The two armored guards grabbed Midir, but he head-butted one and kicked away the other. Midir ran from the crowd and the courtyard. His cloak expanded into feathers while his feet grew talons.
Manannan’s empty eyes shifted between dark blue and black as the thundering clouds from earlier thickened. The sky let go of a heavy rain that plummeted over the courtyard. Midir dropped hard to the grass as wave after wave of tiny drops battered him, pinning him down. I shivered and my hair stuck against my forehead.
Rio left my side and her bracelet lengthened out from her arm. Midir tried to push himself up under the heavy rain. Rio swung the chain at him. Each link collided with his back and forced him to eat the turf. The roar of the rain blocked out their noises as she beat against her father again, even though he hadn’t tried to move. The iron kept him there until the hesitant guards ran to help.
The rains died to a trickle and Manannan disappeared with them. All the Aos Si didn’t seem any wetter, no ruined hair or drenched clothes in sight. I wrapped myself in my sopping cloak. It didn’t help.
Rio tore away from her father with her chain swaying for everyone to see. “I have no doubts Aengus Mac Og was a part of that plot and also seeks to keep us trapped here as you saw in that vision. Though I may not be crowned yet, a majority of the council has chosen me as your new High Queen along with ruling my innocence.” Rio held her chest out and chin high as she addressed the crowd. “We must seek out Aengus and the Key Bearer. Bring them to me. Find them for your freedom!”
Ilbrec, Cliona, Aine, and Finvarra turned from their pillars and rallied their parts of the crowd. The Aos Si changed into horses, wolves, birds, and hundreds of animals dashed from the courtyard. A couple clusters of people stayed. On one side they wore gold and pastels. On the other were men and women who wore reds, yellows, oranges, and browns. They looked to the only monarch on the council who hadn’t moved: Brigid.
Rio stood toe to toe, and almost nose to nose with her aunt. “Are you with me or against me?”
“I cannot say you have not cut well, Little Knife.” Brigid looked down at Rio with slitted pupils, her entire glow shifting between a darker red and burnt orange. “Beware of the powerful allies you make this day, Lady of Irons. Though you may have swayed them for the moment, those bonds sour quickly if you make the wrong move. The enemies you make along the way will be all too ready to pounce when that day comes, and you will have no more family to run to. You will be utterly alone.”
“Out of all of them, you showed me kindness. That is the only reason you won’t suffer my wrath,” Rio hissed. “I do not owe your subjects that same mercy. Send them.”
Brigid cupped her hand to her mouth and shouted to the people left standing. “You heard Tir Na Nog’s new taskmaster. Hunt them out!”
More birds sped into the air, leaving the courtyard empty except for the council. The two guards had gotten a careful handle on Midir—who didn’t put up much of a fight. Smoke rose from Midir’s blackened back and he groaned as they dragged him toward the nearest pillar-mirror. Rio snapped the long chain off her wrist and tossed it at her father. It split in two with one half twisting around his wrist and the other around his ankles. Midir cried out as him and his guards melded into the mirror.
“I will summon you all back here once it is time to head for the Stone of Destiny. Until then, ready yourselves for when the Key Bearer is found. I look forward to bestowing the rewards I promised for your support.” Rio took my slippery hand in hers. “However, I must deal with my own affairs first.”
Each of the other monarchs bowed their heads toward Rio and went through their pillars. Finvarra muttered to himself about what hair color his next lass should have. Aine giggled to Cliona about seeing a real sunrise again as they left. Ilbrec’s passive face had a sliver of a smile, enough that I he might be excited.
“Remember my warning about watching your weaknesses, Little Knife,” Brigid said before she slid away.
Rio tugged me behind her until her aunt disappeared.
* * *
Rio picked me up before my knees gave out and carried me through a mirror back to the burrow. She sat me on the cot and ran her hands over my clothes. The wet fabric turned dry and any blood splatters became black, purple, or silver again. Next she touched my cheek, my neck, my hands and all visible traces of violence faded in her wake. That wouldn’t matter. Even hours scrubbing myself sterile with her unlimited water basin couldn’t make me forget the burnt penny smell of Bodb’s blood.
