Chapter XXI
CHAPTER XXI
By the time the fae knights had mounted their stags and continued their travels, the dawn had yet to arrive. Nevertheless, their fae procession would continue to travel through the night, eager to burn these dark hours before they found another place to rest, deep within the forest. And find it they did, far in the highlands of the North, where the trees grew tall and thin and the snow melted off the mountains in great, frothing rapids.
“Are they all dead?” Aisling asked the fae king riding behind her. The image of his wide eyes, looking at Aisling from across the rocky glade, flashed repeatedly in her mind, crimson speckling his otherworldly face as he rushed towards her, a circle of dead surrounding him. For although each of the fair folk had been outnumbered during battle, none had faced the brunt as greatly as had Lir. Aisling couldn’t count the bodies that lay tangled at his feet.
The fae king hadn’t bothered to wipe his weapons, blades dripping as he inspected the mortal queen for injury. His sage eyes darted between herself and the fomori blackened by the violet fire.
“No, some, those who didn’t attack, are alive.”
“And what of them now? ”
“They will continue as they always have over the past millennia,” Lir said, tugging Saoirse’s reins so she turned on a steep bend. “But if one breaks Sidhe law, they’ll meet similar ends as their brethren did tonight.”
There was a part of Aisling that found herself hoping the fae king cared for mortal well-being. An irrational part of her. But Aisling knew his enforcement of Sidhe law was exclusively for the sake of his own kind; in order to prevent further conflict with Nemed and the rest of the mortal sovereigns, the Unseelie needed to comply with the laws of the Sidhe.
“Many Unseelie establish dominance and leadership through brute force. The strongest among them, he or she who fights for ascendancy and wins, is to be crowned the rightful sovereign of their group,” Lir explained, his voice a whisper.
“So, the fomorians, they view you as their leader once more?” Because Lir had killed Balor effortlessly. With the flick of his wrist and an iron dagger.
“For now, I’ve gained their obedience. Demonstrated dominance.”
“That’s barbaric,” Aisling said.
“It’s their order. How they establish social hierarchy, an understanding that the mortals enjoy pretending they’re above but partake in all the same. In their own way.”
Aisling knew the fae king was partially correct. Man, Aos Sí, Unseelie sought out powerful leaders. Sovereigns, masters, kings, and queens who could protect and provide for them. And while the mortals followed strict bloodlines to name the rightful heir, strength, power, and control were nevertheless required to deter usurpers, coups, or revolutions. Such uprisings had occurred in other mortal states, Aisling knew.
So, the queen bit her bottom lip, ignoring the pressing of new, violent memories on her mind. She could feel such experiences—the death, the destruction, the pain—tweaking at her thoughts. How she thought. What she thought. Brutality is easier and easier to cope with. To behold, unlike when she’d slain the trow. The exposure to such horrors desensitizing her slowly. She tasted it, the numbness. The disregard for the death of those she believed deserved slow and painful ends.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice soft and new. Aisling didn’t need to crane her neck to read his expression; even in the dark, she could feel the tension hiked in his shoulders and arms. Could see the flexing of his hands, veins coiling around the backs of his runed palms. “I didn’t intend to leave you out there so long. For them to”—he hesitated—“touch you.”
Aisling cringed at the memory. The filthy stench their proximity had smoked her leathers with. How Gnoll had indeed touched her.
“We needed to see if they’d comply with the new laws. Refrain from assaulting a mortal,” Lir continued.
“An infraction punishable by death,” Aisling surmised.
“An infraction alone, a breaking of Sidhe law, is rarely ever punishable by death,” Lir said.
“But to disrespect their king is—” Aisling conjectured, for Nemed would’ve done the same to such treasonous slurs, if not much, much worse.
