Chapter XXXV
CHAPTER XXXV
DAGFIN
For each day the Ocras dwindled, Dagfin found the north grew colder. The wilderness harsher. He’d bought enough Ocras from Bludhaven to last the rest of the journey lest he endure severe injury. In which case, Dagfin only harbored what was necessary to heal himself and no more. But it was his appetite that truly plagued him. The desperate need to remind his tongue of its taste.
Dagfin stood at the mountain’s edge peering into the valley that lay between it and another ridge. Lofgren’s Rise was another half day’s journey, and so, they’d chosen to rest while still able.
Gilrel stood with Aisling at a river’s shoreline at the center of the valley, instructing Aisling on the best form and technique for wielding a blade. At first, she began the lesson with the marten’s sword. Something small, weightless. Then they offered her Galad’s weapon––a wicked sharp longsword forged with gleaming metals and cast so its edge curved.
Aisling performed better than she ever had in Tilren. She’d been miserable at their lessons, often chastised for her lack of skill. Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, and Annind condescending her for her weakness. But Dagfin never understood their scorn. Aisling was powerful before she ever inherited magic. She was fearless in the face of nightmares, of authority, of those who told her she couldn’t do whatever she liked. She was quick-witted and cunning. And she was hungry for a throne Dagfin never bore the courage to seize himself. Indeed, while Dagfin ran from the Roktan crown, Aisling pursued a crown of her own making. And yet, Dagfin was the hero the north heralded as Prince of Demons Death. Aisling, a traitorous thief and witch.
Dagfin couldn’t deny the shadows he’d witnessed, seeping beneath her skin like veins filled with tar while she burned the Starling ’s crew. It was survival. A means of preserving their own lives. A necessary means to an end , Dagfin repeated till he exhausted himself. And how she slayed Danu’s Unseelie but a few nights prior, winning a battle hundreds of mortal men had fought before her and lost…Aisling simply bore the ability to win. She’d done what Dagfin’s own father would have done to protect his people. Aisling was just more powerful. Still, Dagfin found it unsettled him. Made him fear for her soul. For whatever this binding between her and the fae king was becoming. The urge to rip it apart if it meant rescuing her, more reasonable by the hour.
No, she was brave and would stop at nothing, even in the face of pain, of danger, of conflict. Whether it be Nemed’s wrath as children or the gods’ now. She could fight the fae king’s influence.
“Sulking doesn’t befit you,” a feminine voice sounded from behind.
Dagfin shifted, doing his best to conceal his surprise. The fae were silent, stealthy, and weightless upon the forest floor.
Peitho stood a few paces away, approaching as lithe as a cat. Her blade sheathed at her back. Hands empty. Seemingly uninterested in physical conflict with the Faerak . Still, he held his breath when near her. When she walked too close to Aisling, eyeing the twitch of Peitho’s fingers. Memorizing where she hid her blade whilst she slept.
“I’m keeping watch, lest there be another ambush.”
“Ah, is that it?” Peitho said. “Do you normally keep watch by glaring solely at a dark-haired maiden?”
Dagfin cleared his throat, crossing his arms.
“Tell me, fleshling, why are you here?”
“I already told you. I’m keeping watch.”
“No,” she said. “Why have you journeyed this far with her?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Dagfin replied.
Peitho squinted but nodded her head in understanding. She tipped her chin at the river where Lir and Galad emerged, having bathed away the blood, dirt, smoke, and snow from the past several days. They approached the shore, Lir finding Aisling’s eyes as he exited. And as it always did each time Dagfin witnessed these exchanges, his heart sunk. The way their eyes connected across an expanse or when nearby. The way the world paused whenever they did so, holding its breath.
“It appears we both find ourselves unrequited,” Peitho said, her voice as broken as Dagfin felt. “It’s an unfortunate thing to find yourself on the periphery of a legend. The tales won’t speak of us. Only them,” she said, jealousy a Cornelian shade of orange behind her lashes.
“And yet you risk your life, aiding the one who rejected you.”
“And you she.” Peitho frowned, leaning against a nearby birch.
“Aisling hasn’t rejected me.” Dagfin knew Aisling felt for him at least a semblance of what he felt for her. He witnessed it time and time again, in her touch, her care, her wandering glances. And when everything was said and done. When Aisling found whatever she craved at Lofgren’s rise, Dagfin would wait a lifetime for Aisling to recognize the rightness of their pairing. That she made him brave and he made her good.
