Chapter XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXIV
Aisling closed her eyes.
“ There are few pleasures greater than having one’s hair combed ,” Clodagh had once told a far younger Aisling, considering her daughter in the reflection of the mirror as her lady’s maid tended to her tangled ringlets. And indeed, the sensation of Gilrel pulling a glass brush against the mortal queen’s scalp was beyond pleasurable.
Gilrel’s magpies busily organized the pins and ribbons she’d worn that night, tucking them away into small, colorfully painted clay pots. That same dreamy mist clouded the tent as it had on Aisling’s wedding night, relaxing her as she smoothed out the skirts of her loose-fitted chemise.
It wasn’t long before Aisling lay alone in the dark, swathed in both plush quilts, furs, and blankets but also the distant drawl of the festivities still burning the night away. The Aos Sí could dance for hours. Were more alive when stars hovered resplendently above.
One by one, Gilrel had extinguished the soft light warmly cooing within the surrounding flower buds: ample garlands draping the ceiling of the tent, her vanity, and speckling the floor with both petals and leaves alike. Until there was nothing but darkness. Black, and the angry swarm of thoughts that kept Aisling an arm’s reach away from sleep. For tomorrow, either Peitho would be wed to the Roktan prince or Dagfin would’ve passed on to the Other. Not to mention, Aisling feared her father’s knowledge of her abilities would change the course of the future. Had Danu foreseen all of this? Did the empress know what was to become of tomorrow?
Aisling rolled onto her side.
Still, she hadn’t managed a moment alone with the fae king. He eluded her, constantly immersed in more hushed conversations with Filverel and his knights. A fact that enraged Aisling for she too wished to understand, to know what the Sidhe planned, thought, argued if she were to live amongst them. But still, none trusted her. Still, she was a foreigner, a foreigner to all lands for she was seemingly the only one of her kind, a mortal able to wield the draiocht . Not quite human and not quite Sidhe.
Aisling stirred restlessly, waiting for Lir to enter but as the moon sipped the midnight hours, he never did. It wasn’t until Aisling heard a bizarre hissing that she leapt from her sheets to peer at the creature. A small, black snake looked up at her from the grassy carpets below.
However, the serpent wasted no time, meeting Aisling’s eyes before slithering back beneath the tent and into the outside world.
This way , it hissed as the last of its scales disappeared beneath the canvas.
Aisling didn’t think twice, grabbing a cloak Gilrel had packed and rushing towards the entrance to her tent.
There were six or so sentinels guarding where she slept. And so, it occurred to Aisling: if these bipedal beasts were ordered to ensure none enter nor she leave her tent unescorted, which was most likely the reality, it was near impossible for Aisling to escape her chambers unnoticed.
Aisling stopped in her tracks, biting her bottom lip. There was an urgency hammering away within her. More than the snake encouraging her to follow. A tugging, a pulling that motivated Aisling onward.
So, the mortal queen concentrated, eyes darting about the room for an answer. But the answer came in the form of one of the sentinel’s screams of agony. Aisling leapt at the sound, hurrying to the front entrance. And, from the thread-thin opening, she witnessed each of her guards drawing their weapons and leaping to the aid of he who was injured, cursing in Rún. He’d been bitten. Attacked by a serpent who still snapped its fangs at any who dared approach next.
Aisling thought no more of it. She ran. Slipping past her chamber’s threshold and into the night. Her cloak wrapped around her like the wings of a bat for she wasn’t quite free yet. The Sidhe camp lit still with revelry, Sidhe dancing drunkenly between their tents, singing and chasing one another towards their individual rooms. Perhaps it was the stupor of their magic, the veil of night, or the fact none cared to search for a mortal queen who was not yet determined missing from her tent, but none noticed Aisling as she swept past them, a shadow bedizened with violet eyes.
And because Aisling wasn’t certain where she was going, she listened to the rustling trees. For they spoke loudly tonight, debating amongst themselves, arguing, writhing back and forth as if amidst some great council. Indeed, once Aisling stepped between the oaks and the ash and the elms, they hushed themselves, each turning to get a good look at the mortal queen who’d interrupted their conversation.
Aisling wandered deeper than she’d ever dared wander alone before, her bare feet pricked by sharp stones, thorns, and splintering branches, wondering if this had all been a mistake. If she should return now before any discovered that she no longer slept well-protected—or imprisoned—by her guards. But it was then she spotted him.
Lir stood within a ring of trees of yore.
The gloom of evening cast the spectacle Aisling beheld in shades of oblivion. A film of grim enchantment bathing the fae king as the trees craned their great bodies towards him, groaning and reaching their branches to crown his head. As eager as the pools of fog crawling across the forest floor and running their wispy fingers along the contours of his hands, his arms, his legs. He, the heart of the woodland.