“ The Sidhe have already lost this war. You are no longer my king .” Balor’s voice would haunt Aisling—the mortal queen knew this—for long after this night. Aisling was quickly realizing that not only were the Aos Sí outnumbered by the mortals, suffering by their susceptibility to iron and their inability to produce offspring, but their alliance with their sister race, the Unseelie, was falling apart as a result of Lir’s attempts to preserve the Sidhe. To protect the Sidhe he’d risked everything. And now the consequences were raising their vengeful heads.
“No,” Lir said, his voice darkening, “to threaten your life.”
Every muscle in Aisling’s body tightened at the words. She felt—she didn’t know how she felt. Strange and perhaps grateful he’d indeed lived up to the promise she’d doubted he would. For Filverel, despite his palpable disdain for Aisling, had protected her in the name of his king.
Aisling searched for something to say but no words came to mind. So thankfully, Lir spoke for her.
“You should sleep,” he said as they began their ascent up a rocky path. With one hand, he released Saoirse’s reins, reaching around the mortal queen to hold her waist. The other hand remained on the reins, directing the stag onward. “I’ll steady you,” he whispered in her ear.
Aisling opened her mouth to protest. But the warmth of his body wrapped around her own, the heat that such contact conjured within herself, and Saoirse’s steady gait, lulled Aisling to sleep.
The mortal queen plunged into a deep slumber, a flailing body driven by a current of nightmares. Time after time, she relived the images of the fomorians racing from their caves and swarming the crater. Gnoll’s hungry embrace. Their putrid smell. The scratch of their nails against her skin. Gnoll wrapped in flames of violet. But in her dreams the fomorians bore burning coals for eyes, their horns wrapped in those strange flames, devouring her fingers, her legs as she watched, immovable. Unable to stop them, for she was too weak.
Aisling woke furious, cooled by the world around her. Lir was guiding Saoirse deep into the forested mountains of Rinn Dúin. The fae king weaved Saoirse between the pines and ducked beneath the frosted needles that mirrored the sparkling skies above. Skies whose midnight blue was gradually blooming into spring rose with the arrival of dawn.
Here in the highlands, the wilderness morphed into something new. One moment, the fae procession had been swept in the cool, evening winds of the verdant northern forests, delighted come morning when the sun warmed the earth once more. And the next moment, the fae parade had seemingly stepped into a realm of rock, crystal, and cold where the highlands rolled in their sleep to the lullaby of trees dressed in ice, clicking their frozen branches in the wind like the cylindrical chimes hanging in Annwyn.
At last, they stopped to set up camp beside a cliff’s edge. Gradually, they unpacked their belongings, tethering the stags to the surrounding pines. Not because the stags would run. No, Lir spoke with them and knew they were loyal, obedient creatures. But because the Unseelie were deceitful fiends, the fair folk explained, capable of luring even the animals into their depths when none were awake to witness their mischief.
Gilrel brushed through Aisling’s hair, locks knotted with dried blood, dirt, and fomorian death dust. Already the chambermaid had prepared Aisling a fresh set of clothes and a bathing rag, the best means of cleanliness given the circumstances. Not too long ago, Aisling would’ve been horrified at the prospect of not being able to bathe in a proper tub, to eat her mortal meals, to spend the days travelling and walking and hiking through the wilderness. Excited, curious, intrigued but horrified nonetheless. She’d never not been spoiled with every luxury man had to offer. And now that she lived this way, trekked alongside the Aos Sí, she found she enjoyed it. Of course, her face was burnt, her muscles ached, her thighs were chafed, her feet blistered by the leather of the boots, and her stomach growled for something other than wild rabbit, or deer, or boar, or berries, or leaves. Craved a proper bath more than anything. But she could grow accustomed to not having those things. The mortal queen’s muscles would eventually grow stronger, her skin more resilient, her stomach content with the diet of such questing. Aisling, however, became increasingly concerned she could never return to her life before, a life locked away in an iron keep. Forced to walk, talk, eat, read, sleep like a lady. Not the barefoot savage she claimed to be in the make-believe games she played with Dagfin.
“ No matter what, Aisling, do not forget who you are ,” Nemed had said. “ Don’t forget the world that made you. No matter what or how much they take from you, do not let them take who you are. Where you come from .”
