by Jodi McIsaac
He laughed. “Nevan’s outside waiting to walk to the Council meeting with you,” he said. “Eden’s still sleeping; I’ll tell her you said happy birthday when she gets up.”
“Okay,” Cedar said, feeling a twinge of disappointment as she handed Finn the paper bag in her hands. “Here, I got her a bagel; it’s her favorite kind. Maybe bring her by to see me after the meeting?”
“I don’t think we’ll be back in time,” Finn said. “I’m taking her into the mountains this morning. There’s a secret network of pools near the top of one of the peaks that my mum used to bring me to when we were hiding out from Lorcan. I thought she’d like to see it. We’ll just get home in time for her party.” He grinned in anticipation. Finn had been like a child on Christmas morning ever since their return to Tír na nÓg. He spent almost every day exploring his lost homeland, discovering what had changed since his childhood and introducing their daughter to his favorite places.
“Of course,” she said, forcing a smile. Instead of joining them on their adventure, she would be spending her morning trying to sort through the politics of a world she didn’t quite understand. “Well, we’ll have fun together at her party,” she said, giving him a hug before disappearing into her wardrobe, which had expanded considerably now that she was queen. Thankfully, she could get into most of her dresses without assistance—only the most ornate ones required Finn or Riona’s help. Today she chose a pale yellow dress with short ruffled sleeves, something that wouldn’t have been entirely out of place at a summer wedding on Earth. She fastened her hair up with a shell-shaped comb and slipped her feet into a pair of delicate sandals studded with yellow sapphires. Finn had already left the charred poppy field when she walked back through it, leaving through the door that led to the circular courtyard lined with willow trees. As queen, she could have chosen to relocate to the opulent accommodations in the Hall with her family, but Cedar loved the home Finn had made for them, and she knew how attached Eden had become to her tree-house bedroom—and her new grandparents.
Riona was sitting on a bench under one of the willow trees, watching the waterfall that spilled into a pool in the center of the room. She stood up when she saw Cedar and curtseyed slightly. Cedar rolled her eyes. “Will you please stop doing that? We’re family, and it’s extremely weird when you bow to me.”
Riona laughed but made no promises. “It comes with the title, my dear, so you’d best get used to it. You look lovely,” she added. “I hope all goes well with the Council today.”
“So do I,” Cedar said. “I’ll see you at the party later.”
When she reached the outer door of their home, Nevan was waiting for her, just as Finn had said, along with three tall guardsmen dressed in the dark green and silver uniforms that marked them as part of the Royal Guard. “Good morning,” she said. They nodded back but made no verbal reply.
Nevan curtseyed. “Good morning, Your Majesty,” she said. Cedar smiled at her friend, who looked more like a fairy than any of them with her platinum-blonde pixie cut and glittering white dress. Together they started walking toward the Hall, with one of the guards in front of them and the other two behind. Cedar could have used a sidh, of course, but she enjoyed these morning walks with Nevan, who was bubbly and talkative and had assigned herself the role of Cedar’s—and Eden’s—tutor in the ways of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Each morning as they walked to the Hall together, she told Cedar more about the history of her people and then would quiz her on the previous day’s lesson. They met at other times for more in-depth lessons, but Cedar had discovered that Nevan was quite politically astute, and she always felt more informed—and better equipped to make decisions—after their walks. It was the ideal way to head into a Council meeting.
“Tell me about your parents, Nevan,” Cedar said. “You mentioned the other day that they’re Elders. The only Elder I know is Brighid—are they like her? Can you still speak with them even though they’ve gone back to the Four Cities?”
Nevan laughed, a tinkling sound that always brought a smile to Cedar’s face. “I’m afraid Brighid is quite unique,” she said. “She has the most outrageous qualities of both the Elders and the humans, which distinguishes her from both races. But all the Elders, my parents included, are different from us. They’re a step more…godlike, I suppose. They’re more powerful and dominant than we are. You’d probably consider them melodramatic. They each seem to exist in their own self-contained world, whereas those of us who are their descendants are more interconnected, both with each other and with humanity—or at least we were back when we visited Ériu more.”
