The Savage Queen (The Aisling Trilogy #2)

Chapter XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXIV

AISLING

Time didn’t burden the feywilds.

After endless days and sparkling nights, Aisling wasn’t certain how long they’d traveled. Only that they did so in silence. Still stunned from their encounter with Danu. The fae king a shadow of his former self, haunted by his mutilation. Haunted by the absence of what he’d carried for centuries, careful of its vulnerability. Wings now torn and left to freeze in Fionn’s ice.

He ignored her. Aisling wasn’t certain why. Only that Lir disappeared for hours between the trees, refusing to be accompanied or respond, to be near, to speak with anyone save the forest itself. So, Aisling allowed him his time to grieve. To understand both the sadness and the anger.

Aisling tossed in her sleep, avoiding another encounter with the Lady to little avail. A plane the Lady accessed easily, warping Aisling’s dreams into nightmares and prophecies.

The rest of the Sidhe slept in a circle beside her. All of them, beneath the shelter of a cave. Dagfin an arm’s length away, still clutching a dagger even as he slept. Lir and Gilrel were on night watch, threading through the forest for any enemies that dared lay siege so soon after their last onslaught.

Racat hadn’t found Danu after she’d escaped. The dragon, a question in all their minds, grief and shock the only barrier preventing any to speak of the form Aisling’s draiocht had taken and interrogate her for it. Although she knew, by the look in Filverel’s eyes, the questions were coming. Questions that haunted Aisling and answers her draiocht hid each time she confronted the beast with her queries. Mastery of magic, in its essence, was the dominion of beasts, Aisling was realizing. A balance between control and power; to either leash your draiocht , let it ravage freely, or find some alternative in between.

Nevertheless, Danu hid. Her roots shriveling, knotting, and slithering into the cave where she’d fled. Gathering her legions in another part of the continent, Aisling assumed. Lying in wait to finish what she’d begun.

But despite Aisling’s fires, Danu hadn’t entirely lost.

The empress had managed to best Lir, the most powerful Sidhe lord, because she’d taken advantage of his weakness: Aisling herself. Had Lir not sheltered Aisling from the poisoned roots and shards that staked his back, he never would’ve fallen prey to her schemes. It was Aisling and the protection he’d allotted her that’d ultimately been his downfall. A sacrifice that went against his very nature.

One half of Aisling grew sick with guilt. The other half convinced herself Lir’s actions were self-serving. Protecting the host that amplified his power and nothing more.

And yet, despite their escape, Danu had taken, and would continue to take, from Aisling’s mind. Plaguing her dreams, alongside the Lady, with the caustic screams of Aisling’s victims. The brutality of her slaughter dissolving the anger Aisling wielded so readily into unfamiliar sadness. Rage, anger, fury made Aisling feel strong. On the brim of spilling over with power. Sadness, on the other hand, made her feel weak and helpless. A memory of her human self. Her dreams flooded by midnight tears till she sprung awake screaming and sobbing in a cold sweat.

“Ash,” Lir’s voice sounded in the night. Aisling whipped her head to the forest’s lip, finding Lir’s eyes reflecting the light of the moon amidst the dark. Lir emerged from the surrounding pines. He studied her closely and before Aisling could wipe away her tears, he was kneeling beside her. His proximity stirring the forest and enveloping them in wisps of cypress needles and sweet saps from the midnight gale he inspired.

Aisling made to push him away. To hide her tears. But Lir pulled her close, his long legs on either side of her, his arms holding her waist against his torso.

Too stunned to move, Aisling held her breath, the sensation of his arms burning through her garments and knotting her stomach.

Aisling glanced up and into his eyes. Flecked with a sorrow of their own, they softened, exploring the red sheen of her eyes still glazed with the memory of her nightmares. Aisling had never seen him like this. Looking as sad as she felt, his embrace warm and…almost kind. And then it occurred to Aisling that Lir had never seen her so unguarded either. That Aisling had never wept in sorrow before him, only in anger. That Aisling had never cried out in fear in his presence. That Aisling had never let Lir witness when she felt fully vulnerable. Fully as fragile as she did in the night, when she was powerless against the guilt that racked her.

Upon the realization, Aisling thrust her walls up once more and, afraid he might pity her, she placed a hand against his chest to push him away. He caught her wrist.

“It was a nightmare and nothing more,” she said.

“You’re afraid,” he conjectured, his voice deep and vibrating through her core. Aisling said nothing but her silence was answer enough. “So long as I’m near, neither Danu nor the Lady nor Fionn will ever harm you.” At last, his voice was laced with familiar bloodthirst.

Aisling shook her head. “That’s not what frightens me.”

Lir searched her expression for the answers he sought.

“Then what? Tell me and I’ll take it all away.”

