The Savage Queen (The Aisling Trilogy #2)

Chapter IX

CHAPTER IX

AISLING

Aisling emerged from a puddle of rain on the forest floor, lifting herself from the earth and onto her two feet. Lir already stood waiting, leaning against the trunk of a willow. And as soon as she appeared, his eyes flashed a more vibrant shade of green.

“Are you just a dream?” Aisling asked, pulling apart the willow’s hanging branches, a veil of flowering leaves. “Or are you real?”

“This time or every time?”

“Every time.”

Lir considered her, his dark lashes beading with moisture from the cloudburst around them.

“Real,” he said, his voice warming her abdomen.

“So, you’ve magicked your way into my mind.”

Lir smirked. “It’s not I who’s magicked their way into someone’s mind.”

“Then who?”

Lir’s expression grew more satisfied.

“I searched for a way to you. Any way I could touch you, feel you, be near you,” he said. “And had you not wanted the same, I never could’ve stepped into your dreams the way I have.”

Aisling ignored the silver-eyed ravens taking flight inside her abdomen. The heat creeping beneath her cheeks.

“You’re capable of a great many things, Aisling. In time, you’ll cast spells, enchantments, wield the draiocht to the cusp of your own limits.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I think you do.”

“You think you know everything.”

He smiled at that, a razor-sharp grin that tilted the earth.

“I know what I want,” he replied, angling his head down to meet her eyes. They spoke a pace away from one another, shielded by the arms of the willow but steeped in the storm all the same.

“And what if you can’t have it?”

Slowly, Lir closed the distance between them till they stood but a breath’s width away. As with every time, as though he yearned for her touch as she did his. Against her own volition, craved it. The smell of him, the taste of his proximity, tightening the cord between them and pulling till Aisling believed she might surrender what self-control she still hoarded.

“A lesson you’ll learn in our eternity together, ellwyn , is that I always get what I want.”

Aisling held her breath.

“ Ellwyn ?”

Lir opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by a noise. An image perhaps? Aisling wasn’t certain. Only that it caught his eye. Something shifting in the periphery.

Aisling followed his line of sight but saw nothing, the beat of her heart racing alongside his own. His eyes widened with a strange sort of panic Aisling had only ever seen when the fae king believed himself outside control.

“Wake up,” he said, his voice rougher now, laced with urgency. “Wake up, Aisling.”

Aisling staggered back as he reached out for her. Never had they touched before. Always, just before their bodies met, Aisling was snapped back into reality. Until now.

Lir caught her wrist, the sensation of his skin atop her own, burning where they touched.

Their gaze connected, Lir both equally perplexed and shocked, eyes large and questioning. But it was too late. Aisling was already spiraling back, falling upwards, and out of her dreams.

Aisling woke to a sword at her throat.

An impossibly large man dressed in blood-matted furs stood above her. He was perhaps a decade younger than her father. Dark stains streaked across his face, smeared by sweat, dirt, and snowstorms. A torch in one hand and his blade in the other. The stench of his iron was thick and putrid.

Aisling paled, her tongue turning to ash in her mouth.

The man brought a finger to his lips.

“Sshh,” he said, lest she scream.

The others all lay sound asleep. Fergus snoring, Iarbonel hidden beneath his furs and cloak, Annind still curled beside the dying fire, and Starn, dagger in hand, passed out at the base of a nearby tree. The rest of the crew that’d accompanied them were equally as unconscious.

The stranger’s men tiptoed through their camp, silently, deftly. Slitting throat by throat before their victims bore the wherewithal to scream. Death smoking their camp alongside the dying fire.

There were perhaps ten of them, maybe twelve, sifting through their camp while their horses waited behind a thick grove of trees, Aisling realized, peering into the darkness. Her eyes more capable of adjusting to the night ever since she’d changed.

Aisling swallowed, searching for Dagfin and Killian. Last Aisling remembered, it was two of the younger crewmates’ shift to keep watch but Aisling knew better than to believe Dagfin would ever rest if there was potential danger nearby.

“Get up,” the man ordered Aisling, his voice a mere whisper in the midnight winds. A strange accent inflecting his voice.

Aisling did as she was told, the tip of his blade still at her throat, cautiously uncurling herself. The man watched her closely, narrowing his eyes to better see past the shadow of Dagfin’s cloak veiling her features.

“Who are you?” he asked, deathly low.

But it wasn’t Aisling’s face that surrendered her identity. It was her brothers’ weapons, their Neimedh tartans, their embroidered fists clutching the ruby-red flame of mortality. The stranger’s men fiddled with her brothers’ things and signaled to their leader. Four Tilrish princes and their sister, the not-so-mortal queen of Annwyn.