“Wasn’t it hard for you when they left?” Cedar asked. She couldn’t imagine voluntarily leaving Eden behind, knowing she would never see her again.
“Not really,” Nevan answered with a shrug. “I wasn’t a child anymore, and they weren’t the kind of parents that you’re thinking about. I wonder about them occasionally, but we didn’t have a close relationship like you and Eden do…or even Finn and his parents. As awful as it sounds, it wouldn’t really bother me if I never saw them again. And who knows? Maybe I will. They left us for the Four Cities, but that doesn’t mean they’ll never return.”
Cedar thought about her own birth parents, Brogan and Kier, and wondered what her childhood would have been like if she’d been born and raised in Tír na nÓg. Would they have loved her like Maeve had loved her? Kier had sacrificed the last bit of her power to give Cedar the gift of humanity in the hopes of shielding her from Lorcan. That had to mean something, she thought.
They walked in silence for several minutes; Nevan was apparently waiting for another question, but Cedar was distracted, her attention drawn to the beauty that surrounded them. She couldn’t believe how quickly the land had rejuvenated in the past few weeks. The grass beneath her feet was no longer dry and coarse; it was as soft and tender as the flowers that dotted the fields and filled the air with a gentle fragrance. The trees, which had been dead and barren, now hung with heavy blossoms. Some were even beginning to bear fruit. Cedar had been delighted to discover that the queen had her own orchard, a maze of trees and bushes that were now bursting with life.
In its natural state, Tír na nÓg was always in the height of spring. There was no fall or winter here, at least nothing that lasted more than a day or two. The plants would bloom, bear fruit, and when the fruit had all fallen or been picked, they would bloom again, a never-ending cycle of growth and beauty without the darkness of death and winter. This cycle would repeat until the end of time—or, she supposed, until a new calamity struck Tír na nÓg.
Cedar was lost in thought when she heard a voice call her name from behind them. The guards stopped first, and then stepped aside when they saw Rohan approaching. “Good morning, Your Majesty,” Rohan said as he dipped his head toward her. “Good morning, Nevan.”
“Good morning, Rohan,” Cedar replied, with only a slight roll of her eyes this time. Perhaps Riona was right, and she should just get used it. To her surprise, Rohan grinned at her. He’d become much more lighthearted now that they were back in his homeland and he wasn’t responsible for the lives of so many.
“Your father used to hate it too, you know,” he said. “He was my best friend, and had been for many years, and when we were alone, he insisted that I call him Brogan. But he deserved it—the title, that is. And so do you.”
Cedar smiled gratefully. “Thank you,” she said. “Any news?”
“Always. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Um…the bad news, I guess.”
“Deaglán is causing trouble again, even from behind bars.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“It’s not what he’s doing so much as what he’s saying. The people are curious about you, Your Majesty. Deaglán is encouraging the rumor that you are Maeve’s child, not Kier’s.”
“What?” Nevan exclaimed. “They still think she’s part human?”
“How could they think that?” Cedar asked. “The Li
a Fáil chose me. They all heard it at the coronation.”
Rohan nodded. “Yes, but it will take some time to convince everyone that the humans are not our enemies. And everyone knows you grew up among them. Some think that you are the child of a human and a Danann, even though we all know that such a thing is impossible. They are concerned that the Lia Fáil was…mistaken.”
Nevan looked disgusted, but Cedar slowly nodded. She, too, had heard the whispers. She noticed the conversations that were hushed the moment she entered the room, saw the sidelong, doubting looks. Even in the throne room she could sense it, when her lack of knowledge about the Tuatha Dé Danann was displayed by some question or topic she didn’t understand. She saw the glances the Council members exchanged when Gorman, whom she had chosen as her steward, had to whisper a correction or explanation in her ear. For a while she’d asked Nevan, who was on the Council, to explain things to her telepathically—but she just looked spaced out while she listened to Nevan’s explanations, so they had scrapped that idea after a few days.
