Page 96 of The Vanishing Throne

Her teeth flash, razor-sharp. ‘Why wouldn’t I?Mymother did.’

My skin goes cold.

The Cailleach’s shadow cloak creeps along the ground, curling like snakes around my feet. ‘My sister was the Unseelie monarch before Kadamach,’ she says. ‘I slaughtered her to unite the kingdoms. This is the way it’s been through the ages: one Cailleach to replace another.

‘My daughter will have to make the same choice I did. After she kills her brother, I’ll pass my remaining powers to her and I’ll die. She’ll take the throne.’

I refuse to believe we can’t decide our own fates. That Kiaran is destined to be death and I am destined to be chaos and Aithinne is destined to be queen. We’re not pawns. This isn’t a game. At what point can we choose?

‘She loves him,’ I snap. ‘Doesn’t that mean a damn thing to you? You killed your sister and now you want your daughter to—’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ the Cailleach says. ‘She can’t let Kadamach live. If she doesn’t kill him …’

‘What?’

‘She’ll watch the world she loves die with me.’ Her power around me is suffocating, down my throat like black ink. ‘The cost of their choices has already destroyed everyone you love. Soon, it will tear the realms apart. Yoursandmine.’

Now I know why the stories always had the Seelie and Unseelie kingdoms at war, why it always began with a Wild Hunt.

War was supposed to bring thousands of years of peace to the fae. But Aithinne’s choice to create the Falconers was the first step to counter her fate, and set her against a story that had been repeated for generations before her.

It affected Kiaran’s life; he was never supposed to fall in love witha Falconer. And it began a ripple effect across the centuries that eventually led to the destruction of our world.

I think of what Gavin told me in my imagined Edinburgh.

Some things can’t be prevented.

‘Now you understand why Aithinne must do this,’ the Cailleach whispers. ‘Which do you think she’ll choose?’ Frost creeps over the grass beneath the Cailleach’s staff. ‘To let the realms wither to dust, or to let live the brother who would have slaughtered her?’

‘I won’t let that happen,’ I say. There has to be a different solution. Therehasto be.

‘There’s nothing you can do,’ she says coldly. ‘One of them has to die.’ Her lip curls. ‘It should be Kadamach.’

Desperation gives me the power to break whatever hold she has on me, snapping the strings of power that keep me trapped here. She staggers at the sudden onslaught, her young face slipping back into its crone form.

I run. I hear her shouting as I leap through the dark trees. I keep going until I can’t see any more, until I am entirely surrounded by blackness. The voices of the dead call my name again. Their hands grab at me, but I fight, I claw.Kiaran Kiaran Kiaran Kiaran. I repeat his name like a prayer, a desperate benediction.One of them has to die. It should be Kadamach.

Then I’m in the clearing again. The fire is still burning. The Cailleach stands in front of me, calm and old and surrounded by her shadow cloak. ‘You can’t run from me,mo nighean. Not here.’

I don’t care. I try again. I break through the trees. Branches slice through the skin at my shoulders, my neck. They rip my clothing as I shove them out of the way. I’m bleeding all over, but I don’t stop. I keep running. I have to get to Kiaran.

I’m back to the fire again, to the damn Cailleach. My knees hit the ground in front of her shadow cloak and I heave in air, the first feelings of hopelessness beginning to overwhelm me. She’ll keep me here like this for ever, just as she said she would – unless I make the choice to die.

Her fingers lift my chin. I gaze into her old, wrinkled face with a shuddering breath. ‘It would be such an easy thing for you to let it all go,mo nighean,’she says. ‘No more death, no one you have to be responsible for. You could dance in lavish balls for eternity, if you wanted.’

No.No. I don’t want balls, or parties, or dresses again. No elevenhours or fourhours or being forced into marriage. Those things all kept me caged, made me a girl too sheltered to understand any real danger until it met her on the street with sharp teeth and claws and ripped her life away.

But the Cailleach is a force drawing me in. She makes me want to shed all my responsibilities and never go back into that living world that made everything so hard, that made each day a struggle.

She leans forward and I’m drawn into that cavernous gaze. ‘You could see your mother again,’ she whispers.

Kiaran’s words are like moth wings across my mind.Don’t forget why you’re there. What’s on the other side won’t want you to return.

I’m not the girl who lost her mother any more and who can be enticed with promises to see her again. I’m not the girl so blinded by vengeance that my sole purpose is tohunt kill maim.

I’m not that girl. I’mnot.

I’m someone else forged in a mirrored room, like steel melted down and made stronger. I don’t need vengeance. I only need myself.

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