The skulls stretched around the mound, disappearing only when the structure curved. There might have been hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of skulls, each so unique that they could only have come from a living person.
I reeled backward, only for Aengus to place a large hand between my shoulders, keeping me steady. “Your Majesty?” he asked. “Are you alright?”
“Whose bones are these?” I swept my gaze along the wall.
“Our dead,” he replied. “Each member of the Dagda’s court who dies becomes one with the palace wall before their souls depart to the Otherworld.”
I stared into his face. His turquoise eyes shone with sincerity, even though what he described turned my blood to sludge.
“Were they killed?” I asked.
He tilted his head to the side and raised his golden brows. “My father occupied these lands in the times of the gods, before the existence of the Courts, when humans were bestial creatures incapable of speech. People die, Your Majesty. This is our way of honoring those we hold dear.”
I dropped my chin to my chest, unable to meet his gaze. Despite having unlocked my innate faerie magic, despite knowing I could never return to Calafort or receive a warm welcome from Father Donal or Eirnin the blacksmith, I was still thinking like the old Neara.
“We honor our dead differently in the human realm,” I murmured.
His gaze flicked to my pointed ears. “Rosalind implied you lived there in exile until your maturity.”
I nodded. There was so much more to the story, but now wasn’t the time to share our pasts. “Excuse my judgement,” I murmured. “It’s going to take some time to become accustomed to this new world.”
A few of the skulls receded into the mound, creating a narrow doorway that led to a hall lined with slabs of stone. The strains of fiddles drifted out from its depths, giving me the impression that whoever lived here loved to dance.
Aengus grinned, revealing a mouthful of perfect, white teeth. “Shall we go inside?”
Laughter and chatter and the clinking of goblets echoed through the stone hallway, the volume so loud that my heart quickened. Light streaming in through the gaps in the bone provided illumination, and I glanced at Aengus, who rubbed his hands together and grinned.
He bowed low and swept his arm toward an arch at the end of the hallway. “This way, Your Majesty.”
Despite feeling like I’d stepped into a tomb, my heart warmed at the joy in his features. After a thousand years of torture in the mist, Aengus was finally home.
He offered me his arm, and we continued into a vast dining hall of two long tables arranged alongside a roasting spit. Curly, blond-haired men and women feasted on roasted meats and drank from horned goblets, served by daoine maithe, human-looking faeries with curled antennae protruding from their hairlines.
“Are these your siblings?” I asked Aengus.
He pointed at the blonds sitting at the long tables. “Those are my kin.” His arm swept across the room, and he raised his head, indicating that he was gesturing toward the far end of the room that I couldn’t see through the crowd of people dancing to the music of the fiddlers. “Those men and women at the back are my father’s lovers.”
As Aengus guided me through the vast space, through the clomp and stomp and chatter of the revelers, I took in my surroundings. The walls were made not of bones, but of stone bricks supported by wooden columns that stretched into a ceiling of thick, wooden beams connected by thinner joists. Round, metal chandeliers hung down from the wood, each holding torches that flickered with orange and yellow flames.
Wide archways ran along the length of the dining hall, through which servants dressed in homespun smocks carried platters and jugs containing foamy liquid. The heat of the burning spit in the room warmed my skin, and the scent of roasted boar made my mouth water.
“Is this a celebration?” I asked Aengus.
He raised a massive shoulder. “The Dagda feasts during the day and takes lovers at night.”
As we moved through the throng of dancing musicians and merrymaking guests, I caught glimpses of a back wall covered in a rich tapestry depicting a harvest of fruit and vegetables. Blonde-haired females dressed in silks and linens and lace ate demurely around a table positioned at the width of the wall, but there was still no sign of the Dagda.
“You said your grandfather was a Fomorian,” I said, realizing that now was probably too late to ask. “Is the Dagda—”
“The Dagda is older and more powerful than those worthless beasts,” boomed a deep voice from behind.
A jolt of shock had me spinning around and meeting the grinning face of a seven-foot-tall male. There was no need to look any further for Aengus’ father. This could only be the Dagda.
His hair was an orange so deep it appeared amber, with pumpkin-colored highlights that curled around a handsome face of golden eyes, thick brows, and high cheekbones. Threads of gold twined within a beard split into two thick braids that hung down from his bare, muscled chest to his tight abdomen.
I sucked in a deep breath, taking in his crown of deep green leaves, which were decorated with the red and golden apples from his orchard.
The Dagda was even more handsome than his son, with defined arms decorated with bands of gold etched in ancient runes. My gaze dropped to the wooden staff he carried in his right hand, and I glanced at his left for signs of a harp but found it empty.
Aengus stepped forward. “Father.”
Ignoring Aengus, the Dagda leaned down and fixed me with a penetrating gaze. Up close, his eyes weren’t gold but a bright hazel with starbursts that reflected the firelight.
“Daughter of Dana.” His large fingers caressed my carrot-orange hair, and his face broke out into a smile of dazzling, white teeth. “What brings you to my realm?”
My throat dried, and I swallowed hard. “I need—”
He placed a finger over my lips. “I will not