Peitho ignored him. “My only hope is that Lir finds himself at odds with his not-so-mortal queen in their pursuit of the curse breaker and whatever else lies at this godsforsaken summit. And if that’s the case, Lir will act accordingly. For Annwyn.”
“Are you certain of that?” Dagfin challenged.
“I’ve known Lir for centuries and if I know anything about him, it’s that Lir is motivated by two things: Annwyn and his fear of repeating his mother’s mistakes.”
“Motivation is only so potent until combined with a want ,” Dagfin said. “What does Lir want?”
Peitho paused, thinking to herself and recognition dawning.
Aisling swung the blade by the shoreline, her hands suddenly overcome with rare violets. She smiled, glancing over her shoulder at Lir, still dressing himself, and grinning at his mischief. His sorrow the past several days eclipsed by his renewed, easy arrogance. This despite the angry scars scratched beside his shoulder blades.
“Hope is a damnable thing,” Dagfin said. “For it is almost always false.”
AISLING
Welcome are those of breath,
My children, pardoned by death.
Enter and find in my keep a sanctuary
For all those whose blood runs faerie.
A colossal arch stood before them. The entrance to Lofgren’s Rise.
Aisling wasn’t certain what she’d expected, but it certainly hadn’t been a behemoth of a fae city, interlaced with the highest, snow-capped mountains in Fjallnorr. A threshold presaged by giant statues in the image of winged Aos Sí, holding the scroll of entrance before them as well as a mighty cauldron.
“This is Iod,” Aisling said breathlessly. All this time, Lofgren’s Rise was inside Iod. Aisling shook her head, weighing the importance of the ground she trod. A kingdom lost to both a curse and time. One that presaged her own birth and that of all humankind. A place of legends, of myths, of songs sung around campfires, and hummed at dawn. All before her, whittled into stone giants and forsaken by a ruinous love.
The group approached cautiously.
“Aye, this is Iod,” Lir replied, glancing inside the cauldron. “And it appears we weren’t the first to arrive.”
“There’s already been an offering?” Filverel asked, seeing for himself.
“Offering?” Aisling asked.
“Sidhe blood,” Filverel replied, appraising the already opened gate to the city.
“‘ For all those whose blood runs fairie ,’” Aisling repeated. “Only the Aos Sí may enter.”
“Another fae sovereign?” Dagfin suggested, twirling his knives between his fingers.
“Fionn,” Gilrel growled in conjecture, hopping atop the brim of the cauldron.
“No,” Lir said. “I’d know the stench of his blood as part of it flows freely in my own veins. This is someone else. None I recognize.”
“Lofgren’s Rise is heavily guarded,” Dagfin said, reminding Aisling he’d come before but never made it to the peak. “Whoever’s gone first has done us a favor. They’ll trip every alarm before we do.”
“Now that you mention it, how did you enter last, princeling?” Gilrel asked, crossing her paws.
“ Faeraks often carry fae blood in vials for masking our mortal scent. Last time I was here, I made use of those supplies.”
Gilrel softened her posture, but by the glimmer in her beady, black eyes, Aisling knew she still harbored suspicion.
The rest of their group stepped closer to the gate while Aisling lingered behind. Swiftly, she reached inside her pocket and found the parchment she’d stolen from the spell book in Bludhaven’s druid shop.
Touch for Memory:
Speak the following enchantment and touch
the desired object to relive its every memory.
Cuillhnigh ar rach hud
a kheap tú go ndearla tú dearkad .
Aisling memorized the words, quickly slipping the parchment back into her pocket the moment Filverel glanced back at her. And once he looked away, Aisling closed her eyes and hoped, gripping the cauldron and repeating the incantation beneath her breath while the others appraised the threshold into Iod. She felt the draiocht rise and breathe, but this time it was different. It was soft, guided, and molded by the words of the incantation instead of her own will. A spell. The draiocht straining against this new practice in discipline, one she’d attempted in the apple tree with Lir, the second in an effort to heal Lir, and the third now.
The draiocht snarled, nipping at Aisling as she spoke the incantation more loudly in her mind. Racat grimaced, resisting, until Aisling hissed in return, scolding the creature and demanding its obedience.
