The Savage Queen (The Aisling Trilogy #2)

Chapter XXXIX

CHAPTER XXXIX

AISLING

The cold of Fionn’s chamber betrayed the warmth of the following hall.

A chapel of some sort, wrapped in the mosaic of Racat and blurred by the incense purling to the glass ceilings up above, warning of the night to come. An altar at the foot of the room, protected by the image of an owl, wings outstretched.

Aisling moved first, near racing down the center aisle. She needed to reach Lofgren’s peak before she dissolved into madness. Her heart ripping in two with every bloody beat.

“Aisling, wait—” Lir called after her, but Aisling despised the sound of his voice. Its every seductive lilt, the depth of its timber, how it thrummed through her core. How it made her, even for a breath, justify what Lir had confessed to Fionn.

“ Then her purpose will be fulfilled, ended by my axe .”

Lir couldn’t lie. And so, his words rang true and straight, threading the lines of fate into a tapestry of her death.

“Aisling.” Lir caught Aisling’s wrist spinning her toward him. Aisling summoned her draiocht but found it still swathed in smoke. The dragún inside manically trying to defrost whatever bitter winter Fionn and the Lady had blown into Aisling’s heart. The collar around her neck strangling her.

“Aisling,” he said again, searching her eyes, his own ringed with dark circles. The sharp edge of his jaw lined in cuts and his arm still bleeding from the clash with his brother.

“Never speak my name again!” she shouted, shoving him back. Embarrassed by the height of her anger, by the intensity of her emotion.

Lir had never claimed to be anything other than her enemy. An ally at times. Someone bound by the Forge. But never a friend, never a lover—Aisling shook her head, stopping the thoughts from progressing and swirling inside her head. Yet the betrayal was as potent as if they were lovers. As if they didn’t despise one another.

Lir grabbed her wrist, moving closer still, backing her against the far wall and beneath the marble owl frozen midflight. Their heads curtained by the creature’s wings.

“You’re angry,” he said, tightening his grip. “Yet you should know everything I spoke was?—”

“The truth for you cannot tell a lie? Or can you?” Aisling seethed. “Which is it, Lir? What sort of liar are you?”

“I never pretended to care for you,” he said, spearing Aisling in the heart. Her stomach rising into her throat and lodging itself like a stone she couldn’t swallow. Cheeks blistering with heat.

“No,” she said. “Yet you promised me an alliance, an allegiance at least. The power, the position you knew I hungered for, you used it against me—the crimes of my clann against me, my newfound draiocht , my need to reach Lofgren’s Rise. Everything you’ve manipulated to your benefit.”

Lir bared his teeth, the tips of his canines sparkling. Shoulders hiked with tension. As though he himself wasn’t certain which mask to don. Which lie to speak to either Aisling or himself.

“You are my benefit,” he said, every word as cold as the grave.

“I am a means to your end!” Aisling screamed, moving to push him. but he caught her instead, wrapping an arm around her waist to prevent her from striking again.

“No,” he said, hardly a whisper, his lips a hair width from her own. “You are my nightmare.” He pressed his forehead against her own. “My torment, my inevitable ruin.” His breath was heavy, muscles tightening, eyes burning through her lips as he studied their every nuance with a hunger that inspired the feline glimmer in his verdant gaze. “And my unholy obsession.”

Aisling forced herself to swallow, to meet Lir’s eyes, to claw through the hurt that ravaged her chest and laid waste to her lungs.

“I’d ask which it is: obsession or manipulation?” Aisling steeled herself against the thrashing of her heart. “Yet I’d never receive a clear answer void of trickery.”

The corners of Lir’s lips curled despite himself. “I don’t have a clear answer, ellwyn .”

Aisling turned her head to the side.

“I can’t accept that,” she said. Aisling moved out of his arms and pressed her palms against the far wall. As though no distance was enough to separate them.

Lir opened his mouth to speak but was stopped short by the runes that burned into the wall behind Aisling, carving out a door.

