My friends—my family—repeated the toast with their goblets high before taking sips of their drinks. The grape juice in my glass left something to be desired, but at least it wasn’t water.
Eava patted Rían’s shoulder. “You’re next, my boy.”
My brother snorted and drank a little deeper. Aveen averted her gaze, her cheeks blushing bright pink.
Ruairi knocked his shoulder against the witch’s. “Ye know what that means,” he said with a smirk. “I’ll have ye all to myself.”
Eava tilted her goblet toward him, her black eyes alight and grin growing. “Ye want to marry me? Name the time and the place, lad. I’ll even throw on a fancy new frock.”
Everyone but Rían laughed. Not even his abject misery could bring me down today. We filled our plates amidst cheerful chatter, everyone talking at once. Every so often, Keelynn would glance over at me and smile, or I’d reach for her tattooed hand and squeeze her fingers. Who knew a heart could feel this full?
After this would come the real highlight of the evening: the cake. I may have already quietly cut myself a teeny slice from the very back and then hidden the gap behind a flower. Eava had caught me and clicked her tongue with false irritation but kept my secret.
As soon as we had our fill of dessert, I would be dragging my wife up to our room and locking her inside.
The door burst open, and Oscar fell into the room. His flat cap skidded across the stones. “Sire! Yer needed in the courtyard.”
Rían and I jolted to our feet and raced after him, out of the dining hall, through the entryway, to the castle’s front steps. We both stilled when we saw the crowd of men in the courtyard. There had to be at least fifty of them. The torches in their hands fought against the growing darkness as the sun sank below the horizon.
I heard footsteps behind me but didn’t dare turn around.
“What’s happening?” my wife whispered.
“I haven’t a clue,” Aveen whispered back.
The men at the front of the crowd seemed to look straight past Rían and me to the women at our backs, their mouths twisting into sinister smiles.
A cool hand slipped around my elbow. “Tadhg?”
I gave Keelynn’s fingers a reassuring squeeze, hoping my voice didn’t betray my anger. How dare these men ruin the most perfect evening. How dare they. “Stay inside, my love.”
Rían remained stone-faced, his expression almost bored as the firelight glinted in his black eyes. “Tadhg’s right. Both of you need to go to your rooms.”
“We aren’t children,” Aveen hissed. I glanced over my shoulder to find her glamour thankfully back in place. Before my sister-in-law could give out any more, she and Keelynn vanished, and the heavy door slammed closed behind us.
“What’d you do with them?” I asked under my breath.
Rían’s lips twitched. “Locked them in the tower.”
“They won’t be happy about it.”
“Good. I like it when mine’s angry.”
I folded my arms across my chest, bracing for whatever shite these men had to share. I recognized Cormac at the very front. Troublemakers, the lot of them. “To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?” I asked in the voice I reserved for making decrees and handing down judgements.
Cormac stalked forward, his bare chest rising and falling in irritation. “Did ye marry that human bitch?” he snarled.
The rest of his posse sniggered.
“If by ‘that human bitch’ you mean Princess Keelynn, then yes, I did. Have you come to offer your congratulations?” I asked, giving them a chance to change their tune before I destroyed every single one of them.
The pooka spat on the stairs, narrowly missing Rían’s boots. My brother’s lips twisted into a smile that sent shivers down my spine. So much for sparing the pooka’s life. Hopefully the others wouldn’t be as foolish. “Yer supposed to be our leader,” the man growled. “And look at ye, tying yerself to one ofthemwhile we’re fighting fer our lives against the ruin they brought.”
What complete and utter shite. Did they truly believe humans had brought about this blight? “You are aware that humans do not possess magic and therefore cannot kill the land. What’s happening outside these walls has nothing to do with the humans.”
A squatty man with a wooden leg hobbled forward, the handle on his torch nearly as tall as he was.“That’s just it, ye see. It’s happenin’outsidethese walls.” Embers drifted into the sky when he gestured toward the castle with his flame. “Yer safe in here, hiding away on yer throne while yer people are sufferin’.”
Had they not seen my brother and I shifting cottage after cottage and tending to those who had been displaced? Had they not witnessed me pouring all my magic into the ground time and again until I could barely stand? Ungrateful wretches, that’s what they were. At this stage, I wasn’t even sure they’d be happy if I did manage to find a way to defeat this blight. Nothing I did would be good enough for them.