The stranger’s brows rose.

“Could it be?” Without further hesitation, he tore the hood from her head and held the torch beside her face. Gilded by the firelight, Aisling scowled at him, her violet eyes glittering amidst the darkness with the primeval, forge-touched magic she knew he searched for. Wished to see before confirming it was, indeed, she in his presence.

“You weren’t so difficult to find.” The stranger smiled, cocking his head in gesture. His men obeyed, tossing him chains of iron.

“Let’s see if iron affects you the same way it does them,” he said.

Aisling clenched her jaw. She knew what was to come. He’d bind her with iron like a wild beast, smothering the draiocht to strip her of all her power.

Aisling considered summoning her flames. There was little her captor could do against fire with nothing more than a sword. But his men bore weapons of all make and size, brandishing them beside her unassuming brothers’ throats, her clann—whether or not she felt such blood thinning, it gave her reason for pause. To summon her draiocht would be to risk their lives, either by the blades of their enemies or her uncontrolled flames. Starn’s voice ricocheted in her mind. “ How could you ?!” The harrowed expressions the crew all shared after Aisling had single-handedly sacrificed their comrades to spare the Starling and those who remained aboard were an unwanted memory. The weight of her guilt a burden.

Aisling swallowed the draiocht .

Dagfin and Killian were still nowhere to be found. So, Aisling dug her nails into her palms as the stranger wrapped her in his iron chains, tugging on them like a leash. The iron clawed beneath Aisling’s nails and sunk into her teeth. So potent, Aisling could taste it on her tongue; blood and rust and dirt whose acid blistered her senses. She shook her head, fighting the dizziness.

“Tell me, do you have fangs as well? Pointed ears?” The stranger moved to part her hair, Aisling readying herself to bite off his finger. But before she bore the opportunity, a dagger whistled past them both.

Faces splattered in blood, Aisling flinched, focusing on her captor’s screams. His hand was nailed to the nearby pine by the body of a knife. Her chest tightened at the sudden violence.

Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind, and those left alive jolted awake at the abrupt commotion. Blades were already pressed against many of their necks; others were free to leap to their feet or swift enough to bat their captors away. Starn included.

The high prince whacked his assailant’s blade to the right, plunging his dagger into his thigh with his left hand. The man screamed, falling backward as Starn bolted for Iarbonel, wrestling another stranger atop the ice. With a wicked elbow to the temple, their enemy flew to the side, disoriented and clutching his head.

Crossbow bolts whipped through the camp, striking he who detained Fergus straight through the jaw and nailing Annind’s opponent in the eye till the tip of the bolt sprouted on the other side of his skull.

The horses whinnied madly, pulling at the tethers binding them to the nearby trees.

But it was Dagfin who watched from the shadows as Aisling’s captor plucked the knife from his hand. The fleshy sound of it echoed into the surrounding woodland as Dagfin slid behind him, quiet as a falling star, and poised his blade beneath her captor’s chin.

“Who are you?” her captor growled at Dagfin. The rest of his men paused, recognition dawning that their leader was at blade point. And should he somehow escape Dagfin’s hold, Killian stood at the camp’s periphery, crossbow aimed for release.

“I might ask you the same,” Dagfin said, the levity in his voice prickling Aisling’s nerves.

“Ah.” The stranger laughed, still clutching his punctured hand. “You’re a Faerak . I’d smell that Ocras anywhere. Especially in such potent doses.”

Dagfin pressed the tip of his blade till the stranger’s throat beaded crimson.

“ Faeraks slaughter beasts by the dozens but do they slaughter mortal men as well? Those they’ve sworn to protect from monsters like her ?” The stranger tilted his head at Aisling, still bound in chains of iron.

There was a flash of conflicted emotion darting across Dagfin’s expression, but it was gone before Aisling could understand it.

“Give me your name,” Dagfin demanded, growing more impatient.

“Should I say I’m the chieftain of Fjallnorr, Sigewulf IX, and first among equals: would that suffice to spare my life?” The stranger grinned crookedly, a smile that forewarned deceit.

Dagfin hesitated, his grip on the dagger shifting.

“Perhaps it’ll only justify your death,” Starn said, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Considering you’ve just attempted to murder four Tilrish princes.”

“You don’t include your sister?” the stranger asked. “Or do you not consider her blood anymore?”

Starn worked his jaw, deigning to turn in Aisling’s direction.

“Enough,” Dagfin fumed. “If we’re to believe you’re the chieftain of Fjallnorr, what is it you want with Aisling?”