“Dear one, I need you to take heart and muster your wits,” Rio said with her eyes silver and open.
“Is it over?” I rubbed over my arms, scraping my nails against them. “Bodb’s dead. Daire’s alive. You…won.”
“Yes, your part is over.” Rio took both of my wrists, firm but gentle as she held them against my knees. “You did exactly what you were supposed to. I could not be more proud.”
“I couldn’t move. He made me…” I couldn’t help the tears welling up and making the edges of my vision blurry. “Did…did you know this would happen?”
“Something like this, yes.” Rio cupped my cheek and wiped it with her thumb.
“I want to go home.” I grabbed her forearm, fingers digging tight and desperate. Every pent up emotion I had spilled out until my whole face got slick, smudged, and salty. I never cried pretty. My nose ran and my eyes got red. I hissed through my clenched teeth so I could breath and hold back my sobs at the same time. “You wanted to go with me, right? Let’s just go. Please.”
“Maya, keep still.” Rio leaned forward, touching her forehead against mine. “Let me help you.”
I nodded, not able to do much else and keep it together.
Rio pulled me toward her by the base of my neck. She closed her eyes and pressed her mouth against mine, her lips soft and a little sweet. Warmth spread out from her mouth, down my chest and into the tips of my fingers. All the sadness, the guilt, the doubt, and mixed loyalties ran away. I closed my eyes and let whatever it was block everything out. I could enjoy the precious moment for what it was.
The trouble was it cleared my head and gave me a second to think. My thoughts always steered me to the practical. I chose what was good for me instead of what felt nice.
I pulled away a bit when my plugged nose made me have to breath through my mouth. I stared mystified at Rio’s smile, full of new excitement and mischief. She massaged the back of my neck where my shaggy hair should have been buzzed weeks ago.
“You look happy.” I held onto that memory even as the pleasant comfort died down.
“I am.” Rio rested her forehead against mine. “I have the High Kingship, you, and freedom from my family’s oppressive vows. Soon we’ll have the freedom to go back and forth between here and your realm as we wish. Everything I ever wanted.”
“Back and forth?” I sucked in my labret stud. I should’ve seen this coming. I didn’t want to notice then either, but that didn’t stop me.
“Of course. Then I can meet your companions and see your abode. In the meantime, we may celebrate another way.” Rio leaned in again for a second performance, laying an insinuating peck on my bare neck and letting her mouth hover over that spot.
“That’s not what I meant.” I sighed in a big puff of air. The words were out and it was too late to take them back. “What happens after that?”
“You mean once we become lovers and consummate this?”
“If we’re in a full on committed relationship. In a month, a year, what are we doing?”
“Well, between my ruling duties, I see us doing much the same as we used to,” Rio said, her smile not dampening, even though her eyes dimmed. She played with my hair as she talked, putting it back behind my ear on one side. “Talking, sharing stories, making new ones together. We travel to different places, see new things, spend entire days inside if we please.”
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“Where are we living?” Sour realization smothered my hope.
“Different places.” Rio trapped both my hands in hers, her grip tight and tense. “That’s the beauty, dear one, we have time to discuss this. We can wait an eternity if we wish it.”
“Rio, I don’t have an eternity. I want to die someday.” My stomach dropped as the words came out, as I reached the one place I couldn’t compromise. “Be straight with me. You made me think you wanted to come with me back home. You know I didn’t mean part time.”
“If I lost, that would’ve been the case, but I won. I have a responsibility now. Promises to keep.” Rio leaned even closer, but it seemed more desperate than intimate like she had to reach across a widening gap between us. “We can stay some time in the human realm, and live primarily in Tir Na Nog.”
“I don’t want to live here full time. I hate this place.”
“But I’m the High Queen now,” Rio said, her shoulders slumping. “With the precariousness of time between Tir Na Nog and your world, I could not risk staying in the latter for too long, lest the former fall into chaos or rebellion. If we were apart, someone might snatch you and use you to get to me. Or worse, I go to visit you while you were there and I find you a haggard crone whose body would give out with a slight breeze. I cannot risk that.”
