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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Grief played games with time. Hours jumped and skipped, one moment alone, the next surrounded by consoling hands at a funeral. Saoirse counted the days by the trays of food brought to her, left untouched. She faced the interminable hours of midnight, each second an eternity in sleeplessness.
Unable to bear the silence, warm in bed, Saoirse had taken to roaming the castle at night. She spent early mornings walking through the grounds, the nearby villages. Though Apple nickered to her as she passed, the princess refused his comfort.
As if she were a wraith, shadowed in her sorrow, the servants and townsfolk avoided her eye. The council stopped asking for her attendance. Everything threatened to move on without her. Saoirse did not think she would care if the world ended. She wished it would leave her behind.
In her numbness, Saoirse could not bear to see Faolan. Each time he called, each note he sent, she locked herself away and burned the letters. She had nearly destroyed the weavings too. The sunshine shawl, full of cheerful memories. The moonbeam cloak, dark and heavy, and yet somehow uplifting to touch. They mocked the grief she wanted to drown in.
But as she held the otherworldly garments over the fire, Saoirse remembered Siofra's careful hand at the loom. Like the memory of a dream, she almost felt the brush of pixie wings against her cheek, almost heard Faolan's laughter. Deep in her chest, she knew destroying them would not change the choices she had made.
So she wore the sunshine shawl and the moonbeam cloak, her connection to the time before, the reminder of the hours she wasted. Dressed in this uncanny armor, Saoirse vowed to never be that girl again. Selfish and wild, the fool who had squandered the last moments she might have shared with her father.
"She didn't shed a single tear," whispered the cook's voice from far away. Saoirse realized her wandering feet had taken her to the kitchen. Her stomach cramped at the smell of fresh bread.
"Some say that the faerie curse has stolen her soul," a scullery maid replied.
"It must have! This is not our Saoirse."
The gossip had barely stirred her attention these past weeks. Night after night their whispers rang with worry and censure. Burrowed in regret and self-loathing, what did petty chatter matter?
But the mention of curses prodded the dying coals of her spirit.
For the fate of Mide and the fate of your happiness, this land will not know peace until you possess sunlight, moonbeams, and stardust in your hands.
A spark of injustice caught and burned.
After weeks trapped in a web of heavy heartache, Saoirse's chest fluttered awake.
Would the final weave reverse this? The question flamed with a manic purpose.
Desperate to undo this terrible wrong, Saoirse flew towards the stables, heedless of the sound of her boots thundering through the hall. She would ride to Fir Tulach, step through the mirror. She would stay there until she also possessed stardust, and—