Aisling fixed her eyes on his own. Unsure what to think of his words. Afraid to let herself believe he, the dark barbarian lord of the greenwood, might care for her. Might want Aisling independently of the power she promised.

“I’m afraid of myself,” she said, surprising herself the moment the words fell from her lips. “I’m afraid of what I’m becoming.”

Lir’s eyes narrowed, shaking his head as though in disbelief.

“You’re becoming who you were always born to be.”

“And who is that?” Aisling asked, both to herself and Lir. “I still hear their voices, their screams. Whether it be on the Starling or Danu’s legions. My hands are stained with their blood. Irredeemably burdened by the lives I’ve reaped.” The words forced out more tears, reddening the apples of Aisling’s cheeks and the tip of her nose.

Without hesitation, Lir’s grip tightened. And the comfort, the rightness of his embrace, shook Aisling with her cries. She wet his leathers with her sobs, allowing herself this weakness. This vulnerability against the beat of his wicked heart. Because such a heart understood her own. Understood the evils she’d now committed in a way few others ever could. For who understood and accepted the curve of one’s shadow better than the darkness himself?

“Change is painful, ellwyn ; the oaks mourn their leaves come autumn, the night bleeds into sunset, and the wolf cries at the blood moon. But there is meaning in the suffering.”

The wind wove through both their hair, whispering in a language Aisling couldn’t understand. Bracing itself against the groans of thunder up above and the approaching storm. Droplets, slipping through the canopies and sliding down Aisling’s face alongside her tears.

She only needed a breath. A few minutes to sort through her thoughts before she pulled away, cooled by the rain. Yet his touch muddled her mind, an intense intimacy blooming between them as his words, his hands, his heart pounding against her ear became all consuming.

Aisling moved to pull away but met his eyes instead. A mistake for, this time, they captured her, bespelled her with their sage magic. Nuanced and pining as he leaned closer the same moment Aisling did. His expression shadowed, eyes drifting to her lips. Both of them, closing their eyes as they defeated the last remaining distance.

Yet their lips never met, the movement interrupted by Aisling’s arm knocking into Lir’s axes, strapped against his back.

Immediately, Lir pulled away, jerking free of their embrace. Expression shuttering with a flash of betrayal.

They both unfurled from their position on the ground. Their pocket of peace, destroyed. A thin veil of rain, separating one from the other.

“Never,” he said, “touch my axe again. Are we clear?”

Aisling had wielded Lir’s axes once before. At the Snaidhm where she’d beheaded the trow at his command. Hardly able to lift it, much less slay the beast that’d hunted her. Now, its blades twinkled as though glazed with tears themselves.

Aisling frowned, still orienting herself from the sudden shift in his temper. Wiping away the last of her tears with the sleeve of her leathers.

“Afraid I’ll wield them against you?”

“Would you?” he asked.

“If necessary.”

“You almost wound me, ellwyn .”

“Perhaps I should try harder then.”

Lir’s expression brightened, flashing with amusement. The first time since Danu’s encounter his eyes flickered with light.

“What do you know of these axes?”

“Gifted by the gods, they’ve spilt mortal blood for centuries.”

“Aye, imbued with primeval draiocht .”

“Is that why you never let them out of your sight?”

Lir considered her, the sensation of his undivided attention chilling.

“Together their name is Hiraeth, the Heart of Annwyn.”

Aisling repeated the name in her mind, familiarizing herself with its nuances. Hiraeth, the Heart of Annwyn . “What does that mean?”

“To destroy either Annwyn or Hiraeth would be to destroy the other,” Lir said. Aisling appraised his axes anew, glimmering with life. Their blades were black, as though chiseled and sculpted from onyx and engraved with fae runes. The haft was wooden and wrapped in leafy vines that moved, slithered, at times braiding themselves around Lir’s forearms while he fought.

Aisling arched a brow. “Why would you entrust with me such information?”

“You’re the queen of Annwyn. You should know.”

Aisling bit her bottom lip, wondering if this was Lir’s way of exchanging her vulnerable tears with a vulnerability of his own.

“Filverel would seethe if he knew you’d divulged anything of the sort with me.”

Lir shrugged. “Maybe I think it’s attractive when we play with fire.”

Aisling’s stomach dipped. The fact she was alone with the fae king, suddenly more electric. The others soundly asleep beneath the blanket of stars above.

He stepped closer.

“Careful.” Aisling held out her hand, her fingertips holding back his chest from coming any nearer. “I might start to believe you’re flirting with me.”

“Who says I’m not?”

Lir moved nearer still. His hair dripping with rain as it fell over them with more force. Speckling his otherworldly features as it had in her dream.

