Chapter III
CHAPTER III
AISLING
Dagfin was right.
Aisling needed a new cloak, but not for the cold. Aisling no longer looked entirely human, nor did she look thoroughly fae, but rather something in between. Her eyes were larger, the violet of their irises less human, and her features sharper. Something uncanny about the way her body moved.
She’d overheard the tales spilled around goblets of foaming mead, whispered beneath moonlight showers, and shared between lovers. In some tellings, the northern princess traded to the fae king as a symbol of peace between mortals and fair folk was a victim; her soul was sucked from her chest by a single kiss from the barbarian lord. In others, she’d bargained her soul, lost her soul, willfully gave her soul, stolen something she had no business meddling with. But no matter the version, all the stories ended similarly: the northern princess was no longer mortal. She was something else. Something no king nor queen nor commoner had ever witnessed before. She no longer belonged to iron but to the Forge and its bygone magic the Sidhe called draiocht .
And while Feradach selected the crew aboard the Starling for their discretion, Starn thought it best to hide Aisling’s face lest the potent truth of the rumors inspire fear in those around her. Lest they discover the full extent of her abilities.
But even with her face shrouded in the shadow of Dagfin’s cloak, the Starling ’s idle chatter fell silent as the sun rose over the Ashild. Gleaming through the cave in which their ship bobbed. All eyes pinned on Aisling.
Starn stood at the forefront of the ship, anchored to the port. The whole crew turned to heed his words: seasoned seafarers hardened by salt-ridden winds, the prideful gleam of the sun, and the memory of shipwrecks. Their mortal hatred for the Aos Sí reflected in every glance they offered Aisling. In the tightening of their fists around their iron swords, daggers, and belts whenever she appeared. Their faithless prayers to the gods they didn’t believe in. Aisling, the queen of those who buried their comrades deep below the surface. Where mortal man’s fire and iron were obsolete.
And even as the crew’s attention wavered at Aisling’s arrival, her eldest brother continued speaking.
Aisling kept to the side, hip pressed against the boat’s edge.
Mortals wreaked of mortality, a stench Aisling had never understood nor detected until she was reunited with her clann, with humans, after months of living with the fae. After she’d changed body, mind, and soul, their smell wasn’t what made her keep her distance. It was what hung limply from the mainmast like a gory chandelier.
A white stag peered down at the Starling , forced to watch mortal life till it wasted away on iron chains. The firelight from inside Castle Roktling’s monolith port gilding its corpse. Indeed, none had bothered to clean its hide of blood nor exchange its eyes for glass orbs. Instead, they left it to rot—a declaration of their hatred for the fae world. For the war waged for centuries between their races. For Lir and the forest he was the heart of.
“Did you hear me, Aisling?” Starn asked, waking Aisling from her reverie. Now, the crew glared at her without shame. Most oppressive, her eldest brother’s crow-like gaze seared into her skin. The image of their father flickering across Aisling’s vision and replacing Starn’s face for a fraction of a heartbeat.
“There is to be no music, no shouting, no sound other than a whisper while atop the deck. Not until we reach Fjallnorr,” Iarbonel, her second eldest brother, reiterated to spare his sister Starn’s wrath.
Indeed, their path to Lofgren’s Rise would be perilous, the threat of Unseelie ever present until they reached land northwest.
“This is no normal voyage,” Starn continued. “We don’t only mean to reach Fjallnorr, but to outrace those who pursue us. In which case, our efficiency is of the utmost importance.”
Every sovereign or subject, mortal or fae, was forge-bent on hunting Aisling down. She the enemy’s bride, a runaway queen, a traitor, and a sorceress. The first of her kind. And if they couldn’t reach Aisling first, they’d take the curse breaker rumored to rest atop Lofgren’s Rise in Fjallnorr country. A name that’d been written in tapestries of stars by the Lady. A weapon to cure the faults of Ina and the dooming of her kingdom to mortality. The mistake that bred humankind.
“This is your last opportunity to forgo this journey, and if you so choose, do so now.”
The Starling groaned, the ocean slapping against its round belly and the sails billowing restlessly, eager to set sail. But none of the crew uttered a word. The quiet between them was thick and oily. Willing themselves not a glance in Aisling’s direction.
Starn smiled, turning on his heel to begin undocking the ship. The rest of the crew interpreted his departure as their dismissal. All had chosen to continue on the Starling .
These rare mortal men who knew of the Unseelie were either brave or foolish. For Aisling had come face to face with such archaic beasts herself. The trow, the Cú Scáth, the fomorians, the dryads. Aisling knew the depths of their hunger. Their thirst for mortal blood and the marrow from human bones.
The crew finished loading the vessel with barreled and packaged goods. Dagfin and Starn had selected a craft already scheduled to travel west and to Lofgren’s Rise in the name of commerce. Otherwise, a lone ship setting sail from Castle Roktling would breed suspicion and prying eyes Aisling, Dagfin, nor her brothers welcomed.
Each crewmate did their part to untether the Starling from its port, deep inside the monolith on which Castle Roktling sat. Indeed, the fortress bore the burden of facing the sea’s wrath for all eternity—an iron bastion carved by mortal hands and delicately balanced on the bones of stone giants.