“Let them talk,” she told Rohan. “I don’t want to address every little rumor about me. I’ll just have to win them over with time. What’s next?” She started walking again, with Rohan and Nevan beside her. She could think better when she was moving.
“Ah, that’s where my good news comes in. We’ve finished questioning the druids that were involved with the attacks on you at Tara and Edinburgh Castle. We used the goblet of Manannan mac Lir to ensure their truthfulness, and it appears that all of them were acting on Nuala’s direct orders. We found a starstone among Liam’s things that matches the one belonging to Nuala, so we assume the plan was for him to recruit the druids and for her to work her persuasive spell on them through the starstone. With your permission, we’ll release them.”
Cedar frowned and tried to shove her hands into her pockets, only then remembering that she was wearing a dress. “I don’t think so. Liam couldn’t have been working alone. At least some of them must have been helping of their own free will.”
“There’s something else you should know. We’ve been trying to answer that very question, and we came across something very interesting. Liam wasn’t working alone—not at the library, at any rate. His assistant there is also a druid. Her name is Helen Sullivan.”
Cedar and Nevan both stopped walking and stared at him. “Can you give us a minute?” she asked her guards, who fell back a few paces, out of earshot. “There’s another druid at Trinity College? He never mentioned that. Was he training her?”
“We’re not sure exactly what their relationship was,” Rohan said. “But Liam was more than just a librarian. He was Keeper of Manuscripts. It’s a very old and prestigious position. He was in charge of the Book of Kells and the other ancient manuscripts in the college’s library. Helen was the Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts, and since his ‘disappearance,’ she’s been promoted to the top job.”
“Where is she now?”
“Still at the college, as far as I know. I’d like to bring her in for questioning, but I wanted your permission first, and of course I’ll need a sidh to go and get her.”
Cedar exhaled loudly. “I knew he couldn’t be working alone. Of course you can bring her in. Let’s go right now!”
“What about the Council meeting?”
“That can wait,” Cedar said. “This is more important.” If Liam had someone helping him, she needed to find that person—now.
CHAPTER 2
Irial was lying on a rock, tanning his perpetually pale skin, surrounded by seals. This island off the west coast of Ireland was never exactly warm, but his body seemed to be acclimatizing itself to the winds and chills. He had felt exhausted of late, so this chance to soak up some rare late-summer rays was a welcome opportunity. He stretched his thin frame and opened one coal black eye, absentmindedly running his hand through his black curls. At a glance, he appeared to be a normal human youth, with strong shoulders, a tight waist, and powerful legs. And yet there was something unearthly about the way all his pieces fit together. Once you set eyes on him, it was difficult to look away.
“Ladies!” he called. “It’s a beautiful day! Why don’t you shed the coats?”
The seal next to him made a sound that he thought was supposed to be laughter—or it might have been a sneeze. It twisted its head and strained its neck, as if trying to push something out. And then the seal’s skin split neatly down the middle, and a dark-haired, dark-eyed, and very naked woman eased her way out and lay down on the rock beside him, the sealskin tucked under one arm.
“Better?” she asked. Some of the other seals did the same, but the rest ignored him.
“Indeed,” Irial said, giving her an appreciative glance. He’d already tried with this one—Syrna, he thought her name was—without getting anywhere, but she did like to flirt. And flirting was something he’d been unable to do since realizing what he was, and what happened to the women who loved him.
“Shout if you see a human,” she murmured, resting her head on her arms and closing her eyes.
“You’ll have to keep watch yourself, my dear,” he answered. “I have a date with you in my dreams.”
“Are all gancanagh as lazy as you?” she asked, but he could tell she was smiling.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met another.”
Syrna opened her eyes and turned to look at him. “Really? You’ve never met another like yourself?”
“Hard to believe, I know, when you selkies all live in colonies. But I’m afraid I’m one of a kind. At least, as far as I know. Maybe hundreds of other gancanagh are out there charming the ladies and doing who knows what else.”
“They say you don’t do that anymore,” Syrna said, her darkly lashed eyes looking at him with interest.
