Once, I asked Senach why he flinched away from the bones that held up the castle. The spirits, he’d said, giving a rib bone of the great hall a baleful look. The spirits trapped in the bones, things some people in the castle laughed at and thought were silly tales. Senach told me how Aedín taught him to ignore them, but that sometimes the voices would sneak up on him. All dragons learned with their riders to block out the voices in the bones, for bitterness made them want to lure the living to Death’s embrace.
I didn’t know what to do with that information, and I’ve never told him I used to tell those spirits stories.
I did it off and on for years, never telling anyone that I could hear them. When people didn’t scoff at the idea of spirits trapped in the bones holding the castle up, it was known only dragon riders could hear them and presumed that if anyone were to release the spirits, it would be a dragon rider. I was not a rider, no dragon having ever chosen me in all the time I’d spent with them. Still, I’d never seen those spirits. I’d never seen any spirit. It was deemed too risky to allow me outside my rooms on the nights the borders between realms were thin after Talorc got into trouble once.
I consider the spirit in front of me as I drink my brandy. “I didn’t want your magic.”
“Shouldn’t have stabbed me in the heart then,” he retorts.
I grimace and don’t say anything else as I drink the rest of my brandy. I find a book to read, reading and drinking until the bottle’s empty and I’m asleep. I wake later when Senach opens the door, where he frowns at the bottle but says nothing about it, only comes into the room to coax me into undressing. I want to kiss him again as he braids my hair, and instead only stare at him. He stares back for a time, then sighs and closes his eyes. Brighthollow stands behind him. I climb back into bed and hide my face against my pillow until Senach’s gone.
In the following days, Senach hovers at my side like he only does around the anniversary of Talorc’s death. Sweet man. Utterly clueless about the way Brighthollow’s spirit lurks just behind him. I work my way through Taran’s wine cellar and library as I ignore Brighthollow the same way I learned to start ignoring the dragon bone spirits, and then Taran throws another of his parties where he sorts everyone into rooms. Aurora and Felicity are invited, even Westhollow. Aurora takes my arm and leads me around the entire night, every so often replacing my wine with water. I drink the water and ask her about Westhollow, but she knows little, and I’m never able to approach him throughout the night. He’ll watch me and then disappear for a time, reappearing in a corner to watch me again. It sets me on edge as much as Brighthollow’s spirit leering at me does, and I drink until Senach is helping me to bed.
“Stay,” I say to him, grabbing his hand and pulling him back to my bed as he tries to walk away. “Please.”
He brushes my hair from my face as he leans over me. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Sometimes you’re very good at lying,” he replies. “Tonight is not one of those times.”
I pause, staring at him, then tug on his hand again. “My dear, darling, handsome knight,” I say. “Stay with me tonight.” Something flashes in his eyes, but he’s looking away before I can decipher it. And there’s Brighthollow behind him, watching us with half-lidded eyes and a smirk that makes dread root somewhere deep in me. I pull Senach to me again, turning his face to mine. “I don’t know what’s wrong,” I whisper and the lie hurts, and it hurts to hear Brighthollow’s laugh at it. “I don’t want to think about it, and I sleep better with you next to me.”
“You always do,” he says softly.
We stare at each other in silence as he makes his decision. I nod stiffly as he looks away, letting him go, but then he sits on the edge of the bed to remove his boots. He undresses without looking at me, only meeting my gaze again as he slides into bed next to me. I hesitate to touch him, then run my fingers over the scars along his chest. He takes my hand, kisses my fingertips, pulls me into his arms. I hide my face against him and fall asleep.
He’s still there when I wake, easing me out of sleep so I can get dressed and go downstairs to have Onóra test me again on magic. I take a bottle of brandy with me this time, not wanting to do any of it sober again. Taran sits there plucking a lute when we enter the library, his eyebrows shooting up as I drink from the bottle. Onóra looks disapproving but points to the table where even more random items that are supposed to guide a path in learning magic sit. I try everything at her direction, but still nothing happens. Brighthollow walks around the room, invisible to all but me, and laughs at each of my failures. I ignore him. Onóra tests me a second time, then a third, and still no magic. Taran even sets aside his lute to show me other ways, but we end up with me throwing my hands up as I walk away from the table.
