Chapter XLIII
CHAPTER XLIII
AISLING
Galad pulled the blade from Aisling’s body.
Aisling gasped for breath, clutching her already healing wounds kissed by Racat.
Lir held her tightly enough to crush her, Aisling felt at times. Holding her against him where they lay atop Lofgren’s peak.
“Ina was a favored child. Blessed not once but twice by the gods. First with her sight and then with a weapon. One that was hidden away for a millennium, asleep and waiting: a soul,” Racat said to them, his voice imbuing the cloudburst that showered them all. That pelted over the spirits of Ina and Bres, knee-deep in the silver lake whispering in one another’s ears. A promise of ruinous, devastating love. One that persisted despite its potential for ruin. One that hadn’t managed to change the stars Ina had foreseen.
“Ina was patient, biding her time, dipping her hand into the future and burying her weapon inside a mortal keep. For what better place to hide a treasure than the den of a thief? Knowing that when the time came to wield it, it would be awoken by the blood of her son. Fate did not choose these two as caera . The bond between weapon and son made them so. The first act of snipping fate’s noose.”
Here, at this silver linn, Ina made the deal with Racat. And so, it would be at this linn that Racat revealed himself once more. Rose from the shadows and unveiled Aisling’s prophecy on the peak that vibrated with the Forge’s witchery. She would confront her destiny in the place it began.
Lir held Aisling’s jaw, brushing her cheek with his thumb as he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers.
Galad, Peitho, Gilrel, and Filverel silent. Soaked in carnage and rainwater alike.
“During the Wild Hunt, Ina found me in the Linn of Wanting but did not attempt to shackle me as had the rest. Instead, she made a deal. She, nor any of her heirs, would ever own me. Instead, we’d be bound together. Equals. I blessed Iod and Annwyn with power, and in exchange, she bound me with her weapon. Emboldening my might as well as her weapon’s. Linked for an eternity, I am the draiocht you summon inside. I am the magic that breathes inside your lungs. And I am your power, curse breaker. You, the remedy Ina knew could rectify her sins, gifted by the gods in trickery: to force Ina’s son to kill his caera in order to achieve his ends and undo his mother’s curse. And yet, you and I together, we will live so long as the moon ascends come dusk. Forged and intended by Ina to commit the second act of snipping fate’s noose: destroying the mortals before they destroy us and uniting both realms: the Otherworld and this mortal plane.
“Aisling you will be the guardian of realms. The faerie to protect the spirit world from the iron of mortals. Together, the next step is to win the gods’ favor.”
Peitho and Galad lifted Dagfin’s body and placed him at the lake’s shore.
Aisling mustered what strength she still bore, kneeled before him, and placed his head in her lap.
She kissed him. One last kiss. A promise to follow Odhran’s constellation, praying he’d found a home in the Other. That one day she’d meet him there.
And although she wept till she thought her heart was punctured and bleeding saltwater, she was also angry. So damnably angry that Dagfin had perished atop a mountain of the very Ocras that’d almost killed him, his own iron finding him first. That as Aisling cradled his face, forcing herself to push him into the silver lake so that magic might take what it was owed, she hated the draiocht and everything it’d already claimed. His body buried in Racat’s oblivion alongside what was left of Aisling’s humanity.
“The choice is yours, Aisling. You and I may forge a path for ourselves, unbinding from the fae king once and for all. Or, we may align with the dark lord. Regardless, we are bound together, dear friend. All that’s left is a choice so that you and I will rule this realm till kingdom come. Together, we’ll enter the Otherworld and join the Other and this realm into one. Ours."
The evening burned slowly. Patiently indulging the revelry of Annwyn below till Aisling believed the sun might never rise. That the fae would dance till their feet bled, the world would never seize its spinning, the wine would endlessly spill, and the Snaidhm all Annwyn celebrated would scream into oblivion.
It was Tyr’s, one of Lir’s knights, Snaidhm , in celebration of his recent union. One bound and sealed after Aisling, Lir, and his knights had returned from Lofgren’s Rise, boots covered in both ice and soot.
“You should join them,” a voice sounded beside her, laced in fae wine.
Galad approached, wearing little save for trousers and an unlaced shirt. Every last Sidhe rune glistening in sweat and reflected by the fae light, idly floating through the Snaidhm . “If they knew you’d come, they’d feast in your honor.”