The only way to enter Castle Roktling was through its monolith and via ship, sailing directly into the colossal heart of stone until their vessel reached a glimmering port of sapphire, bronze, and iron, traced by murals of celestial maps and staircases spiraling upwards. But today, the Starling sailed out of the monolith and into Roktan harbors.
Aisling hid further inside her cloak as they emerged from the cave, the Starling ’s bone-white sails shimmering beneath an overcast sky as its oakwood body pushed against the foaming waves. Outside the monolith’s belly, Aisling could set eyes on Roktling land once more. Its city towns trailing down the black cliffs, dissolving into ports spilling over with blue sails.
A lump grew in Aisling’s throat, impossible to swallow. Her eyes pricked with heat, for the last time she’d left Roktling, she’d counted the breaths it took for Dagfin’s face to disappear behind the veil of mist perpetually shrouding his coastal kingdom. But that day, such mist hung more thickly. Grief, a rich shade of gray for the passing of a child destined to be king: Dagfin’s older brother.
Today, Dagfin stood before the bowsprit, his back to Roktling and the anglers casting their nets where boats didn’t bob, hauling in shimmering scales. The taverns, shops, and homes decorated with seashells and made of stone, save for the frames of their doors, forged in iron. A repellent against the fair folk should they pillage their land.
Aisling knew the sight of Dagfin’s kingdom took hold of his heart and squeezed. It made him want to run, to fight, to forget. And in many ways, Aisling should never have been surprised by his becoming a Faerak : hunters of the Unseelie, preying upon beasts bold enough to violate mortal boundaries.
Some of the common folk paused to watch the Starling disembark. Bidding farewell to the monolith’s shadow in favor of the open sea and the storm clouds approaching from the west.
But where Roktling was a kingdom of joyous people, today and all the days since Lir’s betrayal, they mourned the brief treaty that’d offered them peace, even if for a short while. A respite against the ever-present threat of Sidhe or Unseelie, now gone.
Seeing nothing but silver on the horizon, Aisling’s brows knit.
She longed for the forest. For the smell of rain and mud and wet leaves. For the croaking of insects and the babbling of creeks. But the vines that’d crawled through the Starling and held her were nothing compared to the elms that bent over and plucked her from the earth like a weed. A pale comparison to the puddles that deepened to swallow her whole. The forest intent on delivering Aisling back to her fae lord. The thorns, the stinging nettle, the poison ivy, and the wolves that nipped at her heels the further from the forest she ran, all inspired by Lir’s hunt for Aisling.
Alas, the water was salvation. A refuge where the forest couldn’t reach them. Couldn’t take what it believed belonged to them,
“Do you think Nemed is out there?” Aisling asked as her brothers, Iarbonel, Fergus, and Annind, joined her at the ship’s side.
“You mean to ask if he survived?” Annind looked to shore, his eyes searching the faces of those waving their vessel goodbye as if their father might be standing amongst them. The fire hand of the North, high king to all the Isles of Rinn Dúin, potentially, at last, slayed by the fae king’s ambush. The day Lir had betrayed the treaty, driven mad by Danu’s prophecy and unable to accept fae defeat or slaughter. A fact for which Aisling couldn’t blame him.
Nevertheless, his choice left destruction in its wake and lost him Aisling. He, yet another who’d kept Aisling in the dark.
“Aye, he survived,” Iarbonel assured Aisling to comfort her. Assuming Aisling’s query was born out of concern. Aisling wasn’t certain whether she cared if Nemed’s iron bones rotted in Unseelie pits or on fae stakes. He who’d burned the forest and delighted in its ashes. He who’d lied to her all her life and kept the truth hidden, obscure, and Aisling powerless. All her clann, complicit. His only saving grace was his unexpected rejoicing at the magic Aisling had stolen back after centuries of an unbreakable curse.
“Father always survives.”
“Perhaps this time is different,” Aisling said.
“I’ve learned never to underestimate Father,” Fergus chimed. “Rest assured, he’s searching for the curse breaker as we speak.”
“Or searching for Aisling herself.” Iarbonel rested his elbows along the vessel’s edge. “I can’t imagine the… changes Aisling has undergone wouldn’t weigh heavily on his mind and motivations. You all heard him celebrate Aisling and that she’d done what no mortal has been capable of before: she stole back the draiocht .”
“No.” Annind shook his head. “That very well may be. But he won’t search for her like every other forge-forsaken creature on this plane. He’ll wait till she goes to him.”
“Go to him?” Aisling scoffed, batting away the memory of his glistening eyes the first time he’d witnessed Aisling wield the draiocht .
“You’re his daughter, Aisling,” Annind said. “Nothing will ever change that.” His coal-black eyes met her glare. “You’ll never be alone so long as your túath breathes an iron breath. For blood of iron may rust but will never break like a spell. I promise you that.”
Aisling held her brother’s stare even as he reached for her gloved hand and held it. Hesitating before he touched her.
Aisling had witnessed the horror, the grief, the confusion flashing across her brothers’ expressions each time she summoned violet flame. The disgust they hid from her. The contempt all humankind had shown her since she’d sacrificed everything for their sake kindled unique rage within her.