“Just give up,” I say, drinking from my brandy. I let out a dry laugh. “I have no talent for magic, just for being haunted.”
Taran frowns. “Haunted?”
“I’m a failure again. Have you considered that his magic only powered the death curse?” I ask as I leave the room. “It didn’t give me anything.”
“Where are you going?” Onóra calls.
“Westhollow invited me to another of his parties,” I call back.
“Go with him,” she hisses to someone. “Don’t let him irritate someone else into a duel.”
I don’t look to see who she’s talking to, instead walking upstairs to change. When I return downstairs to request a carriage, Taran and Senach both wait for me. I smile at them both, and Taran returns my smile. He says nothing in the carriage, and gives me only a brief pleading look as we’re led inside. I give him a little bow, promising to behave and keep Senach at my side throughout the night. Westhollow does not greet us, but we’re welcomed anyway, a flimsily dressed servant offering glasses of a dark green liquid. Senach and I stare at our glasses, Taran leaving us before I have a chance to ask him about the drink. The servant disappears as well, and I look to Senach before shrugging and drinking some of it slowly. Apple sweet and blackberry tart, another fey wine. I hold my glass up to Senach in a silent toast, then attempt to find Westhollow.
Smoke floats up around us, lazy curls in the air and smoke circles. Someone blows a cloud directly at me as they walk by and I pluck the pipe out of their hands, winking when they frown. I inhale on the pipe, offering it to Senach next. He takes it as I look around, but Westhollow is exceptionally well hidden. I drink more wine as I turn back to Senach, shaking my head when he holds the pipe up to me. He gives it to someone on a cushion near us, stepping close after to put his hand at my back. I lean against him, hand against his shoulder as I look around the room once more.
The Fair Folk are spread throughout it, sprawled out on couches and cushions and the floor. Some step outside for the garden. Tables hold games, while servants carry wine and food and bowls of the ground plant being smoked tonight. I eat half of a roasted fig stuffed with cheese and feed the other half to Senach. He stares at me as I wipe the syrup from his lip, moving closer when I lick it off my finger. I step back, eyes widening. He freezes, barely breathing as we stare at each other.
Then I see Westhollow out of the corner of my eye.
I follow him into the garden, smiling when he looks back at me with a frown. “I was surprised to receive your invitation,” I say as I reach his side. He drinks his wine and doesn’t respond. “No magic has manifested for me. Did Galan ever have to deal with something like this?” He sighs and walks into a hedge maze. “Wait and see if he comes out,” I tell Senach before following. Long strides carry me far and I catch up with Westhollow easily. “No magic to simply disappear through a wall?” I ask him.
He doesn’t even look at me as he waves a hand at a wall, the shrubbery separating until he can walk through it. I try to follow, but he sends a blast of wind at me that knocks me back. The wall closes behind him, slow enough that I try to push through again, but the shrubbery cuts my hand and I step back with a hiss of pain. I can only watch as Westhollow’s face disappears. Strange, how he stares at me. He doesn’t look smug, or even pleased to leave me behind—he looks tired.
I finish off the wine in my glass and retrace my steps, emerging where I entered and finding Senach still waiting there. He shakes his head. “He went through a wall,” I tell him. “Probably went deeper into the maze. I want more wine.” He gestures for me to lead the way. “Did Onóra want you or Taran to keep me from irritating people?”
“Taran,” he says.
“Did no one tell her how he failed at that the first time?” Brighthollow asks.
I startle, dropping my empty glass. Its shattering is loud in a sudden lull of noise, and Brighthollow’s smirk is malicious as he stands next to me. I stare at Senach’s chest. Many in the room turn to stare at us, whispering to each other. Brighthollow steps closer. “You don’t like this,” he says softly. “Is it only me, or is it the way they stare? Aren’t princes supposed to be there for us to stare at? Aren’t you used to it by now?”
Senach steps close, hand against my side and voice soft. “Bridei?”
“I’m fine,” I whisper, closing my eyes and sighing. “I’m fine.” I open my eyes, stepping back as a pair of servants descend upon us to give me a fresh glass of wine and clean the mess of shattered glass.
