Father led me down a small path into the woods. The glow around me had faded somewhat, but I feared any trace would allow Nox or his hounds to find me. My father could not run or move as fast as I could, but he knew secrets about the forest and ways to stay hidden that he’d learned from his time with Nox.

“What of the hounds?”

“They’re coming fast,” he said. “I feel them behind us and in front of us. But they are no match for you, Deira D’Anu. They exist on dark power and death. You possess the Light. They cannot defeat that.”

And he was right.

Nothing with dark intent was able to withstand the Light within me.

In time, we made it to the edge of Cathair Crofin.

It was there that I said goodbye to my father. A proper goodbye this time. Words of love. Tears shed. And a warning given. Nox would seek revenge.

Perhaps he’d already begun.

But I planned to seek him out. For I needed to gain entrance into the Place of Souls, to retrieve Balen’s half-soul and wake him from eternal sleep. And I already knew how to make that happen. I’d made a vow to myself that the champion would not die because of me, and I intended to keep that promise.

I left my father and didn’t stop until I crested the hill where the tall grasses bent in the wind, where Balen and I had first looked upon the dark forest.

As I stood on the hill in Éire, power surged through me, the Light of the Lia Fail existing in me as full and as bright as the shining sun.

I’d done what Balen had set out to do. What I, in the end, chose to do. I found the Light. And I’d save my world.

And perhaps, one day, I’d learn to use my power to summon that pesky raindrop I’d always wanted.

Or, I thought smiling, a deluge...