Chapter XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Another week passed and still Nemed hadn’t replied to Aisling’s letter. So, she waited each morning for the raven to return, envelope in beak, but with each new day, Galad was forced to awkwardly disappoint Aisling all over again.
More than enough time had already passed for Nemed to have both received and replied to her correspondence. In fact, it was Gilrel who informed Aisling that fae ravens travelled swiftly, capable of delivering a letter as far as the southern continent and return with a reply in no more than a handful of days. Tilren was a fraction of that distance and yet, Aisling felt as though it were on the other side of the Earth. A quiet, soundless corner of the Earth.
Aisling woke for the second time that night, swathed in furs, staring at her chamber’s coffered ceiling through the canopy above her bed. Lacey drapes weaving through windy wisterias, growing larger each day as if fed by her nightmares.
Idly, her thumb stroked the handle of an ivory dinner knife. A replacement for Iarbonel’s dagger, a dagger perhaps still lodged in the Cú Scáth’s corpse rotting somewhere in the near forest.
No longer did she weep for her clann. Rather most nights, she drifted in and out of consciousness, desperately clawing at the terrors that greeted her the moment she closed her eyes. Nightmares that were somehow worse than the conversations she rehearsed in her mind while awake: the trow hobbling towards her; Lir’s grin as the creature’s head rolled away and his vines relaxed; the Cú Scáth sinking its teeth in her flesh.
“ He who wears the blood of the forest on his hands .”
“ Find the truth for yourself before you stake your life and your loyalties on unchallenged lies .”
“ The Aos Sí will try to deceive you. They will spin lies as easily as they spin their thread .”
Aisling wrenched her eyes shut, pressing the heels of her hands into her lids. Even the distant brush of trees in the midnight gale haunted her. Willows and elms knew just how many of their brothers and sisters her father had burned. Nemed who’d often summoned Tilrish festivals to smell the smoke, ash, and conquest clouding their northern skies in streaks of black and grey.
If only Nemed would respond. He could clarify all of this. Make sense of everything he’d gotten wrong and defend all that still stood unproven. He could reassure Aisling. So why, Aisling wondered repeatedly, had Nemed not replied?
Each day it became more and more difficult to remember their voices. Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind. Dagfin. Everything they’d told her in the weeks before her wedding, muffled by time. A reality that made her ache with guilt, for the memories of her home and family were who she was, what made her who she was. And if she no longer had those, could no longer remember, what would become of her in this new, nonsensical world of the Aos Sí? A land of dangerous dances, forbidden wines, lethal tournaments, and knowing trees?
“ Do not forget the world that made you. They will try to deceive you. They will spin lies as easily as they spin their thread. No matter what or how much they take from you, do not let them take who you are. Where you come from .”
The chamber door creaked open. Followed by the unfurling ribbon of yellow, floral light, spilling into the room. Aisling’s mind yelled internally, fighting for the mortal queen to sit upright and ready herself. But Aisling’s body refused, weighed down and anchored by fatigue.
A shadow entered her chamber. They were silent, shutting the door behind them before sweeping towards the center of the room. It was obviously a male, impossibly tall, lean, strong, stripping his armor and tossing it across an ottoman. Aisling watched him through the transparent curtains as she feigned sleep. Herself clouded with exhaustion, wading on the brim of consciousness.
Lir entered the room the same way he did in her nightmares, silently, unexpectedly, in the dead of night. She was most likely still dreaming, unaware that she lay trapped in her subconscious. Although in her dreams, the fae king always climbed over the terrace and skulked towards her bed, wielding the same eyes as the night he’d killed the Cú Scáth. The same feral expression. All beast and bloodthirst. He didn’t enter through the door as he did now. He didn’t slowly strip off his clothes till nothing remained, save for his trousers. He didn’t disappear in the bathing chambers, the sound of running water filling Aisling’s ears. He didn’t pad across the room and hesitate before the bed, realizing Aisling now lay in his furs as well—as though he had forgotten–– didn’t watch her for what felt like an eternity as he did now. For he’d been gone for a week, perhaps more—time was different here—doing whatever it was he did in the forest with his knights. And before then, Lir and Aisling had scarcely shared a bed save for their wedding night.
Aisling’s eyes fluttered closed, somewhere between feigning and truly being asleep. Nevertheless, dream or not, Aisling heard the sweep of the curtains as Lir peeled apart the cobwebs. The weight of him tilting the edge of the bed. She felt him watch her, his eyes caressing the contours of her face. Drifting down her arms and hands. A regard as potent as physical touch itself. Aisling didn’t know for how long he stood there or for how long he watched her. Only that once her eyes fluttered open once more, fighting sleep, some dream-like poison, slumber’s tonic, he’d turned away. Setting a knife down on her bedside table.
Iarbonel’s dagger.
A knife she’d lost in her tussle with the Cú Scáth. A knife she believed she’d never see again. One he’d also brought a scabbard for, placing it beside the weapon.
The fae king faced the open terrace. His features lit with the moon’s soft glow, rendering his damp skin radiant. His hair was a tumble of black, curling around his ears and pushed away from his forehead. Loose braids retied.
There were new scars now. A trail along his ribcage and three faint lines, like claw marks, dragging between his shoulder blades. Blades that now harbored wings. Only the starlight rendered them visible.
If this was a dream, she could do anything she liked, including touching his wings without fear of the consequences. She needn’t be ashamed of wanting anything while in a dream. Even if what she wanted was to touch a member of the fair folk. To see what those wings felt like.
“ He is the worst of them: ruthless, merciless, no more than a beast driven by hunger, need, and power. But, unlike the wolf, he is insatiable .” Nemed’s voice drilled into her chest, opening a bottomless cavern.
While in shadow, Lir was the macabre king of barbarians her father had always described. And while in light, he was the stag his people knew. So, for the first time, Aisling understood why the Aos Sí dubbed Lir the Damh Bán : he was the embodiment of the still, silent, and powerful fae stags in this particular dream. A dream painted by the fair folk’s gaze. And when she woke, he’d once again bare his fangs, eager for blood.
Beneath his breath, he hummed a haunting tune. One with which Aisling was familiar, Cathan’s song and the legend of Ina. The lullaby threatened to lull Aisling to sleep once again but she craved more. Desired her ears to drink and drink till the sun itself deigned to rise and the world remained a prisoner of the moon. The vibration of his voice, the way the natural world leaned closer, delighted by his song. The wisterias swaying back and forth. The ivy braiding themselves into Aisling’s hair.
So, Aisling lay there still, eventually descending once more into deepest slumber. Stolen away, swept into another distant, dark world of dreams and nightmares. Whisked away to another place, another time. But Aisling found herself resisting those new machinations. Reaching rather for that one nightmare of the fae king and his ivory wings. Just out of reach.