“Are you?” Senach asks. He comes so close that I would barely need to move to kiss him, and he tucks some of my hair behind my ear as he looks at me. So much concern in his eyes. “You don’t seem fine.”
I hold up the fresh glass of wine. “I have more wine. I’m the best I can be right now.” He frowns and I look past him for a distraction, finding it in the familiar face that tilts to the side as she examines us. I look back to Senach. “Aurora’s here.” He steps back, looking away from me. I step after him, waiting until he’s looking at me again before I speak. “I’ll behave tonight,” I say softly. “No rooftops, nothing dangerous.”
“Promise?” he asks.
“Promise.” He stares, looking reluctant to let me go. “What is it?” I ask.
“What do you want?” he asks—abrupt, on the heels of my question.
I stare in surprise, words failing me for a moment. “What?”
“What do you want?” he repeats.
It’s such an easy question. I can answer it any way I’d like, and what I say is not what should be said. “To get drunk.”
This time when he steps back, I don’t chase after him. I step by him instead and cross the room to reach Aurora’s side, smiling down at her as I drink my wine. She lounges on a couch, sitting away from the Fair Folk couple wrapped up in each other on the other end of the couch, and she looks up at me as she smokes a pipe, blowing the smoke at the floor.
“Hello,” she says.
I bow. “My lady.”
She gives the pipe to the couple on the end of the couch and stands, picking up a glass of something a pale yellow. She takes my arm when I offer it and I can’t help but look for Senach as we step away from the couch—he’s across the room now, sitting in a small alcove, alone and drinking wine as he watches me.
“Is the Lady Felicity here?” I ask.
Aurora follows my gaze. “No,” she says. “Her husband requested her presence at a dinner.”
“Husband?” I glance at Aurora, then drink more wine. Does Senach know that? “She’s married?”
“Yes.”
I lead her towards the garden. “Are you?”
She smiles. “I am not.”
“That’s good to know,” I say, grinning. She glances up at me but says nothing, simply drinks from her glass. “Will you tell me about those you know here? I still know so few people in Cernna.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
She laughs and leads me away to walk through the flowers. She doesn’t know much about the Fair Folk, but tells me all about the humans around us. There’s Nioclás, that lord from the party we first met at. There’s a pair from Northern Tsernia, as entangled with each other as they are with the Fair Folk, and yet they are both still entirely clothed. She watches them curiously for a moment before shaking her head and pulling me along. There are a few who step up to us hungrily, staring at me the entire time they talk to Aurora and wheedle an introduction out of her. I drink my wine and stare at them as they prattle on, waiting until their voices slowly die off before I lead Aurora away.
I tell her about the gardens on Dál Macha built around dragon bones, how they were always some of the most peaceful places I could find. She has question after question for each of the gardens—about the dragons and did I know how many other gardens were dedicated to specific dragons, about the flowers and what flowers were there and did certain flowers grow better in some gardens, and what was my favorite? I tell her about the garden built around the bones of Ímar’s dragon and hope she does not ask about Ímar himself. She doesn’t, only laments my exile for the reason that I now cannot show her the gardens myself. It makes me laugh.
Our glasses are refilled by servants who offer us a pipe. Aurora takes it first, then passes it to me. She looks almost bored, but I can’t tell if it’s because of me or the party. I take her back inside so we can sprawl on a couch together, and she adjusts and fluffs her skirts as she avoids looking directly at me. Humans and Fair Folk approach us both, offering wine and pipes and games. I entertain the questions of a few, smile and refuse any invitations presented. Aurora agrees to a card game and I ask her to teach it to me as a table is brought to our couch and others sit around it to play with her. She nods and explains the basics as she shuffles and deals the cards, then leans closer as she holds up her hand and lowers her voice.
I’m dealt my own hand during the next round, but then Westhollow joins us for the round after that. Aurora hesitates in dealing the cards, watching him warily when she does. He smiles at her, frowns at me. I grin back at him, drinking my wine and allowing someone to refill the glass. Aurora looks between us, then leans close to me.
“Behave,” she whispers.
I turn my grin on her. “And if I don’t?”
