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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Despite the preparations for and the promises of its inevitable arrival, winter still surprised Fir Tulach with icy fervor. Overnight, a nipping wind kissed bitter cold into each corner of the world. The fields frosted, troughs iced over. Even Banner, a hulking mass in his shaggy winter coat, nuzzled Faolan for stolen warmth each trip he made through the stable.
Though the cold bit at his cheeks and frosted his breath, Faolan mac Domnall kept himself warm with juggling a problem he'd never imagined having. A reclusive princess as a promised bride and a—Siofra.
Ever since Saoirse had locked herself away in her tower, ever since she refused to see him, Faolan's stomach twisted at the thought of their wedding. He'd left the wrapped moonbeam cloak without even a glimpse of the princess. In his head, he knew it was grief that drove her to isolation. But in his heart? Rejection and hurt burned in his throat, for Faolan worried she did not love him. Shame followed. He was not sure if he could love her.
Their proposal had tumbled into existence out of wild desperation and fed off the strange energy of curses—he understood that. Their shared adventure to Otherworld, nighttime laughter in the stable, coy glances and scribbled notes—did those things not count as the foundation for love?
Saoirse was wild and beautiful, full of capacity for unbridled joy and heavy sorrow. A life worthy of songs. She would be a queen. Like catching lightning in a bottle, Faolan did not know if he could ever truly hope to hold her.
"No, not like that," Siofra rasped as the starlit thread dissolved in his fingers.
And then there was his dreamweaver.
"You're not concentrating," she continued, pulling the ruined wisps and strands of stardust out of the spinning wheel. "Focus on your connection as you spin."
"I can't do it," Faolan answered, fighting the creeping frustration in his voice. Siofra made it sound so simple. Think of your princess and pull the stardust into thread. He pictured the strands of amber in hair, her stormy eyes, the corner of her smile. The basket of dark, sparkling sand had quivered and flowed into starlit lines, but they did not hold.
"I can't do it, idiot boy," she corrected, gesturing dryly at her left hand, the ashy bark peeling away in flaky layers.
"Is it getting worse?" he asked. In her single black eye, Faolan did not see the fear and sorrow he knew was there. He found it difficult to find it in the lines of her tense body. As the curse continued to spread, those tells in her posture, in her gestures, disappeared. Each day, she inched further and further away, adamant to face it alone.
The scaly bark grew thicker, her fingers now frozen wooden claws. Only a sliver of human face remained, an ashen mask covering the rest. Crooked branches had sprouted from her shoulders, bare except for bright crimson berries.
"Curses spread," she said with forced firmness, an attempt at a casual shrug, turning her ragged face from him.
"And you're certain there isn't a way to break it?"