Lir stepped back, appraising it anew, eyes wide with wonder.

“How did you open this?” Lir asked, eyes darting between the glowing runes and Aisling’s hands at her sides.

Aisling shook her head. She didn’t know. Hadn’t known it was a door to begin with.

“What does it say?” Aisling asked.

Lir fixed his eyes on her and her alone.

“ By the blood of the Forge, I vow to you the first cut of my heart, the first taste of my blood, and the last words from my lips .”

LIR

Wedding vows marked the passage into the following chamber.

A bedroom the spirits of his mother and father brushed through, slipping through to the staircase that wound further up Lofgren’s Rise, hand in hand. Wrought with rich quilts, flickering candles, a canopied bed draped with ivory pelts. The air thin and frigid.

Lir fought the urge to chase them. To dive into his parents’ shadows and let them see him, eye to eye. Their presence made possible, made visible by the thinning of the veil at Samhain .

Yet the sight of the room kept him still. Kept him glaring at a small, hand-crafted bassinet designed for a child. The screams of his late bairn echoing inside his mind, as though his and Narisea’s child squirmed inside this bed. Reached for him. Made him believe, even for a second, he still bore a heart.

Against his own volition, Lir approached the bassinet. His body moving of its own accord. Mercifully, it was empty. A bed Ina and Bres had prepared for Lir once he was born. And yet, he stood above it, forcing himself to endure the haunting of his most visceral loss.

“Lir,” Aisling said, tearing his reverie. She was still angry with him, the tone in her voice a ghost of what it’d been just outside the door she’d magicked open. Another invitation on behalf of his mother. As though Aisling were just as entitled to Iod as he was.

Lir ripped his eyes away, fearing Aisling had seen even an ember of what he felt. That he’d felt out of control, unable to prevent Narisea’s death, his son’s, Aisling’s. That he’d felt useless, helpless to find Aisling when he believed her dead at the bottom of the gorge then lost and running from him. Unable to protect her. Unable to instill obedience so no kingdom laid outside his hand. Be it Seelie or Unseelie. Unable to stop Danu from ripping the wings from his back.

He prayed daily that he might never be powerless again. Never lose control. Never watch everything he cared for slip through his fingertips, unable to do anything but witness his own tragedy unfold. The last breath of his child slip past its small lips. He’d burn the world if he must. Rule every morsel of it if it meant never being powerless again.

He cleared his throat, walking past Aisling to the staircase beyond.

“We have to keep moving,” he said.

“Lir, you don’t have to?—”

“I do,” he said, harsher than expected. “There are greater things at stake. We have to keep moving.”

“If that’s what you wish, then so be it,” she said. “But if this is an effort to conceal from me what happened in your past, trust I know it already.”

Lir did a double take. His heart thrashing inside his chest.

“I know you lost your first caera to childbirth and along with her, your child,” Aisling said, her voice gentle, soothing the flaring of Lir’s temper. But to hear the tale told aloud, at least part of it, pained Lir more than just the memory of it.

“Not to childbirth,” Lir said, the words spilling from his lips, coaxed by the spell of her. “Narisea was attacked by mortals hunting around Annwyn. They stalked through the trees in pursuit of legends, of myths, of tales spoken around flames, and found one. Narisea was humming by a river that bled into Annwyn’s gorge when she was surrounded by mortals. Ten or so Tilrish soldiers, chaining her with iron till she rendered helpless. Then…” Lir stopped short, closing his eyes as though he couldn’t finish the story. Nevertheless, Aisling was clever enough to piece it together. “So, she died in childbirth but not because of it. My child passing soon after despite our efforts.”

Lir clenched his jaw, cursing every word. Wishing it were nothing more than a story. Wishing it was all a lie.

Aisling stood still, her every breath thick as she processed Lir’s story. She was still angry with him, and yet, she’d listened. Heard what Lir had never spoken aloud before. Never dreamed of saying aloud lest the words be tortured and knifed from his throat. Yet here he was, freely giving it to her. She, the only creature in the world he enjoyed having power over him.