Her green eyes look beautiful in this light, lined with gold and kohl, and they narrow at me. “Let me think about that.”
“Take as long as you need.”
She humphs, eyeing me before she turns her attention to her cards.
“I doubt the prince has ever been punished,” Westhollow says.
“Perhaps the last prince you knew never was,” I reply, “but I certainly was. Was Galan so blindly obedient that he was never punished?”
Aurora stares at the ceiling as she drinks her wine, but Westhollow sets his cards down as he meets my gaze. “Why do you ask so many questions about him?” he asks.
I shrug, rearranging the cards in my hand. “I grew up hearing stories. Who better to ask for truth than someone who was with him when those stories were being made?”
“I thought Dál Macha was enamored with Ímar.”
I smile wryly as I drink my wine and glance at him. “Not everyone.”
“The flowers look lovely, Lord Westhollow,” Aurora says, covering his hand with hers. “So bright, despite the late season.”
He kisses her knuckles. “I will pass your compliments along to Lleu. He’ll be wanting to show you around the greenhouse soon.”
She smiles. “Tell him I’m available whenever he is.”
“You garden?” I ask her, leaning close again.
“Are you busy tomorrow night?” Westhollow asks over me. I scowl at him.
“I am,” she says to him, before placing her hand on my arm. “And I do, but I’m not very good at it.”
“I’m sure you’re better than me,” I say. “You didn’t say you had an interest in gardening earlier. Can I see your gardens?”
She stares at me for a moment. “Do you want to play the game or not?”
I tap my cards against the table as I stare back, looking her over slowly. Her brown hair is pinned up with curls framing her face, the gold around her eyes glittering with the light. She wears a green dress tonight, a shawl covering her shoulders. “No,” I say, tossing my cards into the center of the table. “I don’t think I do. I think I want to do something else.”
“Then go do it,” Westhollow says, exchanging two cards for two new ones.
“I want to do something else with you,” I tell Aurora, ignoring him.
“With me?” she asks, pausing in giving three cards to another player.
“With you.”
She stares another moment, then returns to the players to exchange cards. I wait, resting my cheek against my hand as I watch her. Her fair cheeks slowly turn pink. “After this hand,” she says, looking at her own cards again and letting her hair hide her eyes from me.
“I can wait,” I reply softly, and she looks briefly overwhelmed before nodding.
Aurora doesn’t do well as the center of attention.
She holds very still at first, glancing every so often at me and almost troubled with whatever thoughts are moving through her mind. Slowly, she relaxes—but when she relaxes, she fidgets. The cards take the most of her attention, but she also toys with her lace sleeves and the curls framing her face, adjusts the gemstones hanging from her ears. Westhollow looks disapproving as he drinks his wine and she catches his expression, stiffening before she frowns at him and deliberately leans closer to me. Something travels between them silently then, as she stares him down and he looks between us. He sighs, then pays no attention to me for the rest of the hand. I don’t mind, sitting as close to Aurora as I can to listen as she explains her reasoning for each decision she makes about her cards.
After she reveals a winning hand, we leave the table. She leads me into Westhollow’s home, away from the party and to the room I visited before. This time I stop and look at the painting of the war between Dál Macha and Tsernia. It’s a scene from a bard’s tale, the final battle that killed so many the ground is said to still run with their blood. Talorc and his men crest a hill, a line of men shouting into the sky as they hold swords aloft or bang on shields. My brother stands at the center of them, face blood-splattered and armor shining under the sun. A dragon is in the air above them, wings spread wide as she breathes fire upon Tsernian soldiers.
Talorc was only twenty-two. Younger than I am now.
Aurora rests her hand against my arm. “Were you there?” she asks softly.
“No,” I answer, staring at Talorc’s face. “My mother was asked to stay on Dál Macha, and she kept me with her.”
“Your father didn’t mind that she kept you?”
I shake my head, stepping away from the painting. “Everyone knew the omens for the war were bad, but Tsernia was pressing us so hard we couldn’t escape war. Debates with advisors lasted for days. It wasn’t even my father that asked her to stay. It was one of the generals, in the middle of a banquet a few days before they were all set to leave.”