“Are you well, mo Lúra ?” Gilrel asked.
“There’s no need to call me that, Gilrel,” Aisling replied. “You can call me Ash.”
Gilrel hesitated as she pinned back Aisling’s hair.
“Very well…Ash,” the chambermaid said, her voice softening, “are you faring alright? Nuala always hated encountering the Unseelie. Even if she’d done so despite my guidance, it was always out of a responsibility she felt burdened to carry. I can’t imagine what a mortal might feel…” Gilrel trailed off, sitting beside Aisling. The firelight danced across her stained fur.
“Yes, thank you, Gilrel,” and it wasn’t a lie. Aisling felt surprisingly alright. Of course, the Unseelie would haunt her dreams till the day she died but the mortal queen was content. Fine. Eager to continue travelling through the forest. What sort of monster did that make Aisling? That she could behold violence, bloodshed, primordial beasts, and feel…hungry for more?
Gnoll’s burning body flashed in her mind’s eye. What she’d felt in that moment was frightening, to say the least. A power she’d never held before. Not as a sheltered princess. Not as a sacrificial lamb. An unbridled barbarity within her mortal bones. Another voice coaxing her to unleash it. Nemed had warned her of the beasts outside their iron walls but never of the beast that lurked within.
The rest of the fae knights sat around the fire, stealing glances at the mortal queen as they chewed their strips of freshly broiled meat. Lir, Filverel, Galad, and Rian whispered wildly by the stags, spitting back and forth so quickly it was evident enough they were arguing. Even if Aisling couldn’t understand their fae tongue.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Aisling whispered to Gilrel, popping several berries onto her tongue. Between bites, the chambermaid cautiously snuck a glance in the fae king’s direction.
“They’re arguing about you.”
“And what do they say?”
But before Gilrel could respond, the fae king, Filverel, Galad, and Rian approached the fire. The mortal queen avoided Lir’s gaze, those feline eyes studying her till she felt bare before him. The knights, on the other hand, steered clear of meeting her expression entirely, taking their seats around the fire.
The next several days passed similarly. The fair folk eyed her suspiciously, lengthening the distance between themselves and the mortal queen while Filverel and Lir argued for hours on end in Rún. And no more Unseelie crawled out of their holes nor did the Aos Sí approach any.
So, what were they waiting for?
After the first few weeks, Aisling stopped counting the days. It didn’t seem to matter out in the wilderness. In fact, time moved differently out here. A day was a week and a week a month. And as far as Aisling was concerned, they’d spent years blazing through the feywilds during the evenings and sleeping during the day. Everyone, except Aisling.
The mortal queen struggled to sleep so Lir lay awake with her most days, recounting tales of the Forbidden Lore. All stories that were incongruent with the versions her father had taught. A father who, for all Aisling knew, had been swept off the face of the Earth, for he still hadn’t responded to her letter. Did he not believe her any longer? Trust her? Care for her opinion? Aisling’s greatest fear was swiftly becoming realized: in the eyes of the mortals, Aisling had died the night of her union. Contaminated by her marriage to the Aos Sí.
But out here in the wilderness, where she ran and hid and faced otherworldly danger, none of that bothered her. Not the opinion of her mother, the approval of her father, or the validation of her brothers. It was just the fair folk, she and the trees who leaned closer as she passed. The wildflowers she collected in her pockets. The newly made scars she counted. The number of woodland creatures that visited Lir when they believed none to be watching.
Nevertheless, although softening each day to the mortal queen, the Aos Sí still distrusted Aisling. Kept her an arm’s length away, wary of her mortal blood.
In the last hours of the night, the fae procession stopped to rest beside a frozen lake. The stags drank their fill, tethered to nearby trees. The fae knights drank and sang and played, less anxious than they’d been since their journey had begun.
“Place your feet here and grip the sword with two hands,” Galad said, demonstrating himself. Aisling mirrored his position, struggling to hold the blade’s haft steady by the brim of the lake.
