Chapter XLII
CHAPTER XLII
AISLING
Aisling spun, and the realm spun alongside her.
Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind, and Killian stood a few paces from Dagfin’s body. Lir’s bloodied axe at their feet.
Slowly, her eldest brother bent to retrieve it. Every muscle in Lir’s body tightening at the sight. So, without another thought, vines grew from the stone and snatched it from the Tilrish Prince’s fingers, returning it to its rightful master as Lir plucked Aisling’s dagger from his shoulder.
“Your tricks are less impressive now that I have my own.” Starn smirked, sliding his hands into his pockets as though unfazed. “On a whim, I can wrench that axe from your hand once more and beckon it into my own. As I’ve already done.” Starn’s eyes darted to Dagfin’s body.
Aisling shook her head, understanding but wishing desperately not to. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t feasible that Starn could wield any draiocht at all. Could snatch Lir’s axe from his hand and hurl it through Dagfin’s chest by the will of his mind alone. Only Aisling, born a mortal, was capable of such sorcery.
“Although, I must admit, I made a mistake,” Starn continued. “I’d intended to kill you, Sister.”
That was why Dagfin had shoved Aisling aside. Had spared her from the onslaught, taking the death himself. One last form of self-sacrifice. A debt paid for his crimes against her when she’d been traded to the fae. A debt paid to the draiocht after fleeing his union with Peitho.
Aisling’s legs grew numb. Her face drained of blood as she processed everything. As her vision clouded with smoke intended to be fire.
“Touch her and I’ll have your heart in my fist before you can flinch,” Lir growled from behind Aisling, Fjallnorr’s forests, whipping in the distance at the sound of his rage.
Yet Starn smiled, amused.
“The Lady said you’d make things difficult.”
“The Lady?” Aisling repeated, every word broken from a throat stripped raw.
“Aye, it appears magic and mortals are not so at odds after all.” Starn raised his hands, his iron sword unsheathing from his belt as though drawn by a phantom hand. “You see, the Lady and mankind’s goals align: we both want you dead.”
“Starn—” Iarbonel warned, face streaked with tears, but one glance from their eldest brother and he quieted.
Aisling balled her hands into fists at her sides. Planting her feet against the stone.
“Are you so afraid of me?” Aisling asked, tilting her head to the side. Gathering every inch of her sorrow, of her despair, of her endless anguish into rage, into wrath, into fury. Into vengeance.
Starn laughed. “Afraid of you ? You’re a mistake, Sister, just as capable of setting yourself on fire as the world. In fact, I’ve come to realize, it never should’ve been you who happened upon this magic.” Starn grinned at his floating blade. “Rather I. Power was meant for sons, for men who lead battles, for kings. Not princesses traded to the fae.”
Aisling narrowed her eyes and smiled through the tears.
“So, this is what it’s come to? Begging the Lady for magic so that you might obtain the curse breaker and steal whatever she’s lent you?”
Starn shook his head. “No begging necessary. The Lady rather hates the two of you.”
“Tell me, how long till those ‘tricks’ wear off, brother? Till you can no longer pretend to be me?”
Starn bristled, rolling back his shoulders.
“The only thing I wish to glean from you is the power that should’ve rightfully been mine. Should’ve been Father’s.”
“You always were such an insufferable child. Always begging for Nemed’s approval, even at the cost of your own soul. That’s why you’re here, convincing yourself this is for your own benefit and not another task he’s set for you to prove yourself. One you’ll never quite live up to. So, was it he or you who made the deal with the Lady?”
Starn hesitated, opening his mouth to speak but stopping short. An answer in and of itself. Aisling had assumed as much. Nemed had orchestrated all this, Starn nothing more than his puppet goaded by the fire hand on lies Starn was somehow a cherished part of his plan. No, Starn as well as all of Nemed’s children were pieces to be slid across a chessboard. Not one spared from his ambition.
“Either way, Sister, your adventure ends today.” Starn commanded his blade, pointing in Aisling’s direction. Lir stepped beside Aisling, white-knuckled on Hiraeth.
“Listen to him, Aisling. Concede and we can spare your life,” Iarbonel said. “It’s better this way.”
“Fergus, remove his body,” Starn commanded their brother, jerking his chin in Dagfin’s direction.
“Don’t touch him!” Aisling growled without thinking, taking another step forward. Fergus flinched, unaware Aisling couldn’t wield her draiocht since her most recent encounter with Fionn.
“Don’t look at me like that, Sister,” Starn said in mocking. “Dagfin was living on borrowed time as it was. The Ocras was eating him alive from the inside out and even if he’d lived to return to Roktling, he would’ve been hung as a traitor.”
Aisling ground her teeth.
“You killed a brother,” she said. “All of you. You killed him in cold blood.”