Aisling scoffed, crossing her arms. They stood at the edge of the forest, glaring through the last trees before shadow gave way to glowing festival.
“They’d curse me as thief once more. Demand my death so the threat of the curse breaker is no longer. Even if it would cost them Racat.”
“Not anymore,” Galad said. “You destroyed seven mortal fleets at Lofgren’s Ri?—”
“I know what I did,” Aisling bit, unable to hear the words spoken out loud. Not yet. Perhaps not ever if it helped her forget what’d happened to Dagfin. She could still pretend Dagfin was alive elsewhere. Had run off as he’d always dreamed and made a new life for himself.
“The Sidhe won’t forget what you’ve done so easily, no matter how badly you might try to. And with Racat bound to you, they cannot demand your death. Without Racat, Annwyn is made vulnerable to the mortals and Unseelie alike. To Danu. You, Aisling, are the weapon the Sidhe need . That they want. And that’s a cause worth forgiving all else.”
“And you,” Aisling asked, turning to meet the knight’s sapphire eyes. “Have you forgiven me?”
Galad stepped away, never once unlatching her from his gaze. His dark hair brushed by the midnight breeze.
“Come and partake in the festivities,” he said, ignoring her question as he walked away. “Lir will be searching for you.”
And as though summoned, the fae king materialized between the folds of fae dancers. Miraculous, brilliant, twisting Aisling’s heart at the sight of him. Both rage and something else stirring inside her gut, near making her ill.
He wore only a jacket, his bare abdomen exposed and teasing the eye. The axes he never parted with crossed at his back. Chains like thorns wrapped around his throat, ringed fingers, and several hoops in one of his pointed ears. But his charcoal-lined eyes met Aisling’s across the path, pulling at the intangible cord between them. His left eye marked by a thin red scar. A memory of Dagfin and how the magic indeed took what it was owed.
Aisling turned away.
She couldn’t face Lir. Not without losing what composure she still harbored.
Lir hadn’t killed Dagfin, yet for an endless moment she’d believed he had. And the desire to kill him, to punish him for his betrayal was real until that moment, at last, ended. Replaced by another. One where Starn had slayed Dagfin instead, with Lir’s axe and the magic the Lady had lent him to kill Aisling. In so doing, ending a prophecy for the Lady and empowering humankind for Starn.
She’d kill her brother. Ensure he felt every morsel of pain before at last meeting his end. And Aisling wouldn’t rest until said end was dealt by her hand. At one point, she’d feared her brothers died escaping Lofgren’s Rise. That she hadn’t killed them when she’d bore the chance and another had stolen the opportunity. But a strange sort of glee filled her lungs when she felt his heart beating further north. A signal from the draiocht , a whisper, a calling of blood and clann that could never die, screaming at Aisling that Starn, her brothers, and her father were still alive. No doubt thanks to the intervention of the Lady, aiding their escape. An unintentional gift to Aisling, for now, she couldn’t help but look forward to the day she’d relish the gore of their deaths.
As for Fionn, Aisling doubted he’d died. Winter froze Fjallnorr into solid ice with his living rage, biding his time till he found her or Lir again.
Aisling’s eyes burned as she darted into the woods. Her vision blurred by tears as she mounted Saoirse, the stag Lir had gifted her after their union. And they raced through the trees, the forest where she’d been hunted by the Cú Scáth, where she’d summoned her flames for the first time, where she’d been confronted with her tuath’s lies. Where she’d found a sense of belonging at long last.
And she screamed.
Yelled until her lungs were stripped. Until the trees whipped madly on a windless night. Mourning Aisling’s second death.
Yet even when Aisling scarcely bore the breath to weep, she kept racing, flying through Annwyn’s corridors and toward Lir’s castle.
Aisling didn’t know where she was going. Only that she couldn’t stop moving. Couldn’t hesitate lest the grief inside catch up to her, pin her to the earth and devour her, body and soul.
