Chapter 49

For a moment, I couldn't help but stare back at him. His teeth were bared, rage present in every aspect of his tense body. Like I was the one betraying him. And maybe he believed that. Perhaps it was for the best he did.

Still, it hurt, knowing even now he would still try to hold me here. A part of me had hoped he would be able to let me go. That he cared enough to think of what was best for me.

"I'm going home," I replied honestly, still holding on to Oisin. "Oisin is coming with me."

Ronan's lips curled harshly, his grip on his knife tightening. "No."

I lifted my chin, even as tears pricked my eyes. "I can't live the life of a prisoner."

"You won't be a prisoner," he snapped. "I would make you a Queen."

I glanced at Oisin, who was grimacing in pain, the iron blade sizzling against his skin. "Not by my own choice. Why can't you see it, Ronan? Why is it so hard for you to understand? Would it not be more rewarding for you to have me by your side because I wanted to be there? I want to see my family again. I want to go home."

"Home," he snarled. "There is no such thing as a home. Only places where we project useless things like comfort and safety."

I couldn't help the pity that bloomed in my chest. Of course, Ronan wouldn't know what a home was. He'd never had one. He'd never felt safe a day in his life, his own mother eager to kill him.

"And maybe it is, but that is for me to decide," I said to him. "I don't choose this life. Not like this."

Ronan's face jerked, feeling the burn of my brutal honesty. But then the fury in his eyes dimmed, leaving behind a cold, malicious sneer. "Come back through that portal, or I will slit this princeling's neck." He glanced up at the structure around the portal, which already looked smaller than it had been at first. "You don't have much time."

I closed my eyes, unable to look at Oisin's pained face.

"Go," Oisin said through clenched teeth. "Don't worry about me, you can still make it."

I shook my head, I couldn't do that either. I might not have known Oisin long, but he didn't deserve to die at the hands of my selfishness.

"Ronan, please," I said softly. "Just let me go."

But the softness I had once seen in his eyes had gone. Instead there stood the Night fae that I had seen during the Hunt. Hard, brutal, and obsessed with one thing, and one thing only.

Blood.

"Whether you want to be with me or not never mattered to me, Heather. Sure, it would make things easier, but my goal has always been the same." His lips curled into the mockery of a smile.

"You might have come to see me as something else, project your own human emotions onto me, but I am not like you, Heather. I don't feel, I don't care. You have always been a means to an end since the moment I found you. With your power bonded to mine, no one will ever be able to stop me. I will win the Trials, I will become king. And..." A familiar gleam caught in his eyes, a feverish frenzy that would never see reason.

"I will abolish the Courts and return Faerie as it should be. No more tithes, no more rules, the land will be ours for the taking, whether the Day Courts want us or not. It will be chaos," he said. "The way it should be."

My eyes widened in horror. I had always known Ronan's wanted to be king, but I had never imagined what he wanted was this.

"You will plunge the whole world into endless war."

Ronan smiled at the thought. "I know."

"Heather," Oisin said, his voice hoarse with resignation. "Let go of my hand. The portal is closing."

It was only a few inches from the top of my head.  I knew I couldn't stay and let Ronan use me, but I also couldn't leave Oisin to die at his hands.

"You pass through that portion and he is dead," Ronan said coldly. "I know that the humanity you cling to can't bear to see my brother die--." His eyes flared suddenly, his body jerking.

A similar spasm rocked through Oisin. Fiery heat radiated from his hand, shadowy flames licking across his skin.

"Bloody Danu," Ronan snarled. "Not now."

Oisin let out a low laugh, his eyes lacking the same humour. "It's decided," he said. "The Queen is dead. The Trials must begin."

A desperation took Ronan's face, and the grip on his knife tore into Oisin's neck. "My patience runs out. Heather Kelly, come to me now."

My lips parted, and I stared at Ronan. I shook my head, "You monster--"

But Ronan's brows were creasing, his eyes growing impatient. I could see similar flames to Oisin's licking up his arms.

"Heather Kelly," he repeated. His grip on Oisin was loosening, and he took a jerking step back. "Come."

But still, my body did not move. My horror quickly turned to confusion. It...it wasn't working.