Killian’s brows furrowed, unable to look down at Dagfin’s body. Fergus, Iarbonel, and Annind exchanged glances, desperately clinging to the guise of indifference Starn had mastered. A glimmer of guilt creeping into the edge of the high prince’s mouth, the posture of his shoulders, the tension in his arms.
“The moment you wed your fae king, you died, Aisling. And the moment Dagfin chose to follow you from Oighir is the moment he died to me as well.”
I wish to summon the fire , Aisling asked the draiocht . Fionn’s collar choking her, but she didn’t care.
Starn stepped forward, his floating blade following his direction.
“Dagfin never should’ve followed you,” he continued. “He was meant to be king. To rule alongside myself and the other mortal sovereigns. To lead mankind into greatness. Instead, he let you manipulate him and plague his mind until he bent at your will. Until he followed you down a path that offered no escape for him. And you let him.”
Starn licked his lips, crouching down beside Dagfin’s body. He brushed the backside of his knuckles against Dagfin’s cheek. A gesture that awakened something in Aisling.
“You are selfish, Aisling. Pathetic. Weak. And wholly undeserving.”
Aisling’s veins ignited.
I wish to summon the fire , she shouted internally at the draiocht . The collar blocking her lungs.
Starn unfurled from his crouch. “It wasn’t I that killed him, Aisling. It was you.”
I SUMMON THE FIRE.
Aisling’s eyes lit with violet flame, Fionn’s collar shattering at the force of her strength alone, and from the silver lake, a beast appeared.
A dragún .
Forged in a cauldron of boiling night sky, Racat lifted his head, the crown of horns spiraling from its temples, a foil to its silky, obsidian mane, billowing in the highland wind.
Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind, and Killian staggered back, faces slack with terror. The Faerak ’s hands instinctively reaching for the crossbow on his back.
Lir cursed beneath his breath, eyes gone wide at the sight of his dragún outside Annwyn . Not a dragon of fire as it’d been before Danu. A flesh and blood beast, glittering before them with all the majesty of the Other.
“We come for the curse breaker!” Starn shouted. “By order of the Lady!”
Racat moved closer to the shore, fixing his eyes on Aisling’s brothers and Killian. His shimmering scales sparkling amidst the fog.
“High prince,” Racat said, his voice an ancient, primeval song. “You’ve owned what you covet all your life only to now take it with a knife?”
“ Owned what you covet. ” Aisling’s eyes glazed over, her mind elsewhere.
Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind, and Killian drew their weapons.
“Enough riddles,” Fergus shouted. “Give us what we want so we may go in peace.”
Lir shook his head, not understanding. Racat was the fae king’s dragon and had found a home in Annwyn thanks to Ina. How was it possible the curse breaker they all sought was hoarded by the dragon of power all this time?
“You speak of peace, yet you threaten war,” Racat said.
Aisling and Lir exchanged glances, turning to search her brothers’ and Killian’s expressions. The dragún ’s ominous words seeping into both their bones.
“Your armies thread through Fjallnorr prepared to destroy and burn everything in your mortal wake.”
Aisling raced to the edge of Lofgren’s peak, peering over the ledge.
Dread sunk its dull teeth into her gut.
Thousands, if not millions, of soldiers approached Iod, donning the armor of those left from every northern mortal court. Aithirn, Kinbreggan, Roktling, and Tilren. Their iron contaminating the feywild opiate.
“Then be threatened,” Starn continued. “And give us the curse breaker.”
Aisling’s stomach fluttered.
“ Owned what you covet .” Recognition dawned on Aisling. It was her. She was what Nemed wanted, Starn, her brothers, the mortal realm. “ Owned what you covet , so you might take it with a knife ?” Owned, controlled by her own clann only so they might wrench what she’s worth to them with a magic blade gifted by the Lady.
Aisling’s mind spun. Ears buzzing.
The world suddenly brighter.
Aisling was the curse breaker. The means to either end Ina’s curse and revive mankind to their previous glory or to ensure the curse was never broken. Ina’s punishment forever sealed even if at the cost of mortal ambition.
It wasn’t possible. Aisling didn’t understand and yet she did. Felt justified never having fit inside an iron keep, in a mortal den, in a magicless, purposeless life. She was wild. Forged not to sit at banquets nor wade silently through life as pawn. She was rather forged to race through forests barefoot, to dance in the night, to roar alongside the beasts of yore.
“Give us the curse breaker!” Starn repeated, jutting his blade forward.
“She stands before you,” Aisling said, at last.
The dragún shook its mane, casting itself in a layer of violet fire that mirrored the flames enveloping Aisling.
Lir’s feline gaze focused fully on Aisling, dark hair windswept by her magic. The others shielded their eyes from the blinding, violet light.
“To claim the curse breaker, you must defeat Ina’s greatest weapon and seize its heart.” Racat lowered himself, so his great head hovered at Aisling’s side. “Ina’s sorceress.”