Lir was toying with her, his manipulation clear, intentionally balancing on a knife’s edge of affection. His abrupt shift from kind and vulnerable to sharp and wolfish made Aisling certain of it. Anything to convince Aisling to truly bind with him if it meant complete sovereignty. An archaic sort of magic that left all but a fortunate few bloodied and scarred. But Aisling could wield such manipulation just well.

“If you were flirting with me, you would’ve taken me by now.” Aisling moved closer, steeling herself. Spelling her every movement with the seductive tilt she’d studied in her encounter with the merrow. And to her surprise, Lir’s arrogance flickered, his expression flashing with surprise, before his eyes darkened and his throat bobbed, studying his opponent anew. His fangs lengthened, balancing a bead of rain at their tip.

“Or are you too afraid?” Aisling asked. “Afraid you’re no longer in control?”

A muscle flashed across Lir’s jaw.

Aisling moved to touch his shoulder, but Lir stepped away, just out of reach.

“You shouldn’t taunt me, ellwyn . It’s a game you won’t win.”

“Who says you’re the only one who seeks the power our binding will yield?” Aisling asked, her voice as silky as wine and as thick as cream.

“Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked, his voice rougher than Aisling had ever heard it. “The power?”

Aisling despised herself for hesitating. For taking more than a breath to respond.

“What else is there?” She repeated the sentiment he’d spoken in Fionn’s castle. And for a moment, Aisling thought she saw a glimmer of disappointment in Lir’s eyes hidden deep within and carefully veiled.

“But if you’re not ready to truly bind, there’s always Fionn?—”

Lir moved toward her, quicker than Aisling could blink. Forehead to forehead as he glared down at her.

“Never,” he growled, his voice dangerously deep, “threaten that again.”

Aisling resisted the urge to wilt, grinding her teeth and leveling her scowl.

“Why the change of heart?” Aisling asked. “At Peitho and Dagfin’s union, you were forge-bent on either killing me or protecting me. So, what’s changed?”

Lir closed his eyes, battling something Aisling didn’t understand. His face contorting with frustration, anger, and boundless yearning. Enough to spill past his walls and poison Aisling’s resolve.

Lir bared his teeth. “A piece of whatever sanity still bloomed in my bones was ripped the moment I thought I’d lost you and burned entirely when you left me.”

Aisling willed the fluttering of her heart to stop. The rhythm of Lir’s heart pounding, maddening.

“Without one another,” Lir said, “we’re half of our true potential. Made obvious by our months apart.”

Lir cupped her neck with his bare fingers, sliding his hand up and into her hair. Chills ran down Aisling’s spine, vanishing the words on her tongue. Burning her lips where his hand moved, finding her jaw and pressing his thumb against her bottom lip. Mercilessly, his eyes grazed her mouth.

“Maybe you need me more than I need you,” Aisling said. “Maybe you bare your fangs now, but you still mourn the loss of your wings. What Danu took from you.”

Lir wrenched his eyes shut.

“Danu will pay for what she’s done,” Lir said.

“Aye, she will, by either you or I but she’ll pay all the same.”

Lir searched her face, but whether he found whatever he searched for, Aisling wasn’t certain.

“Let me see your scars,” Aisling said, her voice lowering.

Lir hesitated. This demand was a risk. To, for a breath, lay down their serrated words, their blades, their enemy masks, and allow Aisling a glimpse beneath his armor. As she’d done for him.

Lir clenched his jaw, the sharp edge of it slick with rain. And just when Aisling believed he’d leave her there, standing in the storm to wallow in his grief as he’d done the past several days, he pulled off his leathers, his tunic, his pauldron, his hood, till nothing except for his axes and their bandolier were trapped against his bare chest. An abdomen chiseled, lean, and etched in fae markings.

Painfully, she swallowed the stone in her throat, daring herself not to stray from his gaze, even as he unsheathed his axes and turned, displaying his scars in all their glory.

Fair folk flesh healed rapidly. Miraculously. But these were the scars of deep, lifelong wounds that could never heal entirely. Angry, jagged, deep, and fresh, they tore into his shoulder blades as though blunt knives had clumsily dug out Lir’s wings. The memory of his pain and Aisling’s fires, lacing every stroke. The image of it, a tale better left forgotten.

Before Aisling could think better of it, she reached for him, that familiar sadness she’d felt upon waking, reigniting and pressing the backs of her eyes with heat. Her fingertips traced each scar, and the moment they touched his back, Lir flinched. Shoulders shuddering the longer she trailed every angle. And yet, Aisling felt as though she were already on borrowed time, Lir capable of snapping at her like a wolf protects its wounds.

“Thank you,” Lir said instead. “For sparing my life.”

Aisling opened her mouth to speak but stopped short. He didn’t need to thank her. There was no reality where Aisling would’ve let him die. The decision already forged in her bones and in her heart.