Bran was in his body, but not. He lifted his hands, looking down at them and seeing another man’s. He couldn’t quite control this body either, almost as though he was nothing more than a passenger in this moment.

He stared into a mirror before him. Another man looked back, one who took control of the body and shook himself as though Bran’s consciousness was nothing more than a flicker of magic.

Long dark hair reached his waist, no feathers to bisect it. He wore ancient clothing that somehow seemed familiar. Black fabric, straps of leather across his chest, and tight-fitting leggings with no adornment at all. No embroidery, nothing but a quiet, calm appearance that didn’t seem to fit the legend of the Raven King as he knew it.

The first Raven King smoothed a hand down his chest, stepped away from the mirror, and made his way through the castle of Underhill.

It was new, every stone still perfectly in place, no holes in the walls, no cobwebs decorating the corners. It shone with a dark power that threaded throughout the walls. Magic that Bran recognized.

A creature stepped forward, human in appearance and cloaked in black shadows. “Your Highness, are you ready?”

“It’s my wedding day,” he replied. A grin split his face, and elation spread from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. “I’ve been ready for this my entire life.”

The sluagh smiled in response. “The maiden has said the same. She’s waiting for you in the great hall. I apologize again, master. I wish we could have done this with all the faeries in attendance.”

“I don’t care how many people see us marry. I don’t care they disapprove.” Again, he smoothed a hand down his chest. “They will agree that we are married once there is nothing they can do about it. My parents might never understand, even though it’s not for them to understand. I love her. Nothing will ever change that.”

“Very good, Highness. If you’ll follow me?”

Bran stayed with the Raven King as they passed through hallways he’d walked many times. Seeing them new nearly made him lose his mind. This was what the castle had once looked like? This opulence was something he never would have guessed.

Even the sun was shining through the windows. Bran had never clearly seen the sun while in Underhill. It was always hidden by a haze of clouds, and he thought it impossible to show its face. What had changed? How had something like this happened to the kingdom he loved so much?

The Raven King stepped through a doorway, and they arrived in the great hall. Murals painted the room from floor to ceiling, depicting every story the Tuatha de Danann remembered. Stories from Bran’s childhood, perhaps new at this point, and stories he’d never heard before. The paintings had long since faded in the castle he knew. Now, he wanted to have an artist paint them again.

A woman stood in the center of the room. Both Bran and the Raven King lost their breath at the sight of her.

She wore a dress made of gossamer and alabaster fabric. Pearlescent and shimmering with magic, it poured down her body like the mist of a waterfall. Her dark, obsidian hair flowed down her back, unbound and smooth as the night sky. Tiny diamonds were woven through the strands and winked at every movement.

She slowly turned, hands clasped at her waist, and Bran nearly fell to his knees for love of her.

Aisling. She looked exactly like Aisling.

“My love,” she said, her voice chiming like bells. She held out her hands for the Raven King to take, and both Bran and the other raced to her side with love burning in their chests.

The Raven King drew her close and ran a hand down the side of her face. “I love you,” he whispered, eyes drinking in the sight of her. “I love you more than I could possibly say.”

“And I you. I cannot wait to bind myself to you for all eternity. As it should be and forever will be.”

He pressed his lips to hers and breathed in the scent of wild moors and honeysuckle. “No one is here to stop us now.”

A sense of foreboding filled the great hall, and Bran knew this was the instant when everything changed. When this world disappeared and his began.

The front doors to the main hall burst open. When they slammed against the walls, it rained down plaster and pieces of mural. An eye drifted on a single piece of parchment, flipping to stare at the Raven King before falling to the floor.

He spun and put the woman who looked like Aisling behind him with a snarl.

The mirror image of the dark woman stood in the doorway. She wore a dress made of shadows, hair as white as snow. Like an inky cloud, her dress shifted on its own as she strode forward.

Her face was a portrait of beauty. Simple and clean lines made a heart-shaped face perfect except for a single scar over her left eyebrow. Plump lips were stained crimson and beautiful blue eyes flashed with anger.

“How dare you?” the woman shouted, her voice shaking with anger and a power that cracked the floor in front of her. “How dare you!”

The Raven King’s hands clenched onto the woman behind him. “Carman. What are you doing here?”

“I should ask the same of you,” the witch said with a laugh. “Or did you forget today was our wedding?”

“I did not forget.”

