She doesn’t realize she’s bleeding until the first drop of her blood falls into the earth.

It’s just one drop, but the effect is instantaneous and immense. Both Croi’s selves are shocked still when the earth reacts to the blood with an enraged roar. She sees Lorcan pale and the soldiers pull out their swords. She sees stooping trees stand straight. Monca’s shocked face flashes before her as a soldier pulls the brownie out from under the leafy shade of a rowan tree. Another drop of Croi’s blood falls to the earth, and the roar resounds. Her back arches as pain slices through it in two different spots.

Croi feels like her world is ending and she’s going to go to glory in an inferno. There’s fire within her and fire without her. Anger spreads from her fingertips to her toes. The fire heats her blood and creates a bridge between her two selves, joining her two halves into one whole.

When the world shrinks to Croi and the pain she feels, a hand presses on her shoulder, and the chaos inside her retreats. The cadence of the magicks within her harmonizes with the magick of the kin holding her. She knows before she turns that it is Aodh, the Tine King, standing behind her. She sags as he wraps a cloth around her arms, staunching the flow of blood.

“Give me the fire, child,” the king says, expecting to be obeyed.

Croi straightens up and pulls away from his embrace. “No,” she replies, her voice brittle and sharp. “No,” she repeats. She looks at the Tine kin surrounding her.

Lorcan has fallen to his knees, as have the soldiers. There’s no sign of Monca, but Croi knows she was here; the trees will not keep secrets from her.

“I do not recall asking you to do this, Lord Lorcan.” The Tine King is angry; his words create welts on Lorcan’s face.

“We were told that she harmed the princess, sire.” Lorcan’s voice is even and controlled, betraying none of the darkness that colors his swirling magick.

“Did you not ask your princess what she was doing when I harmed her?” Croi walks closer to the kneeling fae. He lifts his head at her approach and his irises flare, hatred filling the red depths. Croi does not understand why he hates her, but she cannot let his actions go unanswered.

She looks at him, and Lorcan’s magick stills, sensitive to her attention.

“Do you know what I did to her? Would you like to find out?” In the next second she rips the magick out of him. Lorcan crumples to the ground with a scream, unprepared for the agony unfolding within him. Croi watches him convulse. She watches him weep. He begs for mercy, but no one moves to intercede on his behalf; nobody dares. When his voice thins out with exhaustion and the light of his magick is almost extinguished, Croi rescinds her call, and his magick slithers back under his skin.