To break his family's curse, Faolan mac Domnall seeks to marry the beautiful Saoirse, princess of Mide. Spirited and outspoken, the wild Saoirse wants nothing more than to escape the life that's been decided for her. Determined to outmaneuver a twis...
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Time was a funny thing in Otherworld. It jumped and flowed, froze and rushed. Like the chaotic world itself, minutes and moments paid no mind to the structured rules of the human realm. Lost humans might return home to find hundreds of years had passed in heartbeats or to have a gray-streaked homecoming to an unchanged paramour.
Siofra did not concern herself with time. Each moment inched her closer towards inevitability, closer towards unbending limbs, closer towards a frozen heart. Time was her shroud. She had spent years trying to ignore its touch.
And yet, she found herself greedy for more moments with Faolan. As the solstice neared, she daydreamed about their conversations, imagining something witty to make him laugh, asking about his dreams and plans. When alone, she begged for the hours to fly until his return. Unlike the wild, fey magic of Otherworld, Faolan's brand of magic was steady and sure and whole.
For that's what it was: magic. He cracked the frozen angle of her smile, eased the stiff ache of her wooden joints, made the fresh branches that sprouted from her shoulders seem human. Siofra felt foolish and childish, hungry for his affection, for their days together weaving in the Dreamweaver's cottage.
He has a princess, she reminded herself as they passed the fibers of the moonflowers through the loom. The shaft of moonlight that pierced through the cottage set the delicate threads to a quivering glow. He doesn't need you.
"How is your princess?" she asked quietly, pulling the thread back towards him. Once nimble, her petrified, broken fingers no longer possessed the dexterity to weave. Faolan sat at her side, her new left hand, patient and listening, as always. Despite the new skill, he was quick and clever. With Siofra's careful supervision, only a scrutinizing eye might notice the differences in their weave.
He frowned, his slight shift away creaking their shared bench. Siofra mourned for the lost contact. She ignored the irony of thanking the fates that her sliver of human face was turned from him. Apologetic rejection would be too much to bear.
"She still won't see me," he answered. His dark eyebrows furrowed, the corner of his mouth pulled in a thoughtful frown. "She wants to arrange the funeral on her own."
The weaver supposed it was fortune protecting the winsome princess. The temptation to exchange her soul for freedom had kept Siofra from sleeping nearly every night since the journey to the moonflower meadow. It was easier to ignore that siren call when the princess remained locked away in her castle.
With the same breath, Siofra wished the princess sat with them in the cottage, filling the corners with her chatter. She missed the questions and the conversation, the teasing and the wit. The princess thought of herself first, but she wasn't always selfish. She lived for laughter, but she recognized injustice. Siofra, despite Faolan's infatuation, could not hate the lovely girl. Just as she could not hate fire for burning bright.
"It's hard," Siofra conceded. "To lose a loved father."
The Dreamweaver had stolen her from the human world, but she had loved him despite it. She loved his husky chuckle, how he swore when a delicate thread broke at the loom. His loss had been more painful than realizing she would sink deeper and deeper into her curse, more heartbreaking than the years of unwavering loneliness.
