The Forever King falls to his knees, hand pressed against the wound in his chest, trying to staunch the flow of the blood.

“Father!” A scream comes first, followed by a heavily pregnant woman. Mabh grabs the Forever King by the shoulders, supporting him clumsily. She sobs, trying to give him her magick and failing.

“The HeartStone is still on the pedestal near the dryad tree. Get it. Keep it. Avenge me.” The Forever King gasps loudly and fades in the next moment. Mabh is left clutching the air. Nothing remains of her father except for the blood on her hands and clothes. She doesn’t give in to the grief present on her face. Instead she gets to her feet and runs as fast as her girth will allow to the pedestal in front of the tree where the HeartStone remains untouched.

She picks it up, then staggers as if the burden is too heavy for her to bear. Without being stopped by anyone, she rushes to the far wall opposite the staircase and knocks on it until it slides open. She disappears through it, and the wall slides shut.

The lights in the central hall fade, and it returns to its original appearance. Croi breathes out, drained by what just unfolded in front of her. She moves down the staircase, falling down twice. Each time, it gets more difficult to get back up, but giving up is out of the question. When she gets to the middle of the hall, the Caisleán returns to her incorporeal form.

Croi looks at the tree on the dais in all her dying glory. Her branches must have been majestic in happier days but are now bare, the knots on the joints mourning the absence of the green. An empty pedestal stands in the barren shade of the tree. She moves past it to the trunk, which she touches, trying to reach into the tree to reach the dryad within.

Enya.

The youngest dryad sister, dressed in coarse gray material, emerges wordlessly and without spectacle from the trunk. She is as withered as her tree. Tall and ethereal, she has a pointed face and eyes the color of faded late-summer grass. Her hair is mostly dead twigs, and her skin is the color of parchment. Her magick is pale and dim.

Without speaking a word, Croi hands the SoulSeed to her. The dryad takes it, unwraps it, and buries it in the soil a small distance from her tree. Not five minutes later, Uaine’s tree stands, oddly resplendent, in the decrepit central hall of the Talamh Caisleán. Uaine steps out of the tree, this time without pomp, and falls into the embrace of her youngest sister.

“Sister, the HeartStone,” Enya, the Guardian dryad, says.

“Worry not. I’ve brought it with me,” Uaine replies, turning to look at Croi.

THIRTY-THREE

CROI’S BODY FEELS AS IF it is freezing from the inside out.

Step gently. Carefully.

“I have fulfilled my word, Uaine,” Croi says, grasping what little dignity she has tightly in her trembling fingers. She takes a few steps away and manages to get to a small bench set against a tree growing right beside the wall. She wraps her arms around herself and sits at the edge of the seat.