Aisling sat frozen, crouched behind a boulder, the gnawing sensation that her presence here was deeply forbidden quickening the pace of her heart. For the fae king was confiding in this greenwood and they him. Speaking, listening, a language of arcane and bygone magic clotting the breath they all shared. So thick, Aisling could taste it on her tongue. Taste as the fae king tasted the sap of these agrestal guardians. There was a darkness inherent within this spectacle. No, not darkness—a primal strength that surpassed mortal understanding of light and dark, righteous and unrighteous. It simply was and wished to be and would destroy all that wasn’t.
“You’re hurt.”
Lir’s voice echoed throughout the labyrinth. Aisling’s heart ceased at the sound of it, forgetting to breathe as all the forest whipped its attention towards her, whispering amongst themselves.
Lir’s words rang true. Aisling’s feet bled from the undergrowth, a reminder that despite her ability to wield the draiocht she was indeed still human or, at the very least, part human. For the natural world continued to reject her. Threatened her life with the ruthlessness of its keep, with infection, with pain, and suffering should she not protect herself with manmade crafts.
Lir, having not moved, his back turned to her, had somehow known it was his bride hidden amidst the shadows. Had the trees given her away? The stones? The insects? The rodents scampering in the periphery?
Nevertheless he, at last, moved to face her.
Despite the black of night, the fae king’s feline eyes glittered. Shone with a predatory hunger that struck deep and unadulterated fear within Aisling, slipping through her veins in icy currents, frosting her bones and paling her complexion.
Wordlessly, the fae king approached her. As nimble and quiet as a fox, never once releasing her from his gaze. And as though he’d bespelled her, Aisling was paralyzed. Nothing but the lurching of her heart as she fought to steady her breath, the drum of it echoing in the hollows of her ears. He moved nearer, the intangible string tightening between them, knotting deep in her abdomen and heating.
Aisling held her king’s regard, staring up at emeralds for eyes. Absolute green pulsing with the spirit of the forest. Cutting into her and tearing her apart.
“You’ve been avoiding me.” Her voice was mulled wine, nearly another’s voice and not her own.
“Because you wield strange and cruel magic against me. You being near to me alone makes it difficult to think clearly.”
There was something different about him, Aisling knew immediately. Red circles rimmed his eyes and the anxious hunger that prowled there. The image of a starved wolf whose appetite made it desperate, manic, and truly mad. The glint in his fully dilated eyes was both bewitching and chilling all at once. The way he eyed the idle curls blowing across her face as if he wished to pull them away. To touch her but wouldn’t allow himself. He was a physical manifestation of the energy Aisling felt coursing deep within him, the blackest shadows of the forest forged into flesh.
“I hunted for you,” he said, his voice as smooth as milk and as thick as blood. A harbinger of Sakaala’s lawless magic. Charms Aisling found she admired. Understood and wished to harness herself.
“You believed me dead?”
A muscle flashed across Lir’s jaw, his expression darkening .
“I believed you lost.” Lost at the bottom of the Forge where Racat hoarded her bones.
“It hardly matters. We’re both aware my death or my going missing would prove beneficial to the Sidhe either way. No longer would you be bound to the fury of either Unseelie or mortal.”
Lir considered her, narrowing his eyes.
“There was a time your death would’ve been gladly dealt by my hands.”
“A time before or after I was proven to be the second caera your mother prepared you for?”
Lir reacted sharply to the word “mother,” baring his teeth as he moved closer yet.
“Even then I considered it, watched you as you slept, convincing myself a dagger to your heart would prevent me?—”
“From committing the same mistakes as your mother? From destroying your kingdom in order to preserve the breath of your”—Aisling tripped over her own words—“your superstitions.”
“Superstitions.” Lir laughed, shaking his head. “You will always stand against the Sidhe and, with each day I do not kill you, the threat your breath symbolizes grows more powerful. Hangs more thickly over my head. For if it weren’t only for the fact you undermined the Unseelie by handfasting me, but now you wield a weapon whose very nature heralds the end of our kind. An end I cannot allow.”
Aisling shook her head.
“You live in fear, Lir, and it will eat you alive if you allow it.”
“No, I live in the past, afraid to either fail you as I did Narisea, as I nearly did at the Isle of Mirrors, or commit the same crimes as my mother in your name. To either fail to protect you or fail to kill you.”
Aisling bit her bottom lip, drawing blood. Her heart aching as though he’d indeed impaled her at her core.
“And now I’m found, alive and wreaking havoc on the alliance we both sacrificed to uphold.”
“Did you intend to reveal your abilities to your father?” Lir asked, searching every twitch of her expression for signs of betrayal. Filverel must’ve done his best to convince the fae king Aisling had indeed intentionally exposed the draiocht to the fire hand. But that was a lie and the truth was far more concerning.
“No,” Aisling said honestly, schooling her expression. “I lost control. I did my best to resist the draiocht . To ignore its begging and manage my emotions. Despite how it clawed and scratched and raved within me. But somehow…” Aisling hesitated, gathering herself as her eyes burned with the memory. “Somehow the draiocht emerged without my permission. Held me prisoner and commanded me not to breathe.”
For if anyone knew how to help Aisling gain control, to understand, to master her magic, it would be Lir. He’d taught her how to summon it and now he could teach her how to expel it.