“Godsforsaken Forge,” Lir hissed, searching Aisling’s expression licked by fire. His axes hanging at his sides. Staring at Aisling as though she were a dream. A vision. A memory cast into eternity and far from him. His opportunity to spite the fire hand and all of humankind, to prevent Danu’s prophecy from ever being fulfilled, standing before him. A single death away.
The cost: the heart of his own caera .
“Go on,” Aisling said, her flames burning brighter. Heart hammering inside her chest, fulfilled by magic’s decadent satisfaction. “See if you can take what it is you want.”
Lir shook his head, eyes glazed and wet. Ringed in red and harrowed. Yet slowly, so slowly, he lifted his axes. Aisling’s heart splintering. A part of her, a part she’d shoved into its cobwebbed corner again and again, that hoped he’d choose her above his need for power, for vengeance, for blood, died the moment he raised his axe.
But it was Starn who attacked first, shouting as he unleashed his floating blade.
The iron sword darted through the air, spearing for Aisling’s head.
Without another thought, Aisling lifted her hand and wrapped it in flame, holding it mid-air with wrath, with loathing, with impatience.
“Did you really think you could borrow some spell? Some flimsy means of magic and best me?” Aisling bared her teeth, spinning Starn’s blade and pointing it back at her brother.
Starn swallowed, staggering back alongside Killian and her brothers.
“I let you make it this far. Allowed you to stand before me now so you might face the full fury of my strength. A strength you caged, shackled, and starved.” Aisling seethed.
Killian released six quarrels. So, Aisling flung Starn’s blade to the side and burned every last bolt till they shriveled to ash atop Iod.
“Mortals were not made for magic.” She approached them. “Humans lack vision, a cognizance for the world. You breed a desire to control that which was never yours to command.”
Aisling summoned a ring of fire, trapping the tip of Lofgren’s Rise in amethyst walls. Lir watched her, as though transfixed by some unspoken spell.
“You stand here before me by my design. I could bring you to your knees atop the stone that made your kind.”
“Your kind?!” Fergus shouted. “You’re mortal, Aisling. Don’t let the fae king convince you otherwise.”
Aisling laughed, a sound serrated with a cruelty she understood.
“No, our brother is right. I died a first death the night you traded me to the fae,” Aisling’s eyes flickered to Dagfin’s body. Limp and unmoving. The sight of him burning her fires brighter. “And a second death when you killed Dagfin, blighting whatever shred of humanity I still bore.”
Aisling lifted her hands, veins pulsing with fire, as she glared at her eldest brother.
“No, no!” Iarbonel shouted, “Dagfin never would’ve wanted this for you!”
“ You are great, Aisling. Capable of both great good and great evil. I’m not naive to the forces that wage war within you. But a battle is a battle because it’s meant to be fought. So, fight for it, Aisling. Fight to be good. ” Dagfin may have been dead, but his words were alive and beating in her mind.
Aisling wrenched her eyes shut.
“ Fight to be good. ”
Aisling lowered her hand, flames dimming. Her heart beating a pace slower. Aisling was prepared to kill her brothers, yet it was Dagfin’s words that held her back. His way of protecting her soul, even in death, should she make a decision she could never return from.
“AISLING!” Lir shouted and before she could blink, Starn’s sword was running through her gut.
Aisling was numb, casting a bolt of fire that wrapped around Starn and inspired blood-curdling screams. Racat roared, diving for her brothers, lost without their magic sword, now staked through Aisling. A wound to accompany her others.
Lir was by her side in an instant, wrapped in smoke from her dying fire. The sound of her brothers’ boots fleeing, echoing in the northern wind as Lir held her against him. The Lady’s magic potent in the air as she sheltered Starn’s escape.
The fae king roared. A sound so terrible, the forest recoiled, bled black, and quivered. Screaming so loud, Aisling thought the veil might, at long last, shatter.
“Breathe, Aisling,” Lir said, voice strained and rough. “Breathe through the draiocht . The blood will stop. Just breathe.”
Gilrel, Galad, and Peitho arrived from below, gasping for breath. They gaped at Racat, at Aisling and Lir, eyes as wide as the northern moon at Samhain ’s peak. Beholding the remnants of everything that’d occurred, including Dagfin’s body.
“Their armies are approaching,” Gilrel said, kneeling down to hold Aisling’s hand. Galad looked away, unable to bear the sight of Aisling impaled by an iron blade.
“We can’t stay any longer,” Galad mumbled. “The mortal fleets are approaching.”
“Did you obtain the curse breaker?” Filverel asked.
“Breathe, Aisling,” was all Lir said again and again. “Breathe, Aisling. Breathe.”
But Aisling didn’t feel short of breath. Didn’t feel pain.
She felt madness.
Inhaling.
And exhaling.
A ripple of fire blasted from where she lay atop Lofgren’s peak and ravaged the whole of the north. A ripple of unbridled wildfire, scorching the earth and felling every last mortal till nothing remained but their iron armor, scorned by the fires once spread by their torches.