Chapter XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Aisling paced back and forth in her chambers. Gilrel, on the other hand, busied herself assembling both her own and Aisling’s belongings for the journey. She worked alongside a red fox: Liam, he’d said his name was. Lir’s first squire who’d be accompanying them on the trip. None of the knights had specified how long they’d be gone but it was evident enough that it wouldn’t be for a handful of days. No, they’d implied weeks, perhaps even months depending on how responsive the Unseelie were.
Aisling stripped off her gown in the bathing chambers and donned the leathers she’d worn earlier that day. Already she found herself accustomed to their movement and fit. But none of that could assuage the fear bubbling in her stomach, the fury that the Sidhe would use their own queen as bait, the excitement of embarking on such a perilous quest. The latter threatening to implode the mortal queen should she halt her pacing, the beat of her fingers on her thigh or the gnawing of her bottom lip.
The door creaked open, the scent of fresh pine sweeping into the room. Aisling startled at the sound, clutching her chest as she reached for Iarbonel’s dagger.
Lir stood at the door, his hands in his pockets, his hair more ruffled than it’d been before.
Although the mortal queen didn’t think it possible, her heart thrashed more heavily against her chest. Blood rushed to her ears.
Lir entered leisurely, as though afraid Aisling might startle should he move too quickly.
“Liam, Gilrel.” He addressed his squire and her lady’s maid, his voice like mulled wine. “Will you give us a moment?”
Liam bowed and Gilrel curtsied, flashing one last glance at Aisling before she brushed past Lir and into the corridors beyond.
It didn’t take long for the fae king to meet Aisling’s gaze, dragging his feline eyes across the floors swept with leaves, the bed sheathed in gossamer, and the terrace doors strangled by vines, till they landed on the mortal queen. Against her own volition, Aisling shivered.
“You’re already dressed,” he spoke first, pacing nearer. “Several of my knights will be disappointed to know they’ve already lost their bets; they believed you’d be scaling the side of the mountain in escape by now.”
“How often they forget my duty to my own kingdom.” Aisling opened her terrace doors. “ Despite your savagery, this is my fate, my role to play for my kind.”
And with each of Lir’s steps forward, Aisling resisted the urge to step away.
“If I’m to die in this plot of yours, then I imagine you’ll be swiftly repaid by my father. A variable you aren’t unaware of.”
Cruelly, Lir grinned, sliding his fangs along his bottom lip.
“Or,” Lir purred, the moonlight washing his fine features as he cornered Aisling onto the terrace, “do you secretly enjoy this?”
The small of Aisling’s back bumped against the cool edge of the railing. A railing wrapped in garlands of honeysuckle and baby’s breath. A single barrier preventing Aisling from plunging into the surrounding canopies, the oceans of clouds, and the twinkling fae city that lay beneath.
“Enjoy what exactly? Your barbarism? Your foods that would drive my mortal self mad upon consumption? Your people’s palpable disdain for me? Or perhaps the fact you so willingly risk my life as though mortal breath means nothing to you? Even your queen’s?” But as soon as Aisling said it, she wished she hadn’t. Your queen. She was no such thing and the flash of mischief that graced his eyes the moment she spoke the word aloud was enough to make Aisling rue it all the more.
“You believe a queen’s breath more valuable than a commoner’s?” He taunted, caging Aisling on either side of his arms, gripping the railing. He tilted his head down to meet her gaze, forcing her to lift her own lest she appear afraid, withering before the fae lord her body could no longer deny she feared. A terror Lir likely smelled for it attracted him closer, enjoying how her body tensed when in the presence of his own. And the longer Aisling resisted, the greater the game to him.
“In regards to you, it’s not the queenship that would make such a breath more valuable. Only that it so happens that the queen, bound to you by political union, breathed it.”
“That would make you more important to me,” he said. “So much so, that I wouldn’t risk your mortal life.”
“Yet you offer me to the Unseelie?”
“Not an offer,” he said, “more like parading you before the Unseelie.”
Aisling’s temper flared but she wouldn’t take the bait. Not if that’s what he wanted.
“And that’s so much better?”
“You tell me: would you prefer to be offered to the Unseelie so they may do with you as they like, or merely brandished till they crawl from their holes and I can protect you?”
The very mention of such aberrations skulking from their cavernous depths was enough to make Aisling’s skin crawl, much less dangled before them like a prize pig. But despite herself, Aisling was eager to lay eyes on the Unseelie. To witness them in all their monstrous glory. To behold what demons dwelled in the darkest corners of the wild. To unearth the horrible mysteries she’d shamefully and so secretly obsessed over as a child.
“Neither,” Aisling replied and Lir tilted his head curiously.
“Another lie.”
The fae king lazily eyed her undone hair––tresses that gushed down her chest in unruly, raven torrents––before studying her eyes. Eyes as violet as Nemed’s and all the other mortal sovereigns in her ancestry. What loathing brewed within him each time he met her eyes? He must’ve seen her father, the blood spilt between himself and this mortal adversary. The blades they raised in loathing for the other. The fires that lit the North, stoked by Lir’s very forests. Within the fae king lived untended gardens of hatred for her father, devouring all that was near and fostered by centuries of rivalry. Not only for Nemed but for all the mortal sovereigns before him, all tied to Aisling by blood of iron.