“You said you knew all that stuff with Midir was going to happen. You wanted to win and you used me to do it. You told me what I wanted to hear just like you did with my mom.” Phlegm choked my throat again and my voice cracked. “Can you promise you won’t do that again, that there won’t be anymore political scheming that I’m perfect for? Can you keep me away from that, even though we’d be together all the time?”
“Daire is alive. Nothing is stopping us from being together now. Nothing to keep you from going back home, even if it is only temporary. This is what you wanted isn’t it?” Rio clutched onto my biceps. “I still proved my family wrong, showed my worth to my race, and can give those conniving kin what they deserve. It was the only way neither of us had to give everything up. It was the best way.”
“And you decide what’s best? I don’t get a say?” I got up and jerked out of the cage her fingers made. My chest ached more with each heartbeat, with each word that came out of my mouth. “I can’t make that kind of commitment where you choose everything for me and I just follow along. I still have a life back home I want to go back to. You’re saying I have to be with you forever and never get a career, grow old, find out if there’s an afterlife where I can see Mom and Abuela again. Do you want me to be like Daire’s mom, staying here so long that it chips away at me until I’m begging you to kill me?”
“Maya, don’t do this, not now.” Rio rose too, wrapping her arms around my shoulders like a vice and hugging me to her tighter than she ever had. “Take your time. Think about it. Give me a chance to show you why I’m the right choice, just don’t leave. You can’t…”
“Fine. I’ll think about it.” I wrapped my arms around Rio’s back, blinking back a new wave of moist eyelashes. I petted her hair in long, soothing strokes. As much as I said I needed time, I knew what she wanted and already knew I didn’t want the same. I nuzzled my face into her shoulder and hid from her. “I’ll think about everything during your coronation, okay?”
“We can talk more when I return.” Rio’s body slumped on mine and she loosened her hold.
“Sure, Rio.” I felt bad for scaring her so much and even worse for what I knew had to happen next: a clean break for my own good and hers so we could both move on. “Remember that I care about you, okay? Nothing’s gonna change that.”
“Take into account, Maya, that I have fallen far past that point,” Rio whispered, squeezing me a last time.
“I will.” Her softly spoken admission spiked through me and grew every bit of guilt I had before. “Put me at Tara, alright? I’ll wait there.”
“Of course.” Rio pulled back and took my hand. She led me toward the mirror that should have had the boar’s head on it. Instead, the engraving had changed to a fox’s head with chains wrapping around its frame.
We stepped through into her new bedroom, no longer a den of pelts and animal trophies. A simple room with a warm stone fireplace had replaced it, with two end tables and a wide bed made for two people. I sat on that bed, meant for both of us, waiting for her to leave before I broke her heart.
* * *
Rio dressed herself in a variation on her usual flowing dress with airy accents and chain-themed jewelry. When her outfit passed my inspection, she sent a call out to the other council members through the silver fox mirror in the room. She gave me a last lingering kiss goodbye with a promise to come back soon, and went through the rippling glass.
I went through the room’s heavy door with a single purpose as a gray stone hall met me outside. Odds were the person I needed would be in the prison. I wandered through hall after hall, always down as I retraced where Daire and I had found a torture chamber awhile ago. It worked when a familiar rotten smell hit me with a couple of guards posted in front of its source.
I took a minute to gather my thoughts and think over my strategy. Daire should be okay long enough for me to reach him if he managed to avoid the rest of the Aos Si. Then either he’d be able to use his powers before Rio’s coronation ended, or we could finish that ritual. First I needed to find him. The best help would come from someone who could sniff him out faster than me, who wasn’t helping Rio.
The guards looked my way, their pupils widening as I approached. The one on the right wore a brown cloak over a metal chest plate while the other had a red cloak over a thick leather shirt. The brown-cloaked guy leaned on a spear while his partner fidgeted with the hilt of a sword.
“I have a message from the new High Queen for the prisoner.” I stood on my tip toes to seem taller.
“Of course,” the red-cloaked guard said, straightening up. “I will be happy to give it to him if you relay the message.”
“It’s private,” I said. “For his ears only.”
“And the reason she couldn’t come down here herself to deliver it?” The brown-cloaked guard’s eyebrows went together with obvious suspicion.
