“We got into all kinds of trouble when we were growing up,” Aoife said softly once she found her voice again. “Our parents couldn’t figure out what to do with us, how to keep us out of trouble. We ran wild with the children of the local clans—the Imbolg, the Fianna, the Dáire—we knew them and loved them like we would love family. Seamus and Teague, they had lovers among them, the chieftain’s daughters of the Imbolg and the Dáire. Teague had a child with Mairéad of the Dáire. He loved her so much and his father was so angry for it. War was coming and we needed allies and my uncle felt like Teague had ruined himself with Mairéad.”
“Is that how you guys felt?” Gray asked, his voice barely louder than the crunch of their boots in the melting snow.
“No,” she said, shaking her head hard as bile pooled in her belly. She’d been angry with Teague for it—angry because his actions had endangered so many, angry because what he’d done had cost them Seamus, her favorite cousin—but she hadn’t felt like Teague was ruined, had she? Aoife took an unsteady breath and exhaled it as a sigh. “I love my cousin, Gray.”
“So you’ve said.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “But I also know that you resent Teague and your brother. You’ve made that pretty clear in the past.”
“I wish I didn’t. I know I shouldn’t. They’ve made choices that they thought were the right ones—and maybe they were and I just didn’t realize it—but it’s damned hard to deal with the fallout. Really, really hard.”
“You’re allowed to be angry at them for whatever the hell they did.”
Whatever the hell they did. She snorted humorlessly. “We went into exile beyond the borders of this world after the war started and it became clear that it was run or die. Phelan stayed behind. My uncle was livid, but Phelan said he couldn’t abandon them, couldn’t walk away from his duty. He abandoned us instead.” Her stomach lurched. She’d never admitted that to anyone before—that she’d felt like her brother had forsaken her, left her on her own, utterly abandoned and bereft.
When they’d crossed the brink to the Otherworld that had birthed her people she’d found herself utterly alone.
He abandoned me. Gods and monsters, he abandoned me for them. What would make a brother do that?
Tears stung in her eyes and she straightened her spine. When she saw him again, she’d get the answers.
She knew that for certain.