“We’ll find vengeance then,” Aisling said at last, meeting his eyes. Sinful, violet eyes flashing with dark magic that seeped beneath Lir’s flesh and crept up the nape of his neck. “We’ll make them rue the day they ever entered our Sidhe forest.”

A muscle flashed across Lir’s jaw, realizing fully in that moment, that Fionn, the Lady, and Danu were all right. Aisling would be his undoing. For no creature, no curse, no spell, made Lir feel more vulnerable and powerless than Aisling, and yet, he relished it.

AISLING

From atop the staircase, Lir and Aisling stepped into a giant, cylindrical room.

It spun to the top of Lofgren’s Rise where a moonstone staircase blazed the path upwards. A trail of blood climbing every step.

Aisling’s breath caught, a cloud of mist winding into the frozen highland air. Everything, all of it, was so close. The answers she’d craved, within arm’s reach.

Aisling started forward until Lir caught her arm.

“Wait,” he said, studying the dew-dappled webs draped across the chamber. As though the gods themselves had pulled dreams from their ears and cast them here, forgotten in sheets of shimmering ivory.

“This is—” Aisling began, swiftly cut off by another voice. Something small yet mighty.

“The neccakaid.”

Gilrel, Peitho, Galad, Filverel, and Dagfin stood at the other end of the corridor, having appeared from another shadowed entrance. They were covered in red scrapes, bruised, and caked in both sweat and dirt.

Immediately, Aisling met Dagfin’s eyes. His expression brightened at the sight of her then dimmed when he noticed the collar around her throat. Before she could think differently, Aisling’s feet carried her to him. Relief, a wave crashing over her that he was still alive and well.

“Aisling,” Lir warned, drawing one of his axes. Lir’s voice held Aisling back, forcing her beating heart to stutter. The rest of the Sidhe unsheathed their weapons as well, glaring up at the surrounding webs. At the dark crevices, caves, and nooks that tunneled deeper into the mountain.

Dagfin nodded his head in her direction, a silent agreement for her to stay put as he unlatched his daggers from his bandolier.

“Are the neccakaid guarding this final path?” Aisling asked, bumping into Lir as she stepped back.

“It’s possible they’re dormant after so many years. Unbothered by any save for the spirits,” Lir said, running his fingers through his hair so it hung away from his eyes. “It’s also possible they lie in wait. We won’t know for certain until we climb our way to the top.”

Aisling’s tongue turned to ash. The neccakaid, as described by Gilrel, were behemoth arachnids and cave dwellers. Chaotic Unseelie bearing vast appetites, as well as the slayers of Gilrel’s sister, Nuala, during her efforts to save a mortal child.

And as though her sister’s death were replaying before her beady eyes, Gilrel’s expression grew taut, grasping at her steel lest the emotion flood past and drown her entirely. Ears laid back and pressed against her head as she stepped forward first. A tiny form amidst the vast landscape of web, precious stone, and highland frost.

Aisling’s heart ached for the pine marten. And whether Gilrel was still angry with her or not, Aisling hardly cared. So, she started after her, ignoring the others’ caution.

They met at the center of the chamber. A pillar of light illuminating them both.

“Should you plan to run once more,” Gilrel said, “now would be the time.”

Aisling absorbed the impact of her words, lowering onto her knees so they were eye to eye.

“From now on, the only direction I care to run is toward the fire. Preferably, with those half as wicked by my side.” Aisling swore it to Lir, to Gilrel, to the Sidhe, and to the Forge. Carved it into her heart till it rung into eternity.

Aisling wasn’t certain if the pine marten believed her or not. Only that Gilrel blinked, searching Aisling’s expression before, at last, exhaling.

“Half as wicked?” the pine marten grinned. “Let today be a test of our wickedness then.”

Aisling both mirrored her smile and nodded her head in agreement. The rest of their party joining them as they began their ascent to the tip of Lofgren’s Rise and through the neccakaid’s den.