I stood at the edge of the lake, watching the moon pour itself into the water like spilled milk. Somewhere behind me, the engagement feast raged on. A chorus of clinking glasses and hollow laughter filled the air in the distance. My future wife was there, glowing like a ray of sunshine bottled up and sold as a cure-all. Beautiful. Perfect. Everyone adored her.
It is unfortunate that I didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not heartless. Órlaith is everything a man could ever want, and she would be a powerful Queen of the Fae. Her smile could disarm armies. Her voice makes birds stop singing out of pure shame. But I don’t feel it. Not love. Not the pull. Not the fire I’m supposed to feel when she looks at me with those shimmering golden eyes.
Instead, I feel… itchy. Restless. Like the ground beneath my feet is trying to drag me somewhere I’m not supposed to go. Somewhere dark and wild, far from my duties as the prince.
And then there are the dreams. Every night, the same thing: a voice calling my name. Cathán. I can’t see her, but I can feel her. Everywhere. All around me. Through my very soul. She whispers like smoke curling around my throat, like she’s weaving me into some web I can’t break free from. I tell myself it’s nothing—just my mind wandering where it shouldn’t. But when I wake, the Great Mother—the very spirit of the Earth—feels… different. Hurting. As if I’m not the only one being pulled apart at the seams.
Tonight, the pull was stronger. Strong enough to drag me out of my own engagement feast. Strong enough to make me leave Órlaith. She’d probably been sitting there, her golden hair gleaming under the lantern light, pretending not to notice I’d gone. She’s so very good at pretending.
“Cathán.”
Speak of the golden goddess, and she shall appear.
I turned. There she was, standing at the edge of the clearing, looking like something out of a bard’s overplayed song. Her gown shimmered in the moonlight, all white and gold, like the very heavens clothed her. I felt the familiar pang of guilt as I faced her.
“You left our celebration,” she said, her voice soft. She always sounded soft. It made me want to scream.
“I needed air,” I said, with an aggravated murmur. “That is all.”
Her lips curved into a patient smile. She stepped closer, her hands clasped before her as though she were about to pray for my soul. “You worry too much, my prince. This union—it’s for the good of our people, but it doesn’t have to feel like a burden.”
“It doesn’t,” I lied.
Her smile faltered, but she smoothed it over so quickly I almost missed it. Almost. She reached out, placing her delicate hand on my chest. Her touch was warm, grounding in a way that should have soothed me. It didn’t. In fact, I felt somewhat repulsed.
“We could be happy, you and I,” she said.
I swallowed the bitter laugh threatening to escape. Órlaith was sunshine, but I was soil. The kind that never sees the light, that’s drenched in blood and rot to keep everything above alive. She didn’t understand that. She couldn’t.
Before I could respond, a chill swept through the clearing. The scent of jasmine coiled around me, heady and intoxicating. My pulse quickened.
She was here. But how?
“What is that?” Órlaith whispered, her voice laced with unease as she glanced around the clearing.
“Go back to the feast,” I said, the sharpness in my tone startling even me.
Her brows knit together. “What? Why? Tell me–”
“Now, Órlaith.”
She hesitated, searching my face for an answer I wouldn’t give her. Finally, with a stiff nod and a resigned smile, she turned and disappeared back to our party, leaving me alone with the growing darkness.
The shadows deepened, and the world fell unnervingly silent.
Cathán.
Her voice slipped through me like a silken thread, low and familiar despite my never having heard it before. A name in the dark, a caress on my soul. I turned, and there she was, stepping from the void like a whisper made flesh. Veiled as always, her face hidden, her figure shrouded in flowing black smoke that moved around her form. She didn’t walk—she drifted forward, her presence an unnatural pull deep inside me.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, though my voice wavered under the weight of her presence.
“I am always with you,” she said, her words brushing against something deep inside me, something I didn’t know was there. “You summon me from across the void.”
“I did no such thing,” I said, though the lie tasted bitter.
Her laugh was low and throaty, warm but sharp at the edges. “Didn’t you, though? Every time you close your eyes and dream of me. Every time you touch the woman meant to be your wife and wish it was someone else. Every time you fight what you feel. You’re reaching out for me.”
She stepped closer, her edges blurred as though she was more shadow than woman. The air thickened, heavy and charged, as if the earth itself was holding its breath with me.
“You’re nothing more than a dream,” I said, though the words rang hollow. “A nightmare.”
“Am I?” she asked, reaching out a hand cloaked in shadow. Her fingers stopped just shy of my face. “Touch me, and see.”
I shouldn’t have. I knew that. But her pull was stronger than common sense. Stronger than my duty. Stronger than the fear tightening my chest. My hand moved of its own accord, trembling as it brushed hers.
The moment our skin met, the world splintered. Heat and cold, pleasure and pain, creation and destruction…It all collided in an instant so intense I nearly cried out and fell to my knees. My spirit seemed to unravel and knot back together, and for a fleeting moment, I wasn’t Cathán—I was something far older, tied to her in ways I couldn’t comprehend.
Her veil of smoke shifted as if caught in an unseen wind. For an instant, I thought I saw her eyes—violet and aglow with some ancient power. They burned, not with malice, but with something far more dangerous: truth and love.
“Mo fhíorghrá,” she whispered, her voice soft now, almost tender. My true love.
I staggered back, clutching my chest as if that could calm the storm she’d awoken inside me.
“You don’t belong here,” I said, but it was a broken plea, not a command.
“I belong wherever you are,” she replied, her voice threading with sorrow. “Even if you don’t understand why. Not yet. But the day will come. I’ll be waiting.”
The shadows rippled, swallowing her whole. Her words, soft and haunting as the echoed through the void, curling around me like smoke as the night swallowed the last of her presence.
I dropped to my knees, the earth beneath me trembling in resonance with my own unsteady spirit.
I knew what I had to do. I had a duty to Órlaith, to my people, to my Queen.
But the darkness in me, the one tied to my being in my dreams, whispered something different. And for the first time, I wasn’t sure which voice I’d obey.