“You’re shaking like you’ve just seen a sluagh,” Rian said, steadying her hands.
“It’s too heavy.” Aisling’s arms shook despite Galad’s sword being among the thinner longswords, one the mortal queen recognized from the night of her union to the fae king.
“Perhaps we should stick to daggers,” Rian said.
“She can hardly throw one more than a few feet.” Galad steadied the tip of the blade, releasing Aisling from its weight.
“Then maybe our time is better spent teaching her to run.” Rian laughed before he too assisted Aisling in lowering the blade’s tip to the pebbles carpeting the lake’s shore.
Aisling exhaled, blowing the loose strands out of her freckled face.
“I can run fine,” Aisling huffed.
“But faster than the White Lady? The phuka?” Rian challenged, an amused grin sweeping his features.
Aisling scowled, “Teach me to fight and I won’t need to.”
“Don’t bother,” a voice called from a few paces away. Aisling dragged her gaze to Filverel. The advisor approached silently, circling the three of them till he stood directly behind the mortal queen. “She doesn’t need it.”
“ Go skeor keis veo , Fil,” Galad snapped but Filverel brushed him off.
“Show us what you can do,” Filverel ordered the mortal queen.
“I don’t know what you speak of?—”
“You do. You can end this tedious pretense,” the advisor growled, sending chills down Aisling’s spine. “What are you? One of the Leanan Sidhe? A changeling enslaved by Nemed and sent into the heart of Annwyn?”
“I’m a mortal, Filverel, something you remind me of often.”
Filverel ignored her. “Whatever you did to that Fomori, repeat it. Show me.”
Aisling stilled, grimacing at the weight of his proximity as he stood behind her.
“Enough, Fil. You don’t know if any of your suspicions are true,” Rian said, placing a hand on the advisor’s shoulder. And at the sound of the commotion, Aisling felt Lir’s attention cock towards them, lifting his head from the conversation he was currently immersed in by the fire, to inspect their group by the lake.
“Then why don’t we ask?” Filverel said, shrugging off the knight’s hand. “Why does the draiocht favor you?”
Aisling’s brows raised, resisting the urge to sputter.
“You believe I can wield magic? That I’m some Unseelie instructed to terrorize Annwyn and its people?”
“Aye, that’s exactly what I think,” Filverel narrowed his eyes.
“What Sidhe or Unseelie do you know that can summon fire, Fil?” Rian asked. “This is unprecedented and surely nothing Nemed is aware of.”
“She would’ve already killed us all and returned to her mortal kingdom by now if she were being instructed by Nemed,” Galad chimed. “The Forge knows she’s had plenty of opportunities.”
“So, you suggest we simply trust this”—Filverel considered—“this weapon ?”
Weapon . Aisling’s eyes darted between the Aos Sí around her.
“I can hardly lift a sword much less be considered a weapon,” Aisling said, turning to face Filverel. “And as far as whatever it is you believe I can do, I assure you, I know nothing.”
“We should keep it that way,” Rian said, crossing his arms. “The more she knows, the more dangerous she becomes.”
“You’re all mad,” Aisling said.
“They’re not mad and neither are you pretending,” Lir interjected.
“How can you be sure?” Filverel asked, snapping his attention to the fae lord approaching.
“I could feel the draiocht as it reached for her. I thought it was myself at first. But it was pleading to be used. To be inhaled, encouraging her to trust the impulse. And once she did it was overzealous and young. An emotional burst through the breath of the draiocht ,” Lir stood near to her now, looking down and searching her expression. “The trees have told me the same.”
“And you trust their council?” Filverel asked.
“Aye, I do. ”
“If she’s neither Sidhe nor Unseelie, what is she?” Galad asked, cocking his head to the side to inspect Aisling as though for the first time.
“I don’t know,” Lir confessed, “and neither do the woods.”
The fair folk exchanged glances.
“Can you do it again?” Lir asked Aisling. “Whatever it is you did to that Fomori, can you replicate it?”
