Neacel nodded slowly. He looked like he was chewing over something. ‘It was a long shot, anyway. We probably wouldn’t be a good match.’
‘You never know,’ Fionn said sourly. ‘There have been stranger couplings.’
What could possibly be stranger than a Minchman and a human, after all?
Neacel glanced back the way they’d come. ‘You are giving up on him so easily, Your Highness?’
‘I’m notgiving up,’ Fionn retorted, hackles raised. ‘I never give up.’
‘You called him a lost cause.’ They reached the edge of town where all the fluorescent lights fell away. In the dark, Neacelfinally looked at him and Fionn found something brazen in his moonlit expression. ‘Your Highness, may I say something bold?’
‘I get the feeling I won’t be able to stop you.’
A faint smile tugged at Neacel’s mouth. ‘When I met you, the water was foul with your misery. People are afraid to approach you because of it. Unhappiness follows you everywhere like a cloud of dark ink. Even on land you look weighted down by the measure of anguish on your shoulders.’ Neacel tilted his head. ‘And yet, when you saw your soul mate for the first time, I sensed that dark cloud lifted. Perhaps only for a moment. But for that moment, it seemed you might have traded misery for hope.’
Neacel said all this lightly, dropping bombs of observation without thought for the craters left on impact.
Fionn was too startled to think of an answer. Was his suffering really so obvious to everyone around him? If anything that made it worse; that all his kin knew his despair and did nothing to lift it. He imagined the whole kingdom sharing pitied glances at him while he studied, while he fought, while he patrolled. While trying to do the best he could for all of them.
There was a rock in his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
What’s worse, Neacel was right. Within the whirlwind of his bond igniting, Fionn had entertained the thought that he might not have to undertake his duty after all. Perhaps if he could have brought Rory to the palace, shown his father that he was already bonded…
Fionn’s heart sank down to his toes. He already knew how the Blue King would react. There would surely be cold disappointment, as though Fionn had gone out of his way to sully relations with the Redfolk of his own accord. He would order the bond to be broken, and Fionn would marry his betrothed no matter the cost.
No matter the cost to his own son.
‘It seems to me you’ve been granted a miracle,’ Neacel went on, breaking Fionn from his downward spiral. ‘The rest of us must search for our life companions. It is a careful choice, and the decision weighs heavily. Some of us may never find a suitable mate to bond with at all.’
‘But at least it is a choice for you. It seems even with a miracle I am not granted a choice in my partner,’ Fionn said wretchedly.
‘Ah, but even if I find someone I wish to bond with, Your Highness, the king might still refuse to grant it—’
‘Don’t be absurd.’ Fionn scoffed at such a weak argument. ‘The king has never refused any request for a soul bonding ceremony. It would be sacrilege.’
‘Exactly!’
Neacel did the unthinkable and cut across Fionn’s path, stopping him to force eye contact. Neacel’s face shone with a mixture of earnest belief and a surprising glint of guile. ‘Does the king not personally ignite the soul bond of every mated Minchman?’
Neacel held out his left palm, the place where a tattoo recording a bond would be made. ‘One day I hope to bring a partner of my own before him. How could the king, of all of us, deny the sanctity of afatedbond? When it is he who guards the very magic our soul bonds are made from? It would be like denying everything he stands for.’
Fionn appraised Neacel anew. The young Minchman clearly had the ability to think in loops, whereas Fionn considered his own reasoning to be rather more straight forward. Fionn was accustomed to tackling problems head-on, whereas perhaps Neacel, lacking brawn or noble authority, had become adept at sidling around their edges.
‘What if that is not enough?’ Fionn asked. ‘It is all very well expecting my father to support a fated bond, but if it ruins my betrothal and breaks our alliance with the Redfolk…’
‘How could it?’ Neacel spoke innocently enough, but artful logic lurked underneath. ‘Did you not say your betrothal would have been a soul bond rooted in magic? A curse, I think you called it, actually. Imagine, if both the Red King and Blue King rejected a soul bond chosen by the fates themselves—a powerbeyondfae magic. In doing so they would be rejecting the very concept that underpins your betrothal. It would be like calling a soul bond worthless, and the basis for their alliance would crumble anyway.’
These heavy words settled slowly in Fionn’s brain. Neacel was right. Most Minchmen regarded a soul bond as the epitome of inner beauty, the closest a person could come to touching holiness. If the king ever refused to grant a requested soul bond, there would surely be uproar. If the king opposed afatedsoul bond, already ignited without his help, it might just rock the entire palace foundations. It would be like daring the Deep Gods to rise from their slumber.
‘And you farm oysters?’ Fionn said faintly.
‘My fathers do. I am a forager, myself.’
Fionn shook his spinning head. ‘You clearly have a better mind for politics than I.’
He felt something opening in his chest again. The rock becoming lighter. The tiniest trickle of hope allowed back in. Perhaps something of Nechtan and Bridei’s story could lay in wait for him, yet.
Behind it, the foreign current of Rory’s presence also washed through him. Fionn shivered, instinctively pulling away from the waves of disgust and confusion that seemed to be thrashing against that far shore.
