Penny looked past me to Duncan. He said nothing, but his arm around me went very still, the way it did when he was listening to something I could not hear.
"No," Penny agreed. "He was not born hollow, Julie. He was born half Fomorian. His father was Elatha, a king of the old enemies of our people, and the Tuatha never fully trusted that blood. But he was beautiful. Not pretty, not handsome. Beautiful in a way that stopped conversations and made grown warriors forget what they had walked into a room to say. They took him in as a pledge of peace, and when they needed a king, they chose him. Not for his wisdom. His face made the rest of them agree."
I thought of what Duncan had told me in the kitchen weeks ago. Folk leaned toward him, as if he had turned up a lamp.