Irial propped himself up on one elbow. He could tell that a nap was not in his immediate future. And maybe the truth of his self-imposed exile would cause her to reconsider his advances. “I don’t.”
“But you did,” she pressed.
Irial shrugged. “Yes. But for the most part it was because I didn’t understand what was happening. I was young and cocky—hard to believe, I know—and thought human women were just attracted to me.”
“So what changed?”
I got tired of killing people, he thought to himself. “You know how it works,” he said. “Wouldn’t you have changed once you realized what you were doing?”
She didn’t answer, just continued to look at him with a mix of interest and skepticism. He sighed. “All right, if you want to hear the whole story. I enjoyed the attention at first—who wouldn’t? But then…well, it wears on you after a while. It wasn’t normal, the way they would act around me. It’s like they stopped being human and started behaving like animals. And if I was, uh, intimate with one—even if I just touched her—she’d go mad. I know a lot of human men would say I had a pretty good deal, but in reality…” He looked out over the ocean. “It was horrible. I’d rather be anything else.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’re so bad,” Syrna said with a wink. “At least you stopped. And it’s only human women you affect, anyway. There are lots of other fish in the sea.”
He nodded ruefully. She was right, but it had taken him too long to figure that out.
“How did you become a gancanagh, anyway?” she continued. “Maybe you have family somewhere who are just like you.”
Irial laughed. To selkies, it was all about family. They couldn’t imagine a life apart from their parents, their brothers and sisters, and their seemingly endless string of aunts, uncles, and cousins. On the rare occasion when a human managed to steal a selkie woman’s seal coat and force her to become his wife, she only ever dreamed of home, even if she bore children for her human husband. As soon as she found her coat again, she would disappear back into the ocean, leaving her children behind. Having never known his family, Irial didn’t understand this compulsion at all. But they had allowed him to stay with their colony—and for that, he was grateful.
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“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “Maybe I do have a family somewhere, but I’ve got a few choice words for them if we ever meet. I don’t even remember being a kid. All I remember is waking up under a tree. It must have been hundreds of years ago.”
“If you’ve never met anyone else like you, how did you find out what you were?” she asked.
“I got on the bad side of one of the Tuatha Dé Danann,” he said. “Toirdhealbhach MacDail re Deachai. He was a healer. He was spending time in a little village in Derry for some reason—I never had the chance to ask him why. Anyway, he seemed to know what I was just by looking at me. Pulled me aside and told me he’d not seen my like for hundreds of years. So I know there were more like me at one time.” He snorted. “Nothing like being told you’re a kind of succubus and that your skin is toxic to women. And here I thought I was just irresistible.”
“And you haven’t been with a human woman since?” Syrna asked, raising one dark eyebrow.
Irial shook his head, his pale cheeks reddening slightly. “I’m not that virtuous. But I’ve tried to stop, and the, er, urges seem to be getting less intense. It helps that I avoid human populations. Before I came here, I was living with a troop of pixies down near the Wicklow Mountains. And before that I was with the Merrow. I haven’t seen a human in ages, and I’m glad for it.”
“Well, we Unseen have to stick together, don’t we?” she asked, rolling over so that her side was pressed against his.
“I like the sound of that,” he said with a glint in his eyes. “Don’t suppose you’ll let me steal that skin of yours?”
“Of course not!” she said, sitting up and clutching the sealskin to her chest. Then she looked at him through long black eyelashes. “But I might let you borrow it…for a night.”
When Irial woke up the next morning, he felt like he’d been dropped from the top of a cliff and smashed onto the rocks below. Syrna hadn’t been that rough with him, he thought. He sat up and immediately regretted it. They were in the abandoned fisherman’s cabin near the shore where Irial slept at night, though he often spent his days with the selkies on the rocks or swimming in the waves. Even in their human form, the selkies didn’t feel the cold as much as he did, and Syrna had tossed off the covers and was lying naked beside him. Her mouth was slightly open, and she was clutching her sealskin in her arms. He was about to reach over and kiss her when she gave a long, low moan. Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked at him in confusion.