The bear sentinels opened the doors for Aisling as she tore through Castle Annwyn, unknowing where any staircase led save for her bedchamber. But she couldn’t retreat there. A den of restless thoughts, of memories, of silence where everything that’d occurred atop Lofgren’s Rise would be given space to be remembered. So, she let Saoirse guide her through a castle that was meant to be Aisling’s own. She, a queen of the Sidhe and yet she knew not her own castle. Was despised by her subjects. Wanted dead by her caera . And loathed even by her blood. Alone and lost, in a world of her own making. The answers she’d coveted hadn’t been what she’d wanted. Galad had been right. The answers she craved were not answers that could be given to her. They were moments yet to unfold. Choices, memories, experiences happening all around her, making her who, why, and what she was to become. Be it for better or worse.
Saoirse burst through two mighty doors and into a great hall.
A room of stained glass portraits, of cross-vaulted ceilings supported by eight colossal ash trees, winding their branches to the ceiling and veiling the murals painted above. Ivy clinging to every surface, made brilliant by the precious gems and stones clipped and cut into the walls, the floors, the pillars, and the arcade. A world made by fae hands and fae hands alone. Where a colossal tree sprouted at the end of the hall, a throne made from its roots and crowned by mighty antlers.
Aisling dismounted Saoirse.
This was Lir’s throne room. Images of Bres were depicted in the mosaics, in the sculptures, his dedication to Ina made tangible in the hundreds of owls that flew amidst the canopies, hooting at Aisling’s arrival.
Aisling approached the throne, her every footstep echoing amidst the silence.
There was magic here, ripe and thick. Pressing down upon her head as though submerged beneath several layers of the ocean.
This is ours , Racat—the shape of her draiocht —said inside her. We will rule everything.
Aisling traced the arms of the throne with the tips of her fingers and what draiocht lurked here thrummed through her. Every hair on her body stood to attention.
Once the throne of her enemy, the nightmare muse of blood-soaked legends. Now, the throne she craved. Wanted, and would no longer feel guilty for desiring.
Desire stoked all power. Desire made her limitless. Made everything she’d ever wanted within grasp if she wanted it enough to take it.
Aisling paused, allowing the magic to flow through her. Until she heard him at the threshold.
Lir wanted her to know he was there, otherwise, Aisling never would’ve gleaned the soft press of his boots atop the marble floors. Like a wolf pads across the forest floor.
She turned, meeting his eyes, overtaken as she’d been at the Snaidhm .
“I wish to be alone,” she said, forcing the words as calm and resolute as she could manage. But they broke regardless, exposing the emotion inherent within.
“You’ve avoided me since we departed Iod,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets as he approached, stopping only when they stood at opposing ends of the hall.
“It was intentional.”
“I gleaned that.”
“Then be gone.”
A muscle flickered across Lir’s jaw, his sage eyes growing shadows.
“I want to know how you’re healing.”
Against her own volition, Aisling glanced down at her abdomen. She’d healed almost fully from Starn’s iron blade but the considerable amount of blood she’d lost had taken its toll. For the next several weeks, her body would be recovering, harnessing back its strength.
“In time, there’ll scarcely be a scar. That’s what Gilrel tells me.”
Lir’s shoulders slackened, taking another silent step forward.
“What happened at Lofgren’s Rise?—”
“If you’ve come seeking my gratitude for sparing my life in place of seizing the curse breaker before you knew I was bound to your dragún , then look no further,” Aisling bit. “You’ll find no such thanks here.”
Lir shook his head, brows drawing together in either anger or sadness, Aisling couldn’t tell. Only that the emotion traveled deep within him, rising to the surface.
“You think that’s why I’ve come?”
“Why have you come?” Aisling said, turning to face him fully. “Why do you insist on haunting me?”
“Haunting you ?” Lir’s expression contorted, eyes flecked with torment. “The image of you, the sound of you, the smell of you, wakes me in the night and its possession does not falter in daylight. I’ve tried to rid myself of your spells time and time again, to cut them from my heart by blade of iron if I must and still you sink your fangs into my soul.” Every word sharp with frustration, with anger, chilling Aisling’s blood.
“Your name stalks my thoughts even in battle,” he continued, the room growing darker. “Whilst my name on your lips is a curse I cannot banish, cannot break, cannot muster the strength to wish it gone. Instead, I need it. Need you and I despise you for it.”
Aisling blinked, damning the tears that fell down her cheeks as he continued to approach. Defeating the distance between them.