“As much as my people may pray for it, I won’t let you be harmed.” Lir released Aisling from his gaze, eyes gilded by the glowing city down below. “Despite my own loathing of your kind, not only are we ensorcelled to one another, but I also made a vow the night of our union. Perhaps mortals don’t treat such vows as sacredly as do the Sidhe, but political treatise or not, I made the decision to speak those promises and I don’t intend to break them.”
Lir clenched his jaw, an image of a scarred knight, kissed by iron blades and jaded by grief’s arrow.
“By the Forge, I vow to you the first cut of my heart, the first taste of my blood, and the last words from my lips,” Lir said, repeating the words they’d both sworn that night. A sacrifice they’d both made for the sake of their people. An obligation that weighed heavily on the fae king, the signs of ache written across his burdened shoulders, as tangible as when Aisling felt them herself. Yet Lir’s responsibility to the Aos Sí far outweighed Aisling’s own. The mortal queen was a sacrificial lamb. Lir, the axis on which the Aos Sí revolved.
Aisling swallowed, unsure how long she allowed herself to drown in his eyes, dishonorably, guiltily admiring the bestial, primeval king all the mortal isles feared.
“No harm will befall you,” he repeated, stepping back from Aisling and slipping his hands into his pockets once more.
Aisling’s brows pinched. Lir still wasn’t aware of what Aisling knew: the night of their union hadn’t been the only time he’d sworn those vows. There’d been a time in his life when he’d spoken those verses to another, his first caera . One he hadn’t been forced into speaking those words to for the sake of his kind. Someone he’d attempted to raise a child with. Someone he’d lost and with it, a part of himself. A few weeks ago, Aisling would’ve thought the fair folk incapable of love or human emotion. But the pain in Lir’s eyes was sharp. A shard Aisling could prick herself on should she dwell on it further.
Aisling didn’t know how long they stood like that. In silence.
“My father,” Aisling began abruptly. “I’m expecting a letter from him. If I do not reply, I fear for my race should negotiations with the Unseelie not fare well.”
Lir considered her for a moment, eyes darkening. For each time Nemed was mentioned, a shadow seeped beneath his skin.
“I’ll ensure any letter addressed to you will find you even as we travel,” he said, turning his back to her.
“That’s possible?”
“Our ravens can find a recipient anywhere in the known world. In fact, your father should be in possession of our raven until he responds to your initial correspondence.” He started towards her bedroom door. So silently did he move that Aisling would’ve believed him already gone if she weren’t counting his every step
“And what of it being inspected?” Aisling asked, hoping Filverel wouldn’t be joining their mission. The very thought brought bile to her throat.
“If your father does indeed respond, we’ll prune that flower when it blooms.” Lir reached for the crystal knob, turning once and opening the door. The age-old entrance groaned, freeing a pillar of floral light from the corridor beyond.
He turned one last time, meeting Aisling’s gaze. His hair curled around his pointed ears, the occasional braid loosely tied and sweeping his cheekbones.
“You may not realize it now, but you can trust me, Aisling.”
The mortal queen tilted her head, doing her best to interpret his expression. But, once again, it was unreadable. Schooled into that forest of ice he’d mastered over lifetimes.
At last, she nodded, ignoring the knotting of her stomach the sound of her name on his lips inspired. Something she believed she’d never grow accustomed to. On his tongue, her name didn’t belong to her. It sounded wilder, more feral than on her own.
“ They will spin lies as easily as they spin their thread .”
The mortal queen could and likely never would trust the fae king. Lir despised her too greatly and she him for any loyalty to bloom between them. He’d protect her on this trip, but not because of any vow he’d now pledged twice. Once to her and once to another.
“ Never let your guard down around him, Aisling. Never give him an opportunity to choose between you and what he covets. ”
Lir would protect Aisling to prevent further war with mankind. War, Lir had already gone to great lengths to avoid. Nemed had been right, Aisling reassured herself. A vow would appear sanctimonious enough until there was something that stood between Aisling’s life and what the fae king desired— needed. For example, negotiating with the Unseelie. All she could do was surrender to the fact that she was now here, amongst the Aos Sí and subject to her husband’s will. For this was her purpose. Clann Neimedh would want her to die if it meant protecting the union they’d sacrificed her for. And for a moment, a blame-worthy moment, Aisling allowed herself to consider that perhaps all this—this rationale to willingly join Lir on his quest—was more than an obligation. Perhaps all those years locked within Tilren’s walls had driven Aisling mad, for now she craved this, this adventure. To place a face to all the horrors she’d lay awake imagining. To encounter magic in all its loathsome form.
And as suddenly as the fae king had entered, he vanished out her chamber doors, leaving behind the smell of the earth after a storm. A wild perfume was abandoned in his wake. A fragrance that had long called Aisling past the walls of Tilren, across the verdant fields, and into the forbidden forests. A scent that drove her mad long into the nights when she grew restless of years cooped inside an iron keep. Long before she ever met the fae lord. And yet, perhaps her father had been right. Perhaps the fair folk did lure innocent mortal maidens into the wilds. Perhaps Aisling was still drunk on the fae king’s woodland stupor, foolishly dancing into his realm of wicked wonder.