And it worked.
But the triumph was short-lived, eclipsed by the flashing of the cauldron’s memory: days of wintertide forced a shiver from Aisling’s body, the sensation of a bird’s talons gripping the lip of the cauldron, digging into Aisling’s temples, the memory of silence, of the stirring of the surrounding wood until at last, a memory that mattered appeared.
Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind, and Killian, stood around the cauldron. One by one they painted their palms in the blood of the fae, whose throat was slit at their feet, and dripped a single droplet into the cauldron. And once the last drop was spilt, they continued into Iod, lugging the body of the fae soldier by their ankles.
Aisling snapped back into the present time. She exhaled a laugh, quickly recovering before joining the others. A handful of seconds she’d been gone, maybe more, but it’d felt like much longer whilst inside the spell. And if Aisling could wield spells such as this, what else could she wield other than fire?
Aisling would indulge in such possibilities later. For now, her attention was focused on her brother.
Starn . One couldn’t enter Iod lest they bore fae blood, so her brother had found a way to circumvent Ina’s law by slaying a member of the Sidhe. A knight from Oighir, Aisling conjectured by the forgery of his armor. Starn, her brothers, and Killian desperate for a disguise.
Aisling cleared her throat.
“My brother has already been here,” Aisling said and the rest of the fae and Dagfin gritted their teeth or shifted. Perhaps having assumed but not been certain. Lir looked at Aisling over his shoulder where he stood nearest to Iod’s arch, eyes drifting to her hand still leaning against the cauldron.
“He’ll die before he reaches Lofgren’s peak,” Filverel said.
“He’s desperate enough not to,” Dagfin said. “That’s how they’ve made it this far.”
Indeed, Aisling’s brothers and Killian claimed they were returning home as soon as they’d escaped Oighir. But now that Aisling thought of it, her brothers’ plans had been designed with Annind’s health in mind and so, once Fionn had remedied him back to health to gain Aisling’s favor, there was no longer reason to return to Tilren.
Aisling cursed beneath her breath. She should’ve anticipated this but with everything unravelling so swiftly around her, she’d forgotten about her clann entirely. Glad to be rid of them.
Aisling shook her head.
“May I borrow a blade?” she asked. Galad did a double take, searching her eyes.
He handed Aisling a dagger from his bandolier and watched as she sliced her palm. The smell of her blood affording her the rest of their party’s attention.
“For the Faerak ?” Galad asked as Aisling let her blood drip into the cauldron. Dagfin flicked his eyes away, understanding that it was the half of Aisling’s blood that ran fae that allowed him entry.
“Aye,” Aisling replied.
“We’ll see if it works,” Galad said, collecting his dagger.
“And if it doesn’t?”
Galad hesitated, avoiding looking at the Faerak .
“Just as with his union with Peitho, the draiocht doesn’t take kindly to being deceived.”
Aisling’s heart stuttered. Glaring at the trail of blood scraped across the dusty, snow-ridden floors and into Iod’s winding halls.
Iod was breathtaking.
An endless city carved from the mountains and dusted in snow, divided by a slender valley parting the rise before it connected overtop once more. An arch in and of itself riddled with staircases, terraces, turrets, and battlements, and warmed by floating lanterns of fae light. Snowy owls perched and flapping their wings on every ledge. Carvings and statues of winged Sidhe dancing, battling, soaring. And where the staircases didn’t lead, still homes, arcades, shops, and village levels cut into the highest layers of stone, spindly towers suspended in the air by magic alone—reached only by those who could fly and no other.
All of it, abandoned and preserved despite the millennia that passed since Ina had forsaken her kingdom.
A land of ghosts and curses, casting whispers into the wind as their group walked inside.
Aisling was struck with the sensation she wasn’t meant to be there. That whatever remained of her mortal blood fought with every morsel of its will to flee in the opposite direction. Aisling glanced at Dagfin. The Faerak rolled his shoulders, seemingly as affected as Aisling was.
Lir drifted to where Aisling walked, unsheathing his axes.
It was deathly quiet. Not a sound except for the howling of the gale as it purled through Iod’s corridors.
“ Which direction do we travel first ?” Peitho asked in Rún, her radiance a contrast to the pale landscape around her. As though she too, didn’t belong.