“And so, there is no trust between us,” Aisling said, louder than she’d anticipated.
“But there can be.” Lir walked up the steps of the dais, nearing both the throne and Aisling.
Aisling shook her head, “We were born enemies, discovered caera , and we will eventually die by one another’s hand.”
“Because fate has chosen for us?”
“Because fate has deemed it so! Because I will perish with an axe in my heart!”
Quicker than Aisling could blink, Lir drew his right axe from his back.
Instinctively, Aisling’s fists lit with flame. She took a single step forward.
“Take my axe then,” he said, offering the blade where she stood several steps above him atop the dais.
Aisling opened her mouth to speak but no words left her lips. Speechless, she glared at the twinkling axe, considering it the way she had the night of their union.
“None but the fae king wield Hiraeth,” Aisling said, summarizing what she’d been told of the fae king’s weapons. Twin blades that were akin to limbs, forged for his hands alone, and the embodiment of Annwyn itself. Capable of crumbling the fae king’s world if destroyed. Blades Aisling had never seen Lir without. Even as he slept.
“It’s yours,” Lir said, his fangs reflecting the violet of her fires. “Yours to wield. Yours to destroy. Yours to burn. As am I.”
Aisling’s heart stuttered, her stomach twisting. Eyes glazed over with tears and red from exhaustion.
Slowly, Aisling raised her hand, wrapping her violet fingers around the axe.
The axe hissed, as though it bore a soul, writhing, squirming beneath the heat of her draiocht . Swiftly, Aisling extinguished her fires, allowing the pure body of the weapon to flow through her. Ancient, primordial, and cast in the Forge, gifted by the gods to Bres himself, Aisling felt the life breath of the forest. Rain seeping through canopies, leaves falling to the earth, beasts skulking inside their shadows. Every groan and growl and roar the woodland sang, danced when it believed no one was watching.
And it was glorious.
Lir ascended till he stood atop the dais, forcing Aisling to look up and into his eyes. A window into the arcane woodland that surrounded them and grew through Castle Annwyn. The portrait of every leaf, every grisly hunt, every riverbed, alive and breathing from the green of his eyes.
“You describe control. That isn’t love,” Aisling said.
“No, love is loss. Love is human. Be you mortal, be you fae, be you something in between, what I feel for you is something more. Something everlasting.” He bared his fangs. “I only ask you never uncurse me. Never fail to haunt me,” he said, holding her chin between his knuckle and thumb. “Never cease to possess me.”
Lir dipped his head, pressing his mouth to Aisling’s.
His kiss was deep, full, dizzying to Aisling’s mind as she allowed the pain to meld with her pleasure. Allowed the grief, her mourning, her torment to slip into whatever witchery the fae king bled into every touch of his lips. He, the taste of magic, of fae wine, and smoke in the woods. Fangs scraping against her lips the harder he kissed her, as though he’d begun and couldn’t pull himself back, up, and out of whatever oblivion they’d fallen into by allowing themselves this one kiss.
Aisling wasn’t certain when Lir’s axe fell onto the ground. When he laced his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head as he leaned further into her. Aisling knew it was wrong. Knew it was forbidden. The Lady’s prophecy echoing again and again in her mind. Whether it be the doom of the world or her own damnation, dealt by the edge of Lir’s axe. Every droplet of her blood screaming in protest each time he touched her let alone tasted her. Let alone tore open her chest and devoured her heart, savoring every bite like the beast Aisling once feared. Yet she couldn’t help but hope for a night filled with nightmares. Yearned for him, her body tightening, heating as he kissed her more deeply, as though in question. His lashes brushing against her cheeks.
“ You will perish in a world of your own making. An axe in your heart. ”
Aisling pushed him away, straightening an arm between them. A fathomless distance, slackening the intangible cord.
Lir growled, flushed, pressing his lips into a straight line, appraising her. The green of his eyes shadowed with endless yearning.
So, Aisling pushed him farther and toward his throne.
Lir hesitated, confusion riddling his otherworldly expression. Till he reclined in his seat and Aisling moved atop him, straddling the fae king.
Lir shuddered. His expression shifting, darkening a shade deeper than the depths of the Forge. The curve of his lips prickling every nerve in Aisling’s body as his body hardened against her. Eyes sparkling as though lost in an enchantment of his own making.
