Page 7 of A Court of Ravens
I push the voice out of my head, wrapping it in vines, suffocating it. That feeling lingers. It feels like someone has a hand at the back of my neck, cold and far too fucking familiar.
ChapterFour
NIALL O’LEARY
“Every whisper about us tugs at the seams, loosening that fragile boundary. It’s all very dramatic, really. It’s a reminder of an ancient pact nobody quite remembers the terms of. And when the Veil finally gives, like a too-small dam giving way to a flood, the Otherworld folk start slipping through. Not that they ever wait politely.”
Book of Shadows (Tír na ScáilLost History), Forgotten Tomes Archive
Apulse. It thrums through me, setting the beast inside on edge. My teeth ache. The air tastes like salt and storm. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this pull, this…wrongness. It dragged me to that pub last night. It’s led us to a construction site on a cliff, where the wind howls and the sea snarls.
Tomas is next to me, his massive frame hidden behind a stone wall. The damp seeps through my bones. I ignore it. Ahead, the man from the pub—one of the two the priest stopped to speak with—is locked in a heated argument with someone who looks like he stepped out of a boardroom.
Suitman, I decide. His shoes gleam, his hair slicked back like he’s auditioning for a role he’ll never land. There’s somethingoffabout him. It prickles at the edges of my awareness, like static in the air before a storm. His energy is...wrong. Not human. Not fae. Just wrong.
The Irishman jabs a finger into Suitman’s chest, spittle flying as he shouts about sacred land and defilement. Suitman’s composure cracks, but it’s not fear in his eyes. It’s colder. Calculated. If he tossed the Irishman over the cliff right now, I wouldn’t be surprised. I might even applaud. The waves look ready for it. I can taste the violence in the air. And part of me hopes one of them goes over. It would save me the trouble. One less knave for me to follow.
But Suitman storms off to talk with one of the workers.
“Well,” Tomas grunts, his voice like gravel. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a prime suspect.”
I don’t bother looking at him. “Since when do humans have enoughdraíochtto mess with the Veil? It’s not the Irishman.”
“Must be a new trend we missed.” His scarred face twists into something resembling a grin.
“How unfortunate for them.”
The argument carries on the wind. I catch fragments of words like broken glass.Money. Greed. Corruption.It grates against my nerves. Sacred? I sympathise with the angry Irish lad, but…all land is sacred until someone slaps a price tag on it and carves it up. The irony isn’t lost on me, though I doubt either of these fools would appreciate the lesson.
The island is a place that makes you forget time doesn’t stop no matter how much we might want to return to a simpler life. Well, until something likethishappens. The foundation is being laid, sticking out like a bruise on the landscape. It’s an insult. I can’t decide if I want to fix it or burn it all down.
The rhythms of the island are discordant. Humans glued to glowing rectangles and endless chatter—it’s allnoise. It used to feel like home. Now, it’s like a song out of tune. I can’t shake the feeling that something is coming, and it’s worse than the blight of construction welded in the name of progress.
I’m not the only one who thinks so. The man yelling stands rigid, fists clenched, glaring at the scaffolding like he’s willing it to crumble. I share his desperate need to keep this place from being carved into something unrecognisable.
Gravel crunches. The priest and the woman from last night—Felicity and her friend—join him, voices low but loud enough to carry on the wind. My stallion’s ears twitch.
Because she’s here.
Felicity.
The ceangal sears through my chest, my veins, my bones. A wildfire, burning through every shred of control I’ve held together. The bond is a godsdamned curse—not arranged, not bound by duty or tradition, but by something far worse. Hunger. It hits so deep I want to tear the world apart to keep her safe.
And it’s unbearable.
“This is my brother, Michael,” the priest says, gesturing to the angry man. “And this is Felicity Forrest. She’s the writer sent here to research our púca legends.”
The priest has a brother.That’s relevant.
Michael barely nods, still simmering. “Pleased to meet you. Your timing is impeccable. This resort? Sacred ground.”
“Do you ever wonder if maybe you’ve got too much time on your hands?” the priest mutters.
“We’re inviting a curse. That’s Tuatha Dé Danann land—their mark remains. They sank into the hills. That’s why you don’t touch it. You dig here, you’re disturbing them. And the fae? They takeyou. Turn your soul into a candle to light their halls forever. But sure, go ahead, build your fancy hotel. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when your workers start hearing thebean sídhe. I’m going to head on now.”
I snort. Sacred ground. The words sit wrong in my mouth, too clean for something so messy. Humans toss them around like zoning designations. Sacred Ground. Industrial District. Residential Subdivision. They forget the layers beneath. The land remembers, even when they don’t. They lay foundations with rebar and hubris, but if the ground is sacred, it doesn’t forget. And it sure as hell doesn’t forgive.
This isn’t about superstition or stones polished smooth by time. It’s about a pact as old as the first crossing between our worlds. Humans took ourdraíocht. Magic. They bled us for ambition. And we let them. Until it was too much.