Iod was a labyrinth of rocky corridors, staircases that broke off, tunnels, caves, and artfully carved reliefs. Winter flowers and garlands of pine needles draped and clinging to every landing, every arch, every ornamental buttress as the city loomed around and above them.
“Lofgren’s Rise is the tallest peak in Iod,” Lir said, gesturing to the tip of the kingdom’s arch.
Aisling squinted, glaring up and into the nebulous sky where Lofgren’s Rise slept.
“Do you remember how to get there?” Filverel asked, staring up and into the distance.
“I spent little time here as a child,” Lir said, brow furrowing. Aisling wasn’t certain what feelings his mother’s kingdom aroused in him. Sadness, grief, anger. Only that it disturbed the fae king. His temper short and his mouth bent cruelly.
“Nor I,” Galad added. He, another subject of the greenwood, born with Iod ancestry.
“We’ll follow the trail of blood,” Filverel said. “And hope the Faerak is right.”
“Let’s get this over with.” Lir led their group down the valley.
They each held their breath, and none spoke. Their thoughts ricocheting off the emptiness of Iod as they wandered through.
Aisling could almost hear the laughter that once spun through these pebbled corridors, filling these shops. The smell of gingerbreads, hazelnut pastries, sugarplum jellies, and cranberry ciders. The sound of their sleigh bells, lutes, and trumpets, and the taste of their draiocht . Like frostbite and perilous highland trails. How the air would’ve been crowded with fluttering winged fae. Their mirth, their life, vanished. All gone, corrupted, and forsaken by Ina for her caera . A foolish mistake that cost her everything. Standing in Iod now, the weight of such a mistake was made obvious.
And if the ghost of Iod’s past wasn’t enough, Aisling felt as though she were being watched. Studied as she entered. Every owl, glaring at her with their bulbous eyes till her skin crawled.
The trail of blood ended beside a staircase that barreled into the side of the mountain.
Above the staircase, letters were etched in Rún. So Gilrel translated for both Aisling and Dagfin.
Enter here only the invited.
The chosen, the mighty, and the knighted.
Otherwise, pay by breath,
the lasting coin of death.
Their attention wandered to a hand of stone, protruding from the wall beside the threshold.
“Ina enjoyed her riddles, it appears.” Filverel read the passage a few more times, disassembling each sentence word by word, syllable by syllable.
“This is ridiculous.” Peitho rushed to the entrance, prepared to dive into the darkness. Her hand slipped past the entryway first, snatching a bloodcurdling scream from her lips. And when she drew back her hand, it was skeletal; phantom white, the flesh stripped from her fingers and shriveled to dust, slowly returning to normal the longer she stayed away from the threshold. Horror marked her features until her hand, at last, bore no signs of the death-given bones it had just donned.
“I suppose we haven’t an invitation after all,” Gilrel said, grabbing Peitho’s hand and studying it up close.
“From whom?” Dagfin asked.
“Ina.” Aisling moved forward, tracing the stone hand with her fingertips.
“Careful,” Galad said, moving beside her as if to take her hand away. Before he could, Aisling’s fingertips lit like matches, sparked by the magic of the mountain.
“Remember the doorknob in Annwyn?” Aisling asked the knight. “The whittled hand each and every visitor must clasp to make its acquaintance? This is no different. Only now, we meet the mountain itself. Lofgren’s Rise will determine if Ina has invited us or not.”
At Aisling’s words, they each peered through the threshold.
Darkness veiled its full passage, but Aisling could nevertheless see its path spin upwards into the heart of god-forged rock.
Aisling folded her hand into the stone’s grasp.
The mountain heaved in and out, as though gasping for breath. Its every expire low, thick, and timbersome, vibrating with magic lingering from the beginning of time. With rain pelting its jagged back, trees growing over its boulders, and stars bending lower to lick its peaks. This giant annealed by the Forge and the gods themselves, weary after centuries of hoarding Iod’s abandoned kingdom.
Fire ignited around Aisling’s knuckles, wove across the stone hand’s wrist, and spilled into the interlace tracing the door. Every stroke and groove filled with flame, lighting the entryway in violet fire.
“Wait,” Dagfin and Lir said in unison, but Aisling was already stepping through the threshold. She crossed, unharmed, and purpled by the glow of her flames.