His hands wrapped around her waist and brought her flush against himself. Eliciting a growl as bestial as the wolf starved all its life. His flesh hot, heart thudding against the runes carved over his chest. So, he held her jaw and brought her lips back to his, insatiable for another taste. His tongue slipping between her lips, lingering to taste the supple curve before entering entirely. An invitation for his hands to possessively wrap around her neck, reach for her waist, and bring her closer.
Aisling’s abdomen was set aflame. Not by the draiocht , but something else entirely. Something more ancient; the sheen of a midnight sky, the cadence of a whisper, the juice of a freshly bitten berry. The cord between them agonizing as it frayed, grew taught, and pulled.
Aisling ran her fingers through Lir’s hair, panting against his lips when they broke apart, swiftly finding one another’s lips once more, sharing every breath lest the world rupture.
Lir grabbed Aisling’s hips, gripping them and pressing her harder against himself. Soaking the pulsing length of him hidden beneath his trousers, firm beneath her and aching enough to make him groan something deep and wicked in Rún.
Aisling tore off his jacket, needing to feel the cords in his arms as he moved her hips against him. Guided her into a rhythmic grinding that elicited something unholy in them both. Made Aisling fear she might literally ignite with flame and burn the whole of the world at the cost of whatever boundless pleasure the feeling of herself against him inspired.
She clawed at his back, felt the scars where his wings were torn, and he allowed it. Moaned at the press of her fingertips against his scars and moved her faster against him.
“ Together, if you truly bond with the Sidhe King, you will breed desolation and ruin. ”
Lir kissed Aisling’s neck, no longer slow but hungry. Licking her windpipe where once she feared he might rip it from her, grazing her collar bone with his tongue, growling at the curve of her breasts as he slipped her hemline into his mouth and tugged with his fangs, tearing a sliver. But that one sliver was enough to rip her bodice entirely apart, exposing the thin chemise beneath.
Lir’s eyes lit with the light sinners extinguished, burning with dark desire. His hands forsaking her hips to move on their own, so that he might hold her. First her ribs, thumbs slipping beneath her breasts. Patiently, the edge of his fingers finding the apex of each breast and brushing them. Aisling arched into his touch. Just a graze at first. Enough to drive Aisling mad and plunge Lir’s expression into abysmal dark at the sign of her pleasure. At the sound of her pleasure, the feel of it as she moved harder against him.
“Aisling,” he growled, closing his eyes the more she pressed.
“Should I stop?” she asked, the corners of her lips curling as she traced the veins in his forearms with her fingertips.
“Gods no,” he begged, standing easily, carrying her with him and setting her knees atop the throne, her back to him. He dipped his head beside her own, finding her lips then her neck, his hands slipping beneath the hem of her chemise and trailing upwards. At last, his hands surrounded her bare breasts, forcing a gasp from Aisling’s lips. Lir grinned against her cheek. The hardness of him pressed against her backside.
Lir cursed beneath his breath, the throne room overflowing with swiftly growing flora.
“But if we continue?—”
“So be it,” Aisling said against his lips. Words that inspired a shudder from the fae king, rippling through his every muscle as he brought her closer to him.
“Together,” he said, “you and I will bring this world to its knees.”
He entered her. Thrusting lightly at first, torturously slow, then deeply, throwing his head back the moment Aisling reached for the head of the throne and gripped it till her fingertips might bruise. With each stroke, the realm churned, shifted, as Aisling and Lir ripped the tapestry of fate apart and pinned their own stars to the sky.
“You’re mine,” he whispered, against her spine. Fangs scraping down her back. Voice ragged and rough with yearning. As though this wasn’t enough, as though a lifetime of this wasn’t enough, and he needed more of her. Of them.
“And I am yours.”
Aisling bit down on her bottom lip, drawing blood.
He filled her, moving painfully slow, swelling inside and blinding the sorceress to anything but this . But the feel of his soul as it wrapped around her own, tangling itself with hers till they could scarcely tell one from the other, was euphoric. Couldn’t make the two apart as they wove, as they laced, as they threaded together, becoming one.
As the cord that’d bound them, at last, ripped apart, again and again with every thrust. With every movement. Binding something new. Becoming something new. Becoming one. And truly bound.