“Stay, so the gods won’t claim the entire family and we have something to come home to,” she quotes. “He was a childhood friend of hers, too, wasn’t he?”
“And the commander of the dragon knights at the time,” I say. I look up at the portrait of Galan and his companions, staring at Westhollow’s face in it. He’s utterly captivated by Galan, staring at him adoringly. “Do you know why Westhollow won’t answer me when I ask him about Galan?”
“I suspect he’s tired of talking about Galan,” she murmurs. “The Fair Folk love their stories of him.”
“He mentioned Galan to me first.”
“When?”
I glance over her head, at Brighthollow’s spirit as he follows us. “When I dueled Brighthollow.”
“I have no answer for you then,” she says.
“Shame,” Brighthollow says. “You’ll be lost forever, then.”
“Will you tell me what you know of these paintings?” I ask Aurora. Seeing and hearing Brighthollow makes me want to get on my knees and beg her for a distraction.
I don’t need to, for she immediately drags me over to her favorite painting in the room. A woman of the Fair Folk sits in a forest with her human lover in her arms, an enchanted knight who stares up at her adoringly. She tells me all she knows of the story the painting is based on, some old tale of a Fair Folk sorcerer and her life. She knows a fair amount about the painter as well, and she bought one of the sketches for the painting, though the sketch she bought has the Fair Folk woman in the knight’s arms.
I walk her around the room, ignoring Brighthollow’s snide comments on Westhollow’s taste, and Aurora manages to find something to say about every painting in the room. The only two we never stop in front of are the one of Talorc and the one of Galan and his companions. She pauses once we’ve looked at each of the paintings, then starts to lead me from the room. I hesitate, not wanting to leave the peace of this room, and look back. My gaze falls on a portrait of a redheaded figure sitting amongst ruins in a forest, their face turned away from the viewer as they contemplate the path that leads into the forest. The sky above them is moonless and full of stars, the trees forbidding and dark. Aurora hadn’t had much to say about that painting, but something in it draws my eye now.
When I look back to her, Aurora is leaning against the threshold as she watches me. I set my wine aside as I walk to her, never looking away. She doesn’t move, continuing to meet my gaze as I reach her. I place a hand next to her head and lean over her, in much the same way Senach does that delights me so. Aurora smiles a little as she moves her head back, but she doesn’t step away. I touch her cheek gently, just my fingertips—she startles, stepping back into the threshold and letting out a nervous giggle.
I smile. “How did I startle you while standing this close?”
Her gaze lowers, lashes fluttering. “I don’t know. But you did.”
I trace her cheekbone, then run my finger along her jaw as I tilt her head up. Her lips part as her breath catches again, and her eyes widen. She still doesn’t step away. I close the distance between us and kiss her slowly. She hums when the kiss ends, giggles again. I smile and kiss her again, and she steps closer, placing her hands at my waist.
“Anyone could see us,” she whispers, stepping away and adjusting her hair.
I take her hand as I bow, kissing her knuckles. Her cheeks turn pink. “Thank you for accompanying me for much of this night,” I say. She giggles a third time, tugging her hand free and fleeing through the foyer to the party. I smile as I watch her go.
And then Senach steps free of the shadows under the stairs, frowning lightly as he looks at me.
I can’t breathe as we stare at each other. Does he look disapproving? Disappointed? Upset with me? I can’t tell and my mind races down a thousand different paths. Brighthollow laughs, loud and harsh in my ear—I flinch away from the spirit, looking away from Senach. Senach steps forward, reaching towards me. I step back, stumbling into the threshold before I change directions and walk past him. Back to Westhollow’s party, the same path Aurora walked, where I accept a pipe from someone immediately and a glass of wine from a servant that I drain quickly before taking another full one. I watch the door as I drink and smoke and gamble, but Senach never enters the party again and Taran is the one who has to help me to my room when we return home.
There’s a strange, aching hurt that follows me, threatening tears, but I drown it out with brandy before I collapse into my bed.