“She’s already headed to her coronation. I stayed behind ‘cause she needed him to get it as soon as possible.” I shrugged and started to turn back down the hall. “But if the two of you want to ask her when she gets back, that’s fine too. She said she was looking for someone to try new chain swinging techniques on before she uses them on her dad. Neither of you mind being test dummies, right?”
Both men flinched away and traded uneasy glances with each other.
“This is very similar to how our last High King was killed earlier, with you coming as the Lady of Irons’ representative,” the brown-cloaked guard explained. “You can see why I’m hesitant.”
“Just let her in.” The red-cloaked guard pushed open the door. “Make it quick. Lord Midir can’t be happy with you, and I am not letting the new High Queen have my head because her sire took yours.”
“He’s restrained, isn’t he?” I hesitated mid-step.
“By her majesty’s own chains,” the brown-cloaked guard said.
“Good.” I gulped as I crossed through. “Remember, secret message. Close the door. I’ll know if you eavesdrop.”
“If anything happens, scream and we will come to your aid.” The red-cloaked guard slammed the heavy door shut behind me.
The torture room had changed itself since I last saw it. It had the same grill and pokers by a table, all cool and unused. But the tiny room had expanded into a large chamber with thick support columns and coppery manacles hanging from the walls. I couldn’t find any trap door hiding in the dusty floor. Had the dungeon changed itself when Rio took over Tara?
“The pretender allows me a visitor?” Midir asked in a sarcastic croak. I stepped to the side and spotted him behind a column. The guards had hung his chained arms on a hook and let his bound ankles sag on the ground. The half-suspended position didn’t leave him much room to move and his clothes were torn around where the iron had touched him. Whatever skin showed underneath had sizzling burns and black veins. “Has the time for my judgement come so soon or are you gloating on my bastard’s behalf?”
“Actually, I’m here to bust you out.” I dropped my voice so the guards couldn’t eavesdrop, but kept my distance from Midir so he couldn’t pull any tricks. “It comes with conditions.”
“By entering this space, I could take your mind as I did before and use your iron resistance to do that myself.” Midir dropped his own voice too, his pupils slits and yellow eyes more of an eerie amber brown as they followed me.
“Yeah, but you haven’t done that.” I rested my fists on my hips. “Which means that iron is probably screwing with your powers.”
“If only you would step a twinge closer,” Midir said, not even trying to hide his disgust. “What do you want?”
“I’ll step up to where you can make me a human lock pick if you take me to Daire, without directly or indirectly hurting me, so he can take me home to my world.”
“Are you not still tangled up with your mistress?” Midir asked, his eyebrow going high. “Or do your loyalties switch that easily?”
“That’s none of your damned business.” I backed up, throwing around what little leverage I had. “I just want to go back to my box spring and pretend this was all a bad dream. You take me to Daire, we cut the Key off from the High King, and I go back. Is that a deal?”
“Very well,” Midir said, his irises lightening to yellow. “If you free me from these chains I will take you unscathed to Daire to complete the ritual.”
I inched forward and stopped. Midir shook his head. I kept going until his eyes glowed. Itching shocks crawled up from my feet. This time I let them take control and do their thing.
My fingers tugged on the links around his wrists and pulled hard enough for my elbow to pop. They stretched open under a freak surge of strength that came over me. He made me kneel to do the same to his ankles while he massaged his wrists. The electricity left bit by bit and I let myself shudder as I obsessively flexed every muscle I had.
“What was next in your inept escape plan?” Midir wobbled to his feet.
“I figured you’d take over from here.”
Midir looked me up and down, measuring me. “Can you ride?”
“I ride cars, buses, and bikes,” I said. “Not horses.”
“You will learn today.” He knelt on all fours like a track runner. “Mount my back.”
I went up and swung my leg over his back like he was about to give me the world’s most awkward piggyback ride. He couldn’t throw me off for shits and giggles because of the “unscathed” part of the deal. So what was he planning?
The body between my thighs changed, growing a gold woolly coat and powerful legs with split hooves. Spiral ram horns sprouted from Midir’s head as he turned us toward the door.
I buried my fingers in his fleece while he pawed at the ground. The floor shook under his hooves when he charged, and the entrance flew open. The guards went down like bowling pins. He ran us the rest of the way.