Chapter XLI
CHAPTER XLI
AISLING
Roktan blades were forged with undiluted iron. Heated in fire and cooled by the tears of the Ashild. Dagfin had cast every blade that lined his bandolier. Another excuse to avoid his princely duties to play the part of hero, perhaps, but somewhere along the way, he’d stopped pretending and become one.
The tip of his blade grazed Lir’s cheekbone. The fae king dodged the attack nimbly yet, still, it grazed his flesh, carving an angry, thin red scar along his right eye.
Lir laughed, the sound of it freezing the marrow in Aisling’s bones.
“Relish whatever you’re feeling now,” he said, “because you won’t ever feel it again.”
Lir swung his axe, forcing Dagfin to stagger back and collapse against the stone entirely on the second swing. The Faerak rolled to the side as Lir slammed his axe into the stone.
“Enough!” Aisling screamed, watching as Dagfin leapt to his feet, a sliver from Lir’s axe as he aimed for his throat, feinting left before throwing another dagger, then another. Lir raised his axe, deflecting each one artfully before raising his blade and thrusting down. Dagfin spun, grabbing his last dagger and jabbing it at Lir’s ribs.
The fae king moved lithely, knocking the blade from the Faerak ’s hand with the butt of his axe.
Aisling’s chest hollowed, mind spinning. Two halves of her heart, of her soul, battling one another with the intent to end the other. Whichever outcome, bound to kill Aisling if her wounds didn’t first.
“Please,” she said, screaming at the draiocht inside. Quiet, gone, forsaking her to watch their exchange. She staggered toward them, bleeding across the stone.
“Care to forfeit?” Lir said. “I’ll make your death swift.”
“Not quite. I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to kill a fae with my bare hands.”
So, with no weapons left, Dagfin charged the fae king, tackling him into the light and onto Lofgren’s Rise.
Aisling sucked in a breath and held it. From this vantage point, they stood atop the world if the world were a freezing, bone-white realm of twinkling evergreens and rock giants asleep in the shape of mighty mountains. A great, shimmering lake of pure silver nestled at the center, veiled like a bride in thick clouds beading with moisture. The first drip of the Forge onto the earth.
Lir and Dagfin spilled onto Lofgren’s peak, a tussle of fleshy sounds as Lir punched Dagfin in the jaw with his fist still wrapped around his axe. They fell apart, but not for long. Dagfin had pilfered a blade from Lir’s belt, raising it and swiping for Lir’s throat.
“You’ll ruin her!” Dagfin yelled, his voice echoing through all Fjallnorr. “You and your selfish, primal need for power will corrupt Aisling until there’s no going back.”
“You act as if Aisling doesn’t have a choice in the matter. You see, princeling, with me, Aisling is free to be who she’s always been: wild and powerful beyond measure.”
“You force her destiny! You shape it as you like!” Dagfin lunged for Lir, grazing his jawline with the tip of his blade.
“I seem to remember you being at our union, watching as you traded her to the Sidhe. Complicit in the sins of your kind when it came to forcing Aisling into anything.”
Dagfin ground his teeth, rage abounding, attacking faster than Aisling could make sense of their tussle.
Lir parried, growling as he elbowed the Faerak in the face. A blow Dagfin endured, jaw red and lip bleeding as he swiped for the fae king again.
Quicker, the fae king stepped to the side kicking the Faerak in the chest and shoving him onto his back with his boot. An axe to his throat.
“No!” Aisling screamed, the respite allowing Aisling to, at last, approach from behind, holding out a hand to the fae king as though he were a wolf in the woods, just as capable of stalking away as he was devouring her body and soul.
“Please,” she begged him. Aisling had sworn to never submit to the fae king. To never forfeit even a morsel of her power. But in this moment, she didn’t care. She only saw Dagfin’s throat growing slick with blood as Lir pressed harder.
“I will never forgive you!” Aisling screamed, knowing the fae king wouldn’t care but saying it regardless. Lir cared for one thing only and that was power. Anything that threatened it would meet its end swiftly thereafter.
Lir, at last, tore his eyes from the Faerak to meet Aisling’s own. The same unholy, inhuman sheen she’d witnessed when he’d killed the Cú Scáth, when he’d slaughtered the fomorians, when he’d turned on humankind, when he’d cut through the neccakaid. Each and every time, assuring death.
“If you and I are to be,” Lir said, his words rougher than Aisling expected, “then he cannot live, Aisling. You know it as well.”
“Then kill him,” Aisling cried. “And in so doing, you kill a piece of me as well.”
Lir flinched, as though it were Aisling with an axe to his throat. Eyes flecked with anguish and horror alike.
An eternity passed while the clouds whispered among them. While the silver lake reflected their exchange in mocking. It was always meant to end like this. A hero and a villain at odds. A hunter and a beast, battling for survival. Yet, Aisling needed both. Couldn’t live without the other.
“You must end this, Aisling,” Dagfin said, straining beneath Lir’s axe. “You must choose. Here and now, pick your destiny.”
Aisling’s chest hitched. Her ears rang. Her vision blurred. Either from loss of blood or the converging of her fate, spinning, weaving, braiding before her eyes and waiting for the last word of the spell to be spoken and sealed.
Aisling shook her head, her body going numb the longer she stared at both Dagfin and Lir, awaiting her decision.