“If I am Sigewulf, isn’t it each of you who should be answering to me? Considering you’ve trespassed on my land, avoided my ports, and wandered through my forests. You’re fortunate I didn’t immediately slit each of your throats while you slept.”

Fergus gulped, surveying the dead for the first time, limply strewn across the forest floor.

Killian released a grim laugh. “Perhaps you would’ve, had you not anticipated two Faeraks in their company. So now, with only the trees to bear witness—land you know as well as the Fjallnorrians is no land of man’s—it’s a blade that decides sovereignship. And right now, chieftain or not, you’re in no position of power.”

The supposed chieftain of Fjallnorr nodded his head, digesting Killian’s words, the tip of his bolt, and the edge of Dagfin’s dagger. Each of his men was paralyzed into submission until their leader was freed. Expressions hidden behind bleeding streaks of paint.

“Free her,” Sigewulf commanded his men. They hesitated, glaring at their leader for a second too long, forcing him to repeat himself. “Free her!”

Two men rushed to unlock and unwrap Aisling’s shackles.

The relief as soon as the iron was lifted was euphoric. Every morsel of bodily strength returned to Aisling in a single breath as the chains fell away and onto the cold dirt. The draiocht gasping for air, after nearly drowning in a magicless cavern.

Aisling cracked her neck from side to side, baring her teeth at the chieftain with renewed rage. He wasn’t the first man of royal blood to either bind her or attempt to, but Aisling would ensure he was the last.

Before she could think more of it, Aisling traced a circle in the air and summoned a halo of fire above Sigewulf’s head. A dangling threat should he not comply. Starn shifted but this time said nothing, grinding his frustration between his teeth.

“Ash,” Dagfin warned, but Aisling ignored him.

“What is it you want with me?” she asked, studying the beads of sweat glistening atop Sigewulf’s forehead with the threat of her flames. For the first time, Sigewulf’s face went slack with apprehension. He swallowed, the muscles in his throat bobbing. A mighty chieftain made fearful in her presence.

Aisling’s lips curled, unable to resist the satisfaction such fear bred.

“What does any man want with something coveted, rare, and valuable?” he asked in return, watching every nuance of her expression. “He wants to claim it for himself.”

With swift ease, Dagfin shoved Sigewulf into the body of a pine, tearing apart Aisling’s enchantment. His strength alarming.

Dagfin poised the dagger’s tip beneath the chieftain’s chin, pointing it as though he’d shove it past his mouth and into his skull.

“Come now, Faerak . You can’t condemn me for the sins we share.”

“Give me one reason not to plunge this blade up your throat.”

“Other than your vows to protect man from beast?” the chieftain taunted. “For one, you might find me useful in locating the curse breaker.”

Silence rippled throughout the camp, nothing but the chuckling midnight trees interrupting each of their thoughts. Mention of the curse breaker was risky, especially from the mouth of a chieftain, king, or laird. Indeed, every man or fae alive was in pursuit of the curse breaker once its existence was spoken into the northern winds at the last fae and mortal union. To name it again was to declare oneself a competitor.

“I know these lands blind, how the trees shift and move, how the night stretches at odd hours, stealing from the daylight. How the mountains will play tricks on your mind.”

Iarbonel visibly shuddered, exchanging nervous glances with Fergus.

“You need me,” Sigewulf said.

Dagfin shifted, weighing the chieftain’s words while Sigewulf’s men awaited the release of their leader. Their white-blonde hair dyed gold by the light of their torches.

A branch snapped in the distance. Perhaps ice cracking or soil upturned.

Dagfin and Killian tensed at once, searching the dark around them. Panicked, the horses bucked, grabbing their tethers with their teeth.

“Do you have more men out there?” Starn asked.

Sigewulf shook his head. “No, Fjallnorr kin travel in small groups.”

“For forge’s sake,” Annind blurted, shifting his body so his back faced the camp and not the surrounding forest.

“Aisling,” Dagfin said, releasing Sigewulf. “Step away from the trees.”

Indeed, Aisling stood at the lip of their camp, tiptoeing the line between firelight and shadow. Slowly, Aisling moved to stand beside Dagfin, shoulder to shoulder.

Not another sound was made. Somehow worse than a growl or roar. The quiet mocked them and licked its lips.

“Some more of your friends?” Starn asked Aisling, tightening his grip around the haft of his blade now slick with sweat.

Aisling glared at him. The words eluded her. For she couldn’t smell nor feel a single animal save the chief of Fjallnorr’s frenzied mares. No wolves, nor foxes, nor hares, nor birds, nor snakes. As though the forest were suddenly empty. A fathomless abyss made of spindly bones.

But then it laughed, teeth clicking as it cleared its throat of dirt.