whispering—and the world seems to echo it into Tir na nÓg—
“You are the Green Man, and through your death, I will be reborn.”
* * *
“Lugh! Lugh, for fuck’s sake, wake up!”
Keiran’s hands on my shoulders are cool in comparison to the blood-drenched flesh I inhabited in the nightmare. Bits and pieces break away in the face of my hard wakefulness. I try to cling to them, but it hurts too much.
“Gods, Lugh, please look at me,” Keiran begs.
I hold his gaze. This doesn’t hurt. I wish it was love in his eyes, but even if it’s not, it’s warm and safe and I want to rest in it forever. Until the white-hot lines of pain under my skin fade and my head doesn’t threaten to crack in two if I breathe wrong. Keiran clasps my face in his hands. His thumbs rub over my cheeks and the cool night air prickles against my wet skin. I’m crying and I don’t know why.
“Was it a shade?” he asks.