Aisling looked into Dagfin’s eyes. The Ashild staring back and warming her soul with summery, salt waters. With stars they’d watched shoot across the sky as children, making secret promises to one another they’d never been given the chance to keep. Stolen, ripped, torn from their hands at hers and Lir’s union.
“I love you, Dagfin,” Aisling said, her voice broken.
Dagfin froze and Lir’s expression shuttered. The words, brittle, true, and pure. “But, I choose Lir.”
Aisling forced herself to witness the agony in Dagfin’s expression. The image of a soul ripping in two. Lir didn’t move, didn’t react, still as a windless wood. The realm holding its breath as her words seeped into the fabric of fate, magic taking root and fizzing in the air till all smelled of forge fires, of forgotten prophecies, and vows made from the heart.
At last, Lir released his hold.
The fae king uncurled from his position and let go of Dagfin.
Dagfin stood, panting, eyes ringed with red, having used the last of his Ocras.
Aisling exhaled, relieved enough to weep until no tears were left. Instead, she picked up her feet, fighting through the pain to embrace Dagfin.
She wrapped her arms around him, tangling her fingers in his jacket.
He held her, salty tears wetting the crown of her head as he did his best to avoid her neccakaid injury, still soaking her dress through.
“I can’t lose you,” was all he said. As though she hadn’t chosen Lir instead. “Tell me you’ll be alright.”
Aisling nodded her head. “I’m always alright. Even now.”
Indeed, the pain came in waves, always worst after she’d desperately clawed for her draiocht to no avail. But Aisling could ignore it, for they’d reached Lofgren’s Rise. They’d made it, all together. Reached what she’d longed for ever since she’d heard its name spoken. Trodden through the feywilds, survived despite the cold, been freed from Fionn’s keep, endured the druids, struck fear in Danu, navigated through Iod.
Everything was right here. After all this time.
They’d done it.
“Aisling,” the Roktan prince said but it wasn’t out of relief. It was spoken in warning. Dagfin shoved Aisling to the side so hard, she slapped against the floor. And when she rose, she at once wished she never had.
A gaping wound ran from one side of Dagfin’s body to the other. Lir’s axe bloodied on the floor behind the Faerak .
Dagfin reached for Aisling, collapsing into her arms as she dove for him. Struggling to process. To understand. It’d all happened so fast. He was alive, he was standing, he was pushing Aisling and now the light in his eyes was fading, Aisling was covered in both her own and his blood. A hole in his chest.
“No, no, no, no,” Aisling said, out loud or in her mind she couldn’t tell. Only that it echoed again and again, her heart imploding inside.
“No.”
“Ash,” Dagfin said, his stormy blue eyes dimming.
“No.”
“It’s alright,” he repeated, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. Still warm, calloused, the touch of home. “We’ll find each other again. Follow Odhran’s constellation.”
Aisling went numb. She couldn’t feel her hands, her legs, her arms. Couldn’t feel her body as the light faded from his eyes and then extinguished entirely.
Aisling would kill Lir.
And if her magic never returned, she’d find a way with her bare hands.
Aisling lay Dagfin’s head onto the ground, slipping Lir’s dagger from the Faerak ’s grip. Tears streaming down her face as she stood and turned on the fae king.
“HOW COULD YOU?!” Aisling screamed, voice breaking mid-sentence.
He stood still. Expressionless as she ran for him, making to stab him in the heart. He moved swiftly to the side, dodging her onslaught. But she followed his every step, lunging again and again, breathless, lungs burning but unable to interrupt her impulse. Her every pore, smoking where her draiocht wouldn’t light.
“Stop, Aisling,” he said softly.
“I’ll never stop!” she screamed. “Not until you’re dead!”
“Clear your mind, Aisling,” he said, catching her wrist and watching her with a hollowed, anguished expression as she clawed at his chest, pressing the dagger closer to his heart. His eyes torn and cracked with depthless sorrow as she struggled against him. Finding her other wrist and holding it. Keeping her in place as she wept. As she screamed. As she shattered before his eyes.
“Please,” he begged her.
But Aisling couldn’t. Couldn’t find her way out of these woods. Not this time. Not when every tree, every stone, every river, every shadow scratched at her soul and ripped her bloody with endless torment. As though her heart were being devoured whole. The only thing more powerful than her despair, anger.
“Would it help?” Lir asked, even softer this time.
Aisling didn’t know what he was asking, still straining against his grip.
“Would it help if you hurt me?” he asked again and this time Aisling understood.
She met his eyes and that was answer enough.
Lir released her wrist. The dagger plunged into him.
Aisling held her breath, eyes wide with shock as she glared at the dagger fully submerged in his shoulder, just above his heart. The fleshy sensation thrumming through Aisling’s hand. A small groan slipping between his teeth as he clenched his jaw.
Lir didn’t flinch, didn’t look away from her even as his blood dripped down his front. Instead, he brought her closer, holding her against him, hand still wrapped around the hilt of the dagger.
Aisling was too stunned to move, warmed by his blood as it seeped into her gown. Glaring past his shoulder into the endless oblivion of the north. Winter, a chill in comparison to the cold she felt inside. The emptiness that grew with each passing breath. Silent, until she heard the footsteps.
Slow, heavy boots behind her.
Lir held her tighter, already aware of who’d approached.
“Well done, Sister,” Starn said. “You did what few mortals have ever been capable of: stabbing a fae king. Had I known killing Dagfin would yield such results, I would have done it sooner.”