I wake in the early hours, before the sun has even risen. I lurch out of my bed, splashing water on my face before fully washing up. My room is free of Brighthollow’s spirit as I dress, and the hallway even emptier. The only light I have to navigate is what moonlight shines through the windows, and there’s so little I wish for Senach’s ability to see in the dark. I make my way to the kitchen, intent on finding something to fill my stomach and fight off the way my head aches. Instead I slow, then stop, as I hear voices from within the kitchen.
“Something’s wrong,” Senach says. “I don’t know what, but I know that something’s wrong with him and it has to do with Brighthollow’s death curse. He was fine before that.”
“You have interesting notions of fine. He was a mess before that duel, and he’s a mess now,” Westhollow replies.
Senach grunts. “You haven’t seen the way he flinches at nothing.”
“Like he’s haunted?” Taran asks. “Could a death curse do that? Haunt someone?”
“I don’t see why not,” Onóra answers slowly.
I grimace, rubbing my face with one hand. Lovely. Just as bad as walking in on someone talking about me on Dál Macha. There were the times when I was young, walking in on my father and brother discussing how my lessons compared to Talorc’s. Times of nobles gossiping about me—who would I marry, and then how successful would my marriage to Agathe be. Who would I marry again after her death. Whose bed I was visiting. The dragon knights tended to gossip more about each other than anyone else, but even they would discuss me. Once I walked in on my mother complaining about me to her lady’s maid.
I rest my head against the wall as I listen to Onóra list out what she knows about death curses, which ends up being astonishingly little. “Well, what do you know then, Lord Westhollow?” she demands in a huff. I wonder what expression he’s making, for he’s said nothing.
“I know all the common knowledge about creating and holding a death curse,” he says. “Same as you.”
“You’re older than them,” Senach says. “Surely you know something else.”
A sigh. “I can forget things, though, and death curses were never an area of magic that I studied,” Westhollow says. “And then we lost so much knowledge during the Scholars’ Feud.”
“So you don’t know anything helpful,” Senach replies flatly.
Westhollow’s silent for a moment and Brighthollow appears in that moment, looking at me curiously before he peeks into the kitchen. When the spirit looks back at me, he has a terrible smirk on his face. “I know there’s a book,” Westhollow says.
“What book?” Onóra asks.
“The Book of Stars,” he answers. Someone inhales sharply.
“That was lost long before the Scholars’ Feud,” Taran says softly. “It was said to be written in the Holly King’s code. Can you read that?”
“No, but I know someone who can.”
“Where is it?” Taran asks.
“I know where it might be, based on some letters I’ve read,” Westhollow says. “Bridei and Senach can fly to it on Aedín.”
“Tell me why first,” Senach says. “I’m not putting him in any danger until you give me a good reason for it.”
I hold my hand against my mouth, closing my eyes as Brighthollow laughs. He should have stayed on Dál Macha, not dragged down with me. He’s too good for the messes I find myself in.
“The Book of Stars is about gods of death and anything related to them,” Westhollow says. “Their constellations and histories take up much of the book, but the book also tracks the history of death curses, especially where they intersect with the realms and gods of the dead.” He pauses. “And it wasn’t written in code. An old language, yes, but not a code. I still can’t read it and know someone else who can.”
“What’s the danger in sending them after the book?” Onóra asks.
“It could be anything,” Westhollow answers. He pauses, then lifts his voice. “What do you think of leaving when the sun’s risen, Bridei?”
Someone makes a surprised noise as I step into the doorway. Westhollow looks over calmly, Onóra and Taran glancing at each other. Senach sits with his back to the door, head against his hand as he eats. “Do I have a choice?” I ask Westhollow as I stare at the back of Senach’s head.
Westhollow shrugs. “You could say no. I doubt you’d learn much, though.”
“We can take Estrid with us,” Senach says. He drinks something, then takes an empty cup and sets it in front of the empty space next to him and fills it with steaming coffee. He goes back to poking at his food. “She’s bored without Mór and the others.”
I walk into the room slowly, and sit next to Senach just as slowly. He doesn’t say anything, but pushes a plate with butter and a loaf of bread towards me.
“Then you leave when the sun has risen. I’ll copy a map for you,” Westhollow says.
“Even with the book, you’ll remain cursed,” Brighthollow whispers in my ear. “I remain here, and I will bring you to your end.”
I drink my coffee.