"You liar," he roared. "You gave me a false name."

But I was just as surprised as he was. Ronan was using my true name but it did not affect me.

I felt Oisin's hand on mine slipping, our hands slick with sweat. Oisin watched me with wonder. But then his attention darted to the portal around me, I could feel it closing in on my body.

Ronan's knife fell from his hands, hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Oisin was free, but he too was being pulled back by some mysterious force.

The Trial. Ronan must have initiated it when he killed Kiera.

Oisin's eyes were soft on mine. I watched as he took another step from me, and I clung desperately to his fingers.

"I'll pull you through, there is still time."

But Oisin shook his head. "It was nice meeting you, Heather," he said softly. "I think if we had met under different circumstances, we could have been good friends." He gave one last squeeze of my fingers, then let go.

"Find your own path," he said. "You're free."

Behind him, Ronan gave a deafening roar of fury as the Trial pulled him away from me, his desperate fire-filled gaze, catching mine just as I stumbled back, the portal closing over me.

#

Grassy ground came up behind me as I fell backward, a gasp leaving my lips from the impact. A thick hazel tree filled the space where Ronan and Oisin had been a few moments ago. The energy of the portal vanished, snuffed out with a sudden violent wind.

I was back. I was back in the human world. But even as it hit me, all I could see was Ronan's enraged face and Oisin's sad, sorrowful gaze, the Trial pulling them both away.

I gathered myself onto my knees, my fine dark dress covered in dust and soot. Leaves and mud stuck to my legs. The wind blew, but it did not pay me any attention. It only roared past, making the early rays of sunlight disappear.

I looked down to see a familiar ring of toadstools around me. The same ring that had always lurked outside my Gran's cottage. For a moment the air glimmered, and then everything went still. The air shifted, and every last trace of magic disappeared. I pushed myself up onto shaking legs, still trying to make sense of it all.

The hazel tree stood tall in front of me, and before I knew it I was at its base, pressing my hands to its tall winding limbs. They splayed out under my fingers, branching off in many different directions. They all led back to the same place, the tree's roots buried deep in the ground. A cold gust ripped at my bared arms but still, I couldn't look away.

I opened my mouth but only a choked sob escaped.

I had finally achieved what I had wanted, but I found myself unable to move. I had come home. I had escaped Faerie.

Only it felt wrong. Like I had made the wrong choice.

It wasn't because of Ronan, or even Oisin's sacrifice in those last few moments that troubled me, though they both brought on a pain of their own. No, it was because the emptiness that I had suffered from all my life was back, a raw open hole in my chest. Worse than before. It was unshakable, and so, so wrong.

I let out a cry, everything coming to me in a quick blur. The blood, Ronan's blood-curdling smile, his lips against mine, Oisin's hopeful smile. And fire, so much fire.

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to calm the panic running through me. If the Trials were starting, what would happen if Ronan won?

I closed my eyes. I let out a slow ragged breath and looked up at the hazel tree. It swayed back and forth, dark stormy skies rolling in. Rain started to fall, dripping down the trees boughs in thick drops against my face. I was home. I had escaped Faerie.

Sometime later, I wiped the tears from my face and I turned back to Gran's home. Someone else would live there now. But I didn't know where else to go. I was stuck in Ireland without a cent to my name.

As I reached the bottom of the hill, the door swung open. A man looked up from the frame, spotting me right away as a splotch against the Irish hilltops. We stared at each other in surprise.

After a moment the man got over the shock. He looked me up and down, taking in my strange attire.

"Can I help ye there, miss? It's a long walk to anywhere out here."

"I..." I started. Then stopped. I didn't know where I was going, or what I was doing anymore. Slowly as I realized how much of a mess I must have looked, I sucked in a deep breath.

Mom. Dad. They would be worried about me, maybe even think I was dead. That was why I was here.

This was the choice I had made.

I looked up at the old man who stood, a lighter still gripped in his hand where he had been about to light a cigarette. He was watching me, his eyes darting to the side. He probably thought I was a mad woman, or perhaps a faerie if he had grown up hearing the same stories as my Gran. He wasn't completely wrong, either.

"I need to go home," I answered because it was true. "Can I borrow your phone? I seem to have lost mine."