Why not? Sharing could lessen the burden.

He shifted slightly, hunching his shoulders, twisting a strand of hair in his fingers.

“Not this burden. Besides, if it is false, why give others pain? What troubles me most is not knowing what to do. If I do see things come, bad things, I should act to try to prevent them. But even if I had time to do anything, I would scarcely know where to start. Besides, perhaps that is exactly what the lady Oonagh wants. And perhaps, again, these things are intended; there may be no stopping them. Always, before, I knew which way was right. I have lost that certainty.”

You are still the same. Still strong.

“But will I be strong enough? And it grows harder, each time. Each time a little part of me changes, so the man becomes more like the swan; but the swan can never be the man. Oh, Sorcha, I have seen my own end; that is a weight of knowledge no man should bear. I have seen my brothers perish by the sword, and by water, and I have seen one go far, far away beyond the reach of furthest thought. And you—I have seen a great ill for you, and I do not know how to prevent it. If you can go away from here, you should do so, and as soon as you can.”

Tell me what it is. How can I do anything about it, if I don’t know?

“No. It may not be true.”

He was adamant, and I could get no more from him on the subject. We sat there quietly together, and after a while he took my hand in his, and for no reason at all I had a terrible feeling that this would be the last time he would ever touch me. The last of our precious time slipped away, and I fought back tears as the sky grew lighter with the approach of dawn. Weeping would not help anyone.

We gathered on the shore to say our farewells, and there Finbar did something that terrified me more than all his words of warning. Reaching up, he took off the amulet from around his neck, the smooth, holed stone with its runic imprint, and placed the cord over my head so that I wore the charm against my heart.

I raised a hand in protest—no, it is yours, Mother gave it to you—but he was already turning away and I could not see his face. It had been a gesture of terrible finality. In all my life I had never seen him without our mother’s gift around his neck.

Farewell, until next time. Farewell, dear one.

I had told Simon he could end his story any way he wanted. The choice was his, I’d said; there were as many pathways as the threads of a great tapestry, and he was the weaver. Oh, but my story. Why couldn’t I do this with my own story? Why must the strands of this tale form a fabric of violence, turn the red of blood and betrayal, take the way of corruption and anguish and parting? With the clear-eyed confidence of an innocent, I had lectured Simon on the need to take control of his destiny, never thinking to find myself helpless before its blows, not two years later.