“It has never mattered before. I—” Nollaig fell silent.
“Nollaig, for fuck’s sake, tell us who you are,” Reyna insisted.
“Another time, Shieldmaiden.”
Reyna’s sigh was one of frustration, one Lorcan felt in his very bones. He’d known Nollaig for a very long time, and she had not once let her mask slip. Who she was under that cloak no one knew. No one except perhaps the king. It was odd. Lorcan trusted her with his life but he didn’t know one thing about her. Only her name.
“Does this mean we’re turning back?” Tarrah asked, the question Lorcan knew was on the mind of every member of this godforsaken party.
“Absolutely not,” Reyna said fiercely. “We didn’t come all this way to give up when we’re only half a day’s walk from the portal.”
“Reyna,” Lorcan said gently. “If there was ever proof my father was lying, this is it. He didn’t send us here to find a way to stop the Ruin. He sent us here so we could die. Quietly, without any witnesses, far from the castle walls.”
“He’s right,” Nollaig said. “He may be king, but we have allies inside that castle who would have tried to stop our execution. Segonax, for one, would never stand for it. And there are others. Warriors who witnessed you rushing into the storm to save their lives. The fae of Findius have seen their prince and his beloved fight for them. They will not soon forget that.”
Reyna’s voice trembled when she spoke. “This is not an invention of his own twisted mind. He might have sent us off to die, but Inishfall, it’s real. Isn’t it, Tarrah?”
“There is a great power there,” Tarrah whispered. “It’s true. But it is also a dangerous one.”
Lorcan frowned, but Reyna was not quite done yet.
“The High King planned to murder us here on the mountain. Inishfall itself is not the trap, so we don’t need to worry about going through to the other side.” She stepped up to Lorcan, wrapped her soft hands around his, and peered up at him with so much hope and conviction that he could not help but bend. “We are so close. Can we not just see what’s in there? If it turns out to be nothing, then we can leave. It is as simple as that.”
Lorcan sighed. “You are going to be the death of me, Reyna Darragh.”
Her smile was as bright as the stars.
38
Reyna
The portal to Inishfall was located deep within a cavern that cut through the core of Cinder Ridge. In the deepening darkness, fireflies darted overhead, the cavern walls looming so high that Reyna could not spot the top of them. Moss carpeted the ground beneath their feet, and a strange seductive scent filled the air, one of life.
“Well,” Nollaig said sharply, as they came to a stop at the edge of a deep well, one that formed a pool from the gush of water sprouting from the black stone itself. Flickering green light shimmered in the waterfall. Where the waterfall met the pool, there was a sound like a hush.
“How in the name of the Dagda is there a waterfall in the middle of the barren shadow lands?” Reyna asked in awe. She had never before seen anything like it. There were no falls in the Ice Court. The waters froze too quickly there.
“Magic,” Tarrah said, stating the obvious. “You see now. There is a power here. It’s just as my vision said.”
Lorcan gave Tarrah a sharp look. “I thought you were done with your visions.”
“I am.” She frowned. “Some of them have been true though, my prince. That’s why I don’t understand why some have also been wrong.”
“Nevermind all that,” Reyna insisted. “We’re here, and that’s the portal.”
“This is your last chance to change your mind,” Lorcan said. “We can turn away now and leave this place behind. We don’t have to go through with this.”
“Yes.” She clenched her hands. “We do.”
Lorcan sighed. She understood his concerns, and it wasn’t as though she didn’t have them herself. The king had already proven that he didn’t want them to end this quest alive. His ‘vision’ from Unseelie had been nothing more than a diversion, a way to get them away from the castle where his brutalities could not be witnessed by the low fae of the city.
But she was convinced there was something to Inishfall. She felt the truth of it, the power of it, in her very bones. And seeing the portal before her now, she knew she was right. Power hummed from the rushing waters. She could feel it and hear it. She knew it was there.
This quest might still go wrong. But maybe it wouldn’t. It was a chance she couldn’t ignore. A chance to save her kingdom. A chance to stop the Ruin from taking the life of even one more fae. And that was what stopped her from fearing what was on the other side of that portal.
“Well, I guess we’re doing this,” Nollaig said. “Who’s going through first?”
“I am,” Reyna said exuberantly.
“Absolutely not,” Lorcan growled.
But she already knew he would say that, and she wasn’t waiting around. Without giving Lorcan a chance to stop her, she leapt into the pool. Freezing water swallowed her whole, a welcome relief from the humid heat of the shadow realm. Lorcan shouted as she dove beneath the waters. A splash sounded beside her, but she was already off, pushing through the crashing waters and swimming to the other side of the falls. Wingallock swam by her side, twirling through the soothing waters.
Soon, she parted the waters of the falls and drew in deep lungfuls of air. Her eyes were assaulted by a thousand shades of glistening green. Everywhere she looked, lush and luminous plants wove through the landscape, a dense forest that sagged beneath the weight of the cloying humidity. There were thick vines and trees that sprouted moss. The soft spray from the tumbling falls soothed her cheeks. It looked and felt like paradise, but a deep dark power pulsed beneath it all, reminding Reyna that there was more here than met the eye.
Lorcan pushed up beside her, wiping the water from his face and glaring around. When his gaze landed on Reyna, he growled. “I swear to the Dagda, Reyna, I have never met a more impulsive female in all my goddamned life.”
“And you never will,” she said sweetly.
Without waiting for an answer, she waded to the edge of the pool and hefted herself onto the thick carpet of grass. She ran her fingers through the long blades, listening as they let out a twinkling kind of song. Lorcan climbed out behind her, followed soon by Nollaig and Tarrah.
Nollaig’s cloak was plastered to her skin. Water poured from the thick material, the entire thing forming a puddle of water at her feet. Reyna bit back a laugh.
“Perhaps you should take that thing off,” Reyna said as she wrung her hair. Wingallock shook his wings, flinging more water onto Nollaig’s cloak. “That looks mighty uncomfortable.”
“I am fine,” Nollaig grunted.
“If you say so,” Reyna said in a singsong voice, turning her attention back onto the new surroundings.
They had arrived in the middle of a luminous forest. Overhead, a large outcropping of rocks formed the mouth of the waterfall on this side of the portal. The water rushed down in a mighty haste, crashing into a large pool. Further down, the water slowed, narrowing into a slow-moving river. It appeared to cut through the deep forest, leading…somewhere.