“How can you be so sure it was me and not another nearby?”
Filverel shot daggers at the rest of the Aos Sí, threatening them to say no more. So, it was Lir who spoke, “As far as the Lore has described and as far as any of us have experienced or known, there is none who can summon fire. No Seelie. No Unseelie. No beast or creature or fiend known throughout the continents and beyond. It is a mortal tool that destroys what the Sidhe seek to build. We can use it, yes. Manipulate it, perhaps. But never summon it. Not through the draiocht and not at all. Nor can the Unseelie.”
“And the mortals? Can they breathe through the draiocht ?” Aisling asked.
“As far as anyone has ever been concerned, no. It’s against one of the original laws,” Lir said, the evening wind running its cool fingers through his dark hair.
“Do you recall the story I once told you?” Rian said. “The tale in Cathan’s song?”
Aisling remembered the night, one of the evenings following her union. Before she’d ever set foot in Annwyn.
“After Ina attempted to save her love, Bres, from the kingdom of the greenwood, she was cursed. One of the more unfortunate consequences of such a curse was forbidding the mortals from ever being able to wield the draiocht .”
Aisling shook her head. “What does Ina’s curse have to do with the mortals?”
The Aos Sí exchanged glances again. They were keeping things from her.
“No one else could’ve summoned the fire,” Lir continued. “It was yours. I could feel it.”
Aisling held her hands before her, turning them over in dawn’s first light.
“Wield the flames again,” Filverel demanded.
“ Easca ,” Lir hissed. To which each of the fair folk shuffled uneasily.
Galad stepped before the mortal queen. “Can you try?” he asked more gently.
Aisling considered him. Of course, she could attempt it, but Aisling knew nothing would occur. They were all mistaken. Misunderstanding whatever had happened to Gnoll. She was a mortal through and through. The only mortal princess in all the isles. She’d never heard of the draiocht until a few weeks prior to this day. Still, there was a part of Aisling that hoped it was true. Prayed to the gods she’d never believed in that perhaps, just maybe, she did possess some magic. Was capable of wielding something of such power.
Aisling pushed past each of the Aos Sí surrounding her to face the lake’s expanse. It shimmered in glassy sheets of ice. Still. Silent. Frozen. Pines bowed around it, weighed down by the piles of snow sitting on their backs.
Lir moved behind her, the smell of him clouding around her in dreamy wisps. As always, the nearness of him warmed her lower abdomen, setting loose flocks within her stomach.
“Hold your hands out before you,” he said, tilting his head to whisper by her ear. Aisling batted away the heat creeping beneath her cheeks. She willed herself to focus.
“Close your eyes,” Lir commanded. And Aisling obeyed. “Inhale and exhale slowly.”
Aisling steadied her breath. So far, she felt nothing.
“Now what?” she asked in return, keeping her eyes closed.
“I like to imagine what I intend to summon,” Lir said.
“And then?”
“And then I invite the draiocht . It will try to rule you but you mustn’t let it. Like any wild animal, it seeks to be dominated lest it need to dominate. To be used and be useful.”
Aisling did as the fae king described, calling out to the draiocht.
I wish to summon the fire, Aisling said in the hollows of her mind.
No one replied.
Are you there?
Silence.
I wish to summon the fire.
Aisling tried again and again to no avail. The silence and darkness mocked her, her words echoing off the walls of her consciousness. There was nothing and no one to answer her calls. Not that sentient little creature the Aos Sí had dubbed by the name of magic. The personification and origin of spells, charms, and enchantments, Aisling was quickly realizing.
Aisling held back the urge to cry. She wasn’t the weapon they believed her to be. Not the dangerous magic wielder she’d hoped herself to be. She was mortal. A poor princess. A necessary sacrifice. Fae bait. Nothing more.
“ No matter what, Aisling, do not forget who you are . Don’t forget the world that made you. No matter what or how much they take from you, do not let them take who you are. Where you come from .”