“Will you teach me to master it? Control it? If indeed you wish for me to live with such magic and not die with it for the sake of Annwyn.”
Slowly, the fae king held her chin, tilting her face up, so she drowned more thoroughly in his sage pools.
He didn’t answer her. Rather returned her query with a memory.
“You still owe me a dance.” That lethal glint graced his eyes as he pulled her towards his ring of trees. Where magic churned like the boiling soup of a cauldron.
Aisling didn’t answer but rather allowed the fae king to gather her close, one hand possessively holding her waist and the other in his own. So, Aisling grasped his shoulder, completing the pairing.
He swept them into clouds of fog. There was no music, only silence. But such stillness was brief .
Lir’s eyes glistened, the corners of his lips curling as he spoke a wordless spell into the breath between their lips. Aisling’s body shivered, the draiocht writhing gleefully around her at Lir’s command, popping her ears. Initially, only the brush of white noise surrounded them. Then a strange ringing. But at last, Lir’s spell consumed her, filled her. They now danced to the rhythm and pace of a melody Aisling hadn’t heard before this very breath. Couldn’t discern before Lir allowed. That no mortal man nor woman nor child was permitted to glean. But should mankind catch a glimpse of its rapturous tune, by some scheming of fae or gods, they would spend their whole life searching if only to hear a single refrain once more. Indeed, Lir opened her ears to the voices of the woodland. Where every blackthorn, bramble, and alder hummed a haunting melody. A lullaby of pure sorcery. A voice given to the wind between leaves, the groaning of trunks, the cackles of birds, and the purling of creek beds. Where instruments lit no flame to the majesty that was the voice of the greenwood. Its song an opiate.
Aisling laughed, stunned by the beauty of Lir’s enchantments. To enjoy what he must experience all his life: these songs, a ghostly reminder of the forest’s screams that, Aisling imagined, one could never quite forget.
“Why do you wish to control the draiocht ?” he asked at last, eyes darting towards her mouth.
“You once told me the draiocht seeks to master lest it be mastered.”
“Aye, I did,” he purred, his every word vibrating through his chest.
“To master, I must then control,” the mortal queen conjectured, focusing now on the veins and fae markings coiling around his forearms, his long and elegant ringed fingers.
“You sound like a mortal. ”
“I am mortal.”
“Are you?” he challenged, guiding her through the dance. The music, the uproar, the laughter of the beasts watching from their tree knots, hollows, and dens. Reflective eyes lighting the forest like a cave of jewels.
Aisling hesitated, opening her mouth to speak before snapping it shut.
“Galad told me how the princeling’s iron affected you.” At the mention of such iron, Lir’s eyes considered her wrists, permanently scarred by such chains. Fury stormed his feral eyes as he held her closer. “The princeling is fortunate he still breathes.”
“ It must be the magic rippling through you, torching every mortal bone of yours .”
“Because at that moment, the draiocht consumed me and the iron repelled it.”
“Magic doesn’t ‘consume’ mortals.” Lir’s eyes shimmered the way they did before he unsheathed his axes.
Aisling’s face hardened, her heart beating wildly within her chest. He was wrong and so was Filverel. The mortal queen was born mortal and would die mortal, for although she’d grown to adore this fae world and its savagery, she wouldn’t, couldn’t, betray her tuath. And to forgo one race to become another…Annind had said it himself: it wasn’t feasible. There was no enchantment nor spell nor charm to change one’s blood or flesh or spirit. Yes, Aisling had adopted something strange and curious. An ancient creature the Sidhe dubbed the draiocht now lived within her. But she was still mortal. At the very least, something in between.
“ You’re part Seelie now whether you realize it or not .”
“Tell me, princess,” Lir spoke again, pulling her nearer to him as the song began to dissolve, “do you think I rule the Sidhe, the Unseelie, the kingdom of the greenwood through control?”
Aisling’s brow pinched. “You rule through power.”
Lir grinned, flashing the fangs that could disembowel her if he liked.
“To control is to restrain, to limit, to bridle.” He spoke slowly now, every word perfectly accentuated. “Claws, fangs, horns are all to be exercised. Strength is to be exercised. A wolf is not made strong nor quick nor powerful shackled its whole life. It becomes weak, frail, sickly in captivity. But when allowed to roam free, it sharpens its claws and fangs, strengthens its muscles, makes nimbler its paws, and whets its appetite.
“What the mortals call savagery, inhumanity, barbarism, all make mighty the Sidhe. Are the bones with which our Sidhe world is made both feral and irresistible, are what allows the Sidhe to become one with the world that rejects man. A world that forces humans into civilized shelters, into smoking cities, lest he die of starvation, of the cold, of the heat, of infection, of the appetite of one who is stronger, wilder, hungrier. Because mankind is weak. Because mortals insist on control. On the quelling of such base traits. And that is why they cannot survive in our world, Aisling. Not the way we do. You and I are predators. We rise up the hierarchy of natural beasts and man alike.
“So, you must allow your wolf to wander freely, to strