Chapter XXX
CHAPTER XXX
Night descended without hesitation, whisking the sun behind the veil of jagged cliffs and snowcapped mountains.
Two sentinels stood outside the mortal tent Aisling approached. Their suits of iron bronzed by firelight. Galad grabbed Aisling’s wrist, lowering his mouth to her ear. A gesture met with the five princes’ immediate apprehension, the instinctive reaching for their weapons.
“Keep your secrets,” he whispered so only she could hear. And Aisling understood, briskly meeting Galad’s eyes.
Wordlessly, the sentinels bowed to Starn and Dagfin as they passed between the canvas flaps, a custom Aisling had already grown accustomed to growing up. Starn and Dagfin would eventually inherit crowns: Starn the crown of the high king of Rinn Dúin and Dagfin, the crown of the king of Roktling. Commoners, lesser nobles, servants, and guards would bow to these sons out of both tradition and ritual. But never had Aisling witnessed the sentinels considering Dagfin the way they did now, a glimmer of both respect and fear flashing in their rounded mortal eyes as he approached. Never had she witnessed trained guards hold their breath as her childhood friend neared. A similar reaction allotted to Galad as he passed but with more hate bent into the stiff lines of their mouths.
The inside of the tent was dimly lit. The perfume of Tilrish wool and blooming heather washed over Aisling in a potent wave. Scents that tasted of her childhood, of late nights peeking through keyholes to spy on Nemed’s conferences. Those her brothers had infrequently been invited to but never she. No. Her perspective was always through the crack in the door, the floorboards, the midnight races back to her bed before her wet-nurse would discover her mischief.
Her father no doubt slept here, a down feather bed draped in olann covers sat in another room of the tent. An extension that was large enough to be a Tilrish household in and of itself. But at the center of this room, the one she entered, stood a round table overrun with maps, scrolls, quills, and coins that, by the look of it, symbolized the mortal fleets scattered across the isles.
Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, and Annind dispersed around the room, unbuckling their bandoliers, setting down their daggers, and pouring themselves chalices of wine despite Galad’s presence. Perhaps they supposed he’d not risk the unity between fair folk and mortals, especially when he was vastly outnumbered amidst their camp.
Dagfin, on the other hand, forewent disarming himself. What happened to the light-hearted boy she’d known as a child? This man who studied her through narrowed eyes wasn’t the same boy she’d caught crying in the stables.
Aisling stepped further into the room. A gesture met by Dagfin’s pointed stare, measuring her every step. Realization seized Aisling then: it wasn’t only Galad he appraised but she as well. He didn’t trust her. And although betrayal was a sickening fist in her gut, she couldn’t blame him. If her tuath knew what she’d become, none of them would’ve robbed themselves of their defenses so easily.
“Can you sit in that gown?” Fergus asked, glaring up at his sister from where he’d thrown himself into a wing-back chair. One whose upholstery was fraying at the seams.
Aisling smoothed out the fabric of her opal bodice, sliding her fingers down the webbed skirts.
“Aye,” Aisling said, cautiously stepping nearer to the disheveled table.
“Have you forgotten how to speak our tongue, little sister?” Annind asked next, flipping a coin he’d stolen from the maps. “You deign to speak unless necessary.”
“So hostile, Annind,” Starn smiled slyly, pouring five chalices of wine from a scarlet bottle. “Let her adjust. I can only imagine what she’s been through.” Both Starn and Iarbonel divided the half-filled glasses, handing a glass to each of Aisling’s brothers. One for Iarbonel, one for Fergus, one for Annind. And where Aisling believed Dagfin next, Starn eventually approached Aisling, gesturing for her to accept the goblet.
“Tell us, what was it like?” Starn asked, ebony eyes glittering. “What was it like living amongst the fair folk?”
“I’ve never been allowed wine,” Aisling blurted, looking to her brothers and Dagfin for an explanation as to the goblet offered now. “Nor mead, nor beer, nor ale.” The only one not drinking was Dagfin. For initially, Aisling had thought the fifth glass reserved for the Roktan prince and not herself.
Starn exhaled a laugh. “You’re no longer a child, Ash. Nor a commoner, nor noblewoman, nor a princess.” He mocked her. “You’re a queen now. You can do as you like.”
Against her own volition, Aisling’s lips curled. Those words, his tone. They acted as if—as if they respected her. For never had Aisling been allowed to do as she liked, much less what she craved, whilst within Tilren’s stone keep. Before her union to Lir, she was scarcely permitted in the castle gardens without an escort. And now—now they handed her a glass of wine, a chalice nearly as forbidden to her as fae wine.
Aisling waited till the others gulped before doing so herself, willing her hand steady as she accepted the chalice.
“Are you going to keep us in suspense? Tell us about your time with the Aos Sí,” Fergus demanded, waving his arms dramatically.
“What would you like to know?” Aisling replied, taking another sip.
“Where do you sleep?” Starn asked first, leaning his elbow atop Iarbonel’s chair.
“The dungeons?” Fergus chimed.
“She doesn’t smell as if she’s been sleeping in the dungeons.” Annind leaned forward.
“Nor does she look it,” Iarbonel added, each of them glaring at Aisling from head to toe. Iridescent in her raven-hued, dewdrop encrusted gown. Nothing mortal hands could spin.
“No,” Aisling said, eyes flicking to where Dagfin leaned against an antique chest, spinning a dinner knife artfully between his fingers. “I have my own royal chambers. It has a bed thrice as large as Clodagh’s in Tilren. A balcony that hangs amongst the canopies. Songbirds that tie my hair and lace my gowns.”
“And what did they have you do?” Iarbonel rested his head on his fist, already half-finished with his goblet.
“Did they starve you?” Fergus asked. “You’re vastly thinner than we last saw you.”
Aisling hesitated. Paused as if reluctant to spill more information than was necessary. But what did it matter? Of course, Galad stood a breath away from her, but her hesitation was born of more than simply being caught or overheard by a member of the fair folk. No. Her hesitation was deeper than that. A pang of guilt grew larger and larger the more she considered saying anything at all. As if it were a betrayal. But how could she betray the enemy? This—her brothers, Dagfin—they were her blood. Her tuath, Aisling assured herself.
“In my experience, the fair folk are skilled in nearly all of the arts,” Aisling confessed, “including cooking and preparing non -enchanted meals for me to consume. So no, they didn’t starve me. They did, however, bait me before a trow.”
“A trow?” Fergus repeated without thinking, looking to Dagfin for an explanation. Aisling’s eyes followed Fergus’s line of sight, everyone’s attention swiveling towards the Roktan prince. The shadows cast from the torchlight danced across his expression.
“A species of troll,” Dagfin said, and everyone leaned closer to listen. “Trows typically reside west of Giant’s Causeway, in which case, the Aos Sí must’ve hunted down and imported one from further north for their games.” Dagfin flashed his eyes at the fae knight. A look that both unnerved Aisling and riled Galad for the knight shifted behind her.
“So, the mortal prince has more uses than longing for a bride that isn’t his own,” Galad bit, unable to hold his sharp tongue, a personality trait Lir should’ve considered before sending him into a camp swarming with mortals. With those who’d branded the fire hand’s crest into his flesh. Those who’d imprisoned his Morrin. Or perhaps that was exactly why Lir had chosen Galad. Who else would unleash fiery retribution on the mortals if given the opportunity? One wrong move on behalf of the mortals and everything would be for naught, Aisling realized.
Dagfin straightened, meeting Galad’s eyes.
“Watch your tongue, fae,” Dagfin chided, halting the spinning of knives between his fingers. Hands void of markings, the fae tattoos Aisling had become so accustomed to over the past several months. And the malice in his tone…Aisling had never known the Roktan prince capable of such poison.
“Or should you watch yours lest you say more than you’re permitted whilst in my presence?” Aisling blurted before she could think better of it. Dagfin’s eyes shot towards her. “Lest you reveal the truth behind the mortals’ elaborately spun veil?”
As if he’d been physically struck, Dagfin winced, eyes narrowing in response.
“You know nothing of what you speak,” Dagfin replied, his voice laced with anger. Anger that boiled Aisling’s blood for it was she who was entitled to such bitter resentment, the only one amongst them excluded from their secrets.
Dagfin had known about, was clearly well versed in, the Unseelie. Which begged the question: what else had they hidden from Aisling? Hidden from all the mortal commoners whose only refuge from the ghoulish aberrations, aberrations Nemed claimed were the fair folk, were their overcrowded cottages?
“No, that was before, before I was traded to the Aos Sí I didn’t know of what I spoke. Now—” Aisling fumbled over the words, the rage, confusion, doubt these past several months mounting inside her, preparing to explode. “Everything is different now.”
“Nothing’s changed, Ash,” Starn reassured her, stepping nearer. Galad tensed in response, for himself or Aisling she wasn’t sure. Perhaps the urge to behead him in the name of vengeance was more potent now than protecting his mortal queen.
Starn shifted his gaze to Galad then, his lips curving into a lopsided grin before returning his attention to his sister.
“You were young. A princess. More committed to breaking rules and mischief than harboring a difficult truth. A truth, the elaborate explanation of everything outside of Tilren’s walls, was of no use to you.”
“No use to me?” Aisling gripped the stem of her goblet till she believed it might snap. “Did you think it was of no use to me before I was handfasted to the king of the Aos Sí? He with whom my own blood would have me conceive an heir?” Aisling briefly closed her eyes, doing her best to dampen her anger. “ No, you claim you protected me, but such lies were spun in the name of distrust. You didn’t believe me capable of safeguarding such secrets, did you?”
Silence spread between them as each of her brothers avoided her eyes, pretending as though the rings on their fingers, the mud on their boots, or the waxing candles harbored the answers to her questions.
Starn cleared his throat. “You were wild, Ash. Cheating at our games, lying to our father, tricking the guards to escape Tilren’s law. But you were also only a child.”
Aisling bit her tongue, collecting herself. Ground her rage into her teeth, opening and closing her fists. Cursing the draiocht that climbed out of its cavern and goaded to be used.
Hush , she hissed internally to the draiocht . Careful not to expose herself. For Aisling wasn’t certain how much her brothers or Dagfin knew of fae magic. Specifically, how it was harnessed. But she knew Galad felt it, the draiocht pushing against Aisling’s walls to be unchained, for he glanced at her, opening his mouth to speak and thinking better of it. That aura of magic so close to him, angry and eager.
“Father will arrive any moment now.” Starn watched her closely. “He should be here for these conversations.”
And as if summoned, the canvas curtains parted. Nemed entered the tent, his expression distorted by the dancing shadows spinning throughout the room. The evening gale, slipping in behind him and rustling the parchments, maps, and scrolls piled throughout the tent. Instinctively, Aisling snapped her mouth shut. Her back went rigid the moment the violet eyes only they shared fixed upon her.
“I think Aisling needs another glass of wine,” Nemed said, limping towards Aisling. Starn snapped his fingers and Annind stood from his seat, fetching the scarlet bottle and pouring Aisling’s glass near to the brim.
“Where’s Mother?” Aisling asked, Clodagh’s absence more potent by the minute.
“Your mother isn’t feeling well,” Nemed lied, Aisling knew. “She’ll join us for dinner.”
Aisling stilled. Paralyzed as the fire hand kissed the back of her hand before folding it between his own.
“I cannot express how wonderful it is to have you returned to your family.” Nemed guided Aisling towards one of the chairs surrounding the center table. Starn pulled the seat back, its wooden legs sliding against the southern Centari rugs carpeting the grass beneath.
“Please, sit,” Nemed said, but Aisling knew it wasn’t a request. It was an order.
Aisling hesitated before, at last, swallowing her defiance. Galad followed closely behind, shadowing where she sat. But his unmatched loathing for Starn swiftly refocused on the calculated fury he felt towards her father.
“Your hands,” Nemed began, “they feel different.”
Aisling’s heart sprung to her throat. But her father couldn’t know, she reassured herself.
“They’re more calloused. Scarred.” He turned her fingers over.
Aisling released a breath of relief, studying her hands now returned safely to her lap. There were countless reasons to keep her newfound draiocht from her father. If she didn’t already fear their rejection of her, their dismissal of her, the realization she was capable of practicing magic would sever any remaining ties she bore with her clann. To her kind. She’d be excommunicated from whatever life, bonds, relationships she’d cherished before her marriage to Lir. And although rage rattled her every bone, she couldn’t lose them all. Couldn’t bear the thought of her own family shunning her for an ability she hadn’t asked for yet nevertheless treasured. Couldn’t forsake this magic if she wanted to. And never, Aisling knew, would she want to. Even if magic was as perverse as her father believed, she found she didn’t care.
Filverel feared Nemed would weaponize Aisling if he knew she could char the forest. But Filverel’s fear was irrational. Nemed would sooner banish Aisling than make use of her. After all, the only entity he loathed more than the Aos Sí was magic.
So, Aisling bottled the draiocht singing in her ears. So long as she told it no, it wouldn’t lift its head from its primordial abyss. Only Aisling could release it if she so desired. And the mortal queen took comfort in that knowledge.
“Is this the topic that demanded such privacy? My hands?” Aisling bit, winning her the same lightning-fast flicker of both shock and anger from her father’s eyes. Quickly concealed with soft laughter.
“I don’t recall such a sharp tongue from you.” Nemed sat in a chair of his own, reclining lazily as Annind poured Nemed’s goblet. He didn’t take her seriously. Considered her a rebellious child. So, Aisling scowled in return, resisting the urge to argue in response, a response that would only weaken her claims to strength, to power, to confidence.
“What do you recall of me, Father?” Aisling challenged, raising her chin as she locked eyes with the fire hand. She wouldn’t shrink. She wouldn’t cower before him as she’d done all her life. No, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow him to intimidate her.
The creases in Nemed’s face deepened as his expression split into an amused grin.
“I recall a princess of great potential: wild enough to be brave, clever enough to be wise, willful enough to be obedient, yet lured instead by temptation,” he said, tilting his glass from side to side.
“Tell us, have you grown close with the Aos Sí?” Fergus interjected, picking through a platter of breads and cheeses Aisling hadn’t noticed until now.
Aisling rolled her shoulders back, doing her best to ignore the rising tension around her neck. The sweat beading her brow. For every pair of eyes, brown, sapphire, or violet, was fixed upon her now, eagerly awaiting her response.
A few months ago, she would’ve wept on their shoulders, divulged everything and anything that had occurred yet now…now she felt as if her lips were sewn shut. As if chronicling a single day amongst the fair folk was like pulling teeth from her jaw. Yet perhaps these questions were to aid in their pursuit of solidifying the marital alliance they’d already achieved with another of its kind. Nevertheless, a creature dark and heavy, weighed on Aisling’s shoulders the longer her father awaited an answer.
Aisling’s throat tightened, resisting the urge to meet Galad’s eyes.
“For every time they put my life in danger, they also saved it,” Aisling said. “Such experiences aren’t easily forgotten.”
It was an honest answer. Perhaps more honest than Aisling had ever intended to be with her family in regard to her relationship with the fair folk. But she’d found herself incapable of uttering a mistruth. Of lying, or at the very least being convincing enough to deceive her father.
“How heartwarming,” Nemed purred as every member of the tent save for Aisling and Galad exchanged quick glances. Glances Aisling wouldn’t have noticed had she blinked.
“And the fae king? Have you spent time with him?” Starn asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Dagfin’s eyes shot towards Aisling, his hands tightening around the hilt of the dinner knife.
Nemed nodded his head at Annind, a silent command to pour Aisling more wine.
Aisling did her best to resist the assault of memories flooding her mind: Lir humming her to sleep when nightmares prevailed in the feywilds, translating his fae runes when Aisling grew bored on stagback, skinning a beast for her on a whim when he’d felt her shivering farther north. The foreign blood on his fangs, the sound of his axes unsheathing, the fear he perpetually instilled .
“Of course she has,” Fergus said. “You heard what he called her: ‘our queen.’”
Nemed nodded in agreement. “I’m assuming he took pride in showing you Annwyn? His people? Their way of life?”
Just as Aisling knew Galad had sensed her anger, oozing from the draiocht within her, she could feel his as well. The potent distrust swelling in each of his flexed muscles. How he bit his tongue to keep himself from lashing out, verbally or physically. He could slay them all if he wanted. Quickly. Easily. But with consequences. Immeasurable consequences for his own kind.
“I’ve answered enough questions,” Aisling chewed the inside of her cheek as she glanced around the room. Her brothers watched her closely, Dagfin visibly fumed, and her father arched a knowing, inquisitive brow. “And I have plenty to ask of my own.”
“Do you blame us? Our littlest sister’s been living amongst barbarians for over a year now,” Starn piped but not without looking to his father first.
“The fae king, he’s strange, isn’t he?” Nemed pushed, shrugging off her protests.
“Strange is relative,” Aisling replied. “And whether he is or not, whether I consider him to be or not, it makes little difference to you.”
“I’d think it would be considering he’s wed to my only daughter.” Nemed grinned like a cat with a mouse between its teeth. “And considering another of our kind will be wed to a fae princess at dawn.”
Aisling’s eyes absently darted towards Dagfin.
“It’s unlikely. The Sidhe can only be handfast if the correct blade is chosen or else?—”
“Or else Dagfin will engage in combat to the death with his would-be bride,” Starn finished for his sister. Annind poured Aisling more wine despite the glass being half full. Another goblet was also filled and placed before the Tilrish high king.
Aisling met Dagfin’s eyes, searching those ocean depths. Surely, he wouldn’t, couldn’t, go through with this.
“He’ll make the same choice you had, select the same axe?” Nemed inquired, leaning closer to her. So near, Aisling could smell his breath, the wine staining both his tongue and teeth.
Indeed, this custom was sealed in magic. If they weren’t caera , one couldn’t select the correct blade even if they knew which weapon belonged to their prospective suitor. Magic would guide their thoughts and body elsewhere.
“No,” Aisling replied honestly, “by Peitho’s own blade.”
She eyed the glass warily, reluctant to sip before her father did himself. Galad’s tension pushed down on Aisling as if she’d been submerged in water. But this was all harmless information. Aisling had sacrificed everything for such harmony. In which case, why would their queries be anything other than curiosity? But even as the thoughts passed her mind, the taste in Aisling’s mouth turned bitter. She’d allowed her naivety to blind her in the past.
“Ah, of course,” Nemed replied, rubbing his chin, “especially considering the fae king appears rather attached to his axes.”
Galad shifted and Aisling’s heart ceased for she knew if Galad chose to strike, to launch himself at the fire hand, it would occur before any uttered a protest.
“ Mo Lúra has answered enough questions,” the fae knight interjected, his voice no more than a growl.
“I’ve never seen him without those axes.” Starn ignored Galad, never once releasing Aisling from his scrutiny, a response that made Galad imagine eleven different ways of slaughtering her eldest brother, Aisling knew. “Have you?”
The mortal queen stilled, eyes darting between her father and her eldest brother. They did not deign to divulge the entire truth; even after everything Nemed had praised her for, still, they didn’t trust her enough to confide in her. After all, she was dressed in the trappings of the fair folk, wielding their draiocht . And despite the tender glint in her father’s eyes, Aisling wasn’t blind to Nemed’s guile nor his propensity to cherish the mortal north above all else.
“I haven’t,” she confessed, suddenly aware of the stifling heat vegetating in the tented room.
“Surely, he doesn’t sleep with them, eat with them, bathe with them, please his wife with them strapped to his back?” Annind pressed. He leaned forward in his chair till a candle nearly singed his black hair. And behind him, Dagfin rolled his neck from side to side, stormy eyes alive with thunder.
Aisling’s ears buzzed, her stomach churning with a combination of both embarrassment and wrath. Pure, undiluted emotion she’d never felt before, never experienced. And it overwhelmed her. Made her lose feeling in her fingers digging into the arms of her chair, her feet crossed beneath her gowns, the pulsing of the headache that plagued her now, from minutes, or perhaps hours, of neglecting the draiocht clawing to be released.
Aisling inhaled. Exhaled. Concentrating on every breath before she spoke as smoothly as she was capable. “I’ve said enough. Did I not make myself clear the first time?”
Shock rippled through the room; this time, it wasn’t so easily concealed. Each of them flinched at the claws alive in her violet eyes. As if every passing moment was a merciful one on her behalf. Whether they believed the might she donned in that moment, Aisling wasn’t certain. Only that she’d silenced them all.
“More than the skin on your hands has changed, Aisling. Such change runs deep within you, doesn’t it?” Nemed asked at last, shattering the awkward stillness swamping the canvas chamber.
Aisling resisted the urge to squirm beneath his regard, those violet eyes that dug deep below her flesh, unapologetically searching for the answers he sought. Not to mention, Aisling couldn’t remember a time she’d been the subject of her father’s undivided attention as she was now. The feeling of a thief caught in the night.
“Tell me, Aisling, what else happened whilst you lived amongst them?” Nemed pushed, leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees.
“I chose to eat instead of be eaten,” Aisling replied, and to her surprise, every word spilled from her lips as wickedly smooth as syrup, as silk, as fae sweet cream.
Nemed chuckled, taking another sip of wine. “Aye, you’ve done splendidly.” He turned to Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind, and Dagfin one by one, meeting their eyes as he spoke. “It’s because of Aisling’s sacrifice to Tilren, to the North, to all of our kind that further bloodshed has been prevented. She brings us here today and she deserves our respect now. As a queen in her own right.”
Aisling cursed the leaping of her heart. She’d feared they’d forgotten her, they’d forsaken her. But thus far, her anger rivalled their glowing praises. The child in her, the princess who’d desperately sought her father’s approval, sweetened at the praise. For never had he complimented her so and now that he did, Aisling couldn’t help but swell with pride. A fact she damned herself for internally for she knew it was, if not entirely, partially, smoke and mirrors.
“Yet you ignored my correspondence despite such sacrifices,” Aisling said, chewing her father’s charms and spitting them back out. “So, tell me, why keep the Unseelie a secret from the North? Why misrepresent the enemy? Why condemn libraries of knowledge that could’ve prevented the death of so many of our kind if only they knew? Knew what really lay beyond their mortal walls?”
Silence crashed into the room like ice in a storm, frosting everything it touched. The dripping of the candles was nearly audible in such potent quiet. But Aisling forbade herself from speaking further. From rambling on. From recoiling at her father’s cryptic expression as even his fingers stopped their idle stroking of the fraying seams.
“You blame me for the brutality of the Aos Sí?”
“I question your intentions knowing of the brutality of the Sidhe and sending your only daughter regardless.”
“What you did was an honor, a sacrifice the mortal kind has been blessed because of.”
“Blessed by who? The Forge of Creation that never existed? The gods that are nothing more than tales?”
Nemed stiffened, his smug expression collapsing into something darker.
“Ash—” Iarbonel opened his mouth to speak but Aisling ignored him.
“The Sidhe who devour our children, rape our women, live beneath the earth? Or the Unseelie that are never mentioned? The Lore that is forbidden?” Behind her, Aisling could feel Galad’s own rage at such tales rippling from him. Centuries of hatred for the men who inhabited this tent were brought to the forefront and he could do nothing but stand as still as death.
All eyes darted between the mortal queen and her father, Nemed, whose veins snaked and bulged across the center of his forehead.
“I told you that?—”
“That the Sidhe spin lies like they spin their thread? Yes, I remember. I remember everything you taught me. Everything that contradicts the world outside of Tilren’s walls.” Aisling levelled her voice. The rush of blood pulsing through the veins in her ears. “And all of you.” Aisling turned to her brothers. She asked Dagfin, “You knew all of it, didn’t you?”
The five princes hesitated, tongues catching in their throats.
Dagfin took a step nearer to her, a step met by Galad’s sliding of his sword halfway from its scabbard. And in turn, the princes reached for their neglected weapons lest the fae knight unleash the chaos visibly storming from within.
“We were each informed some years ago, when we turned sixteen”—the Roktan prince confessed, guilt spreading across his handsome features—“told everything once we were of age to accept the throne should anything happen to either of our fathers or, in Iarbonel, Annind and Fergus’s case, the direct lineage.”
Years. They’d known for years.
Aisling’s skin burned the longer she realized just how blissfully ignorant she’d been. So complacent, so stupid to have not sought the truth of her own accord. To have taken that agency and wielded it for herself. The power, the control she’d happily let slip through her fingers all these years, the thought of it maddened her. Made her hands blister with heat as she gripped the arms of her chair, scratching at its wood with her nails.
Iarbonel ran his fingers through his hair. “Ash, you were the youngest. The only northern princess, you were to be protected?—”
“Protected and then sold at a price you deemed sufficient?” Aisling shook her head, tears threatening to spill from the corners of her eyes. She wouldn’t let them. Wouldn’t show them weakness. Wouldn’t prove herself to be the volatile, naive, spoilt girl they believed her to be. So, she levelled herself but didn’t calm the anger within her. Merely tempered it, chained it to the walls within herself, and commanded it to be obedient. To bite at her command and hers alone.
“I’ve never lied to you, Ash,” Nemed said, schooling his expression. “You’ve merely allowed the fair folk to twist my words, to manipulate the past, to poison the truth. Clodagh warned me you’d be susceptible to their deceit.”
Not now , she commanded the draiocht , pushing and pushing.
“Man was born first,” Nemed continued, “was born of nothing, as I’m sure they’ve educated you.” Born of a curse and not cast in a Forge. “Man has carved himself into the earth. The Aos Sí are aberrations, perversities of nature for they hold onto what’s been stolen from man. And the gods are nothing more than fanciful tales. They’ve abandoned all that they created. Left us to spill one another’s blood while they sleep. They’re gone, forsaken both Aos Sí and man alike.”
In Aisling’s periphery, Galad’s knuckles grew white where they wrapped around the haft of his blade. A blade she’d witnessed him wield and knew the bloodbaths it’d tasted.
“There’s more than one side to the tale, Ash. More than the account of the Aos Sí,” Annind piped.
“And now you wish to teach it to me? Only now that I’ve been sold?” Aisling ground her teeth together.
“The information was useless to you until now,” Annind snapped, but the mortal queen was far past anger to listen to her brother’s petty jabs. So, Aisling ignored him.
“I’m assuming no one other than the highest-ranking nobles are aware of these secrets. Do the common people, do they know any of it? The history, the truth of mankind’s origins. That we are born of a curse? That we were once Sidhe? The truth of what lies outside the iron and stone walls of the mortal kingdoms? The Unseelie who not even the Aos Sí can fully control?”
Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, and Annind each turned to one another, hesitantly trading glances.
“No,” Dagfin confessed, his expression a muddle of anger and torment. None of which Aisling cared about given the fires clawing their way up her throat and demanding to be let loose. She wouldn’t let them. Couldn’t let her family witness her draiocht . So, Aisling twisted the skirts of her gown into her fists. Her cheeks flushing.
“The mortals are safe. What need is there to over-complicate matters? The Aos Sí and Unseelie are one and the same Ash, and any tales they’ve told you of them being separate are lies, manipulations, half-truths. You’ve been told two halves of the full story, daughter. None complete and both misleading without their second half.”
“So, while you wage war on the Sidhe, what of the Unseelie? What of the true threats to mortals that lie just beyond their cottages? Just beneath the rivers where they fetch their water? The woods where they’re forced to hunt lest they starve as they’re starving now?”
“That’s why we have the Faerak ,” Nemed said, gesturing towards Dagfin. “One of many fae titles given to fae things. Or so I’ve learned over a lifetime at war with them.”
“’Hunters,’ in the mortal tongue,” Starn added quickly.
Aisling’s eyes betrayed her, following her father’s finger until they found Dagfin.
“The Faerak hunt the Unseelie whenever issues arise. A pixie terrorizing children in their own gardens, demons feeding on mortal women’s dreams as they sleep, dragons setting fire to settlements and stealing what little livestock we have, all hunted down and slaughtered by our Faerak. Expertly and thoroughly trained to eliminate the threats you speak of. Threats the fair folk allow to feed on mankind should innocent children or civilians wander too far from their homes.”
Dagfin reluctantly met her eyes. Melodies he’d played for her on the piano still echoing whenever she thought of him. Perhaps he had a chance against Peitho after all. Aisling’s heart warred between relief and outrage.
Of all of them, Aisling hadn’t expected this. Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, and Annind were her elder brothers, each given reason by their father to look down upon their little sister. But Dagfin was a friend. He who’d sworn to never lie to her whilst they threw coins in the courtyard well. He was now a Faerak ? So knowledgeable, so capable, so prominently aligned for power whilst Aisling was nothing. Left in the dark to rot until they could trade her as a pawn.
Aisling stood from the chair, the seat toppling over. There was truth in Nemed’s words, Aisling could tell. A genuine desire for the well- being, strength, and prosperity of the mortals. All of which Aisling understood. Wished for mankind herself. Didn’t she? For it dawned on Aisling here and now that Nemed was desperate to not only ensure the mortals were healthy, safe, and thriving but to ensure his side of the war won. That mankind lay waste to those who were stronger, older, more powerful than the fair folk through iron and fire. To demonstrate a curse couldn’t make them powerless. What mattered was to eat and not be eaten.
Lir was right. Had always been right and Aisling too naive to understand.
“ We are all beasts, slaves to desire. Mortals, Aos Sí, and all else driven by that which will sate our appetite. You must overpower that which sought to overpower you. Become the predator and not the prey .”
“ You wish to corrupt me. ”
“ No. I wish to show you, you already are .”
“Ash,” Dagfin started but it was too late. Aisling buzzed with anger, controlling the writhing rage of the draiocht lest it master her. Aisling didn’t think herself capable of such fury. Perhaps it was also the draiocht , feeding off her emotions and growing larger, stronger, more capable.
“Ash,” Galad said next, placing a hand on Aisling’s shoulder. But before she could address the fae knight at her side, he hissed in pain, drawing back his hand and looking up at the mortal queen with wide eyes. Those sapphire orbs glittering with surprise as he devoured the sight of her.
“Forge help us,” he cursed, collecting himself long enough for Aisling to look to the others for answers.
Their familiar faces beheld her in horror. And more than the dread, the horror, the confusion, was something else. Something far more painful to behold: a complete lack of recognition. As though Aisling were a stranger, employing their dead sister’s body like a host. Perhaps that was exactly what she was, a creature of great power and thus evil, for Aisling had never beheld anyone with such strength use it for good. And why should they if they wished to rule and not be ruled?
So, Aisling held out her hands, confirming what she already knew to be true. Without having called upon it. Without having spoken its name. After having believed she’d successfully resisted its calls, the draiocht emerged all the same, consuming her with fire till every pore on her body blazed in fiery, purple gems. She was a torch-lit star, hurtling towards the Earth hungry for destruction, the draiocht using her instead, and she found she enjoyed it.
“What have you done?” her father rasped, eyes wide, glazed over with tears. “What have you done, Aisling?”