“And yet you are here.” Carman pointed just to his left. “With her.”

“You know I never wanted to marry you. We’ve spoken of this, and we both agreed the marriage would only be in appearance alone.”

“That did not mean you could disgrace me. That you could leave me at the altar and instead be here marrying another woman.” Her voice vibrated, and Bran could almost hear her heart shattering. “I love you. And you insist on choosing another over me. Every time.”

“I am sorry, Carman, but I will not marry a woman whom I do not love.”

“You could have loved me,” she said with a whimper. “If you tried hard enough, you could have loved me.”

“I couldn’t. Not when my heart belongs to another.”

Bran realized the Raven King did not think for one instant that Carman would ever attack him. He didn’t think she would kill the woman behind him either, and perhaps he was right, but Bran never would have taken such a chance.

The woman who looked like Aisling stepped out from behind the Raven King and stretched out her hand. “Sister, I’m sorry.”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Carman said, her voice deep and thick. “I don’t want to hear any more of your betrayal.”

“I never meant to hurt you! I don’t know how to stop loving him, though. Surely, you can understand that.”

“I cannot!” The cry echoed in the room, and Carman stumbled, fell to a knee, and pressed her hand onto the floor. “I cannot forgive the man I love and my sister. You left me alone! The only two people I have ever loved in my life, and you—you betrayed me.”

His vision skewed, and he suddenly couldn’t make out whether or not Carman was Elva and the other woman was Aisling. They melded together, two timelines of different people who had ended up in different places but whose story was the same.

The woman who looked like Aisling stepped forward, hesitating to go to her sister and leave the Raven King’s side. “You can forgive us, Carman. You can forgive all of this.”

“I cannot. I cannot stop what I have started, and I don’t know if I want to.”

The Raven King lunged forward and grabbed onto the woman he loved, pulling her against his side and away from her sister. “What have you done?”

Carman looked up. Tears streaked her cheeks, leaving tracks of glistening darkness as she leaked out shadows. “How do you live with yourself after this? Perhaps you can answer, Raven King, after all the lives you have taken. How do you forgive yourself for doing something so awful that the world will forever be changed?”

“What have you done?”

“Perhaps you simply forgot. Somehow you managed to wash away the guilt of all the ruin you have wrought.”

“Carman!”

The witch shook her head, and the floor cracked beneath her feet. The walls crumbled under an attack of magic that cleaved through the stone like a giant’s sword. Three men stepped through the rubble, two lifting their mother from the ground.

Her three sons, Dain, Dother, and Dub propped her up even as she seemed to shatter from within.

The Raven King held out his hand, summoning the sluagh, but it was far too late. Carman hurled a curse through the air that caught her sister between her breasts.

The woman stumbled, ripped from his arms by the sheer force of Carman’s magic, and then fell onto her knees. Blood streaked her skin. It wasn’t just a curse, it was a death wish.

“No.” The word ripped form his mouth, and he reached for the woman he loved.

Magic vibrated the air around her with heat, and her hair turned white as snow. “My love,” she whispered.

Their hands nearly touched, then she disappeared.

The scream that ripped from his lungs tasted like blood and black magic. The power inside him roared to the forefront but not by his own doing. Instead, it felt as though it were trying to consume him.

His dark gaze found Carman even as she set her sons loose to destroy Underhill forever. The sad smile on her face felt wrong, even through the centuries.

“I will tear your kingdom apart until my fingers bleed,” she said. “I will ruin your world, the Otherworld, and the human realm until you say you love me.”

“That’s not how you win someone’s love, Carman.”

“Is it not?” Another tear slid down her cheek. “I’ve seen my future. I’ve seen how they will spill my blood on these steps. I’ve already cursed you, don’t you see? You cannot be free of me because I am now part of you, of this land, and never again will Underhill prosper until you love me.”

Pain rippled through his body, tearing flesh and bone. His head jerked back, and he let loose a scream of primal rage. Feathers unfurled down his arms, bones cracked and realigned, then he wasn’t himself anymore. Not even the slightest.

Wings flapping, he tried to right himself, but she caught him quickly in her hands. Claws dug into his sides as Carman forced him to look into her eyes.

“You will never find her again,” she said. “And if you do, I will destroy her. Your magic will be passed through generations unrelated by blood and you never have true lineage. I will destroy everything you are, everything you would be, until you love me.”

Both the Raven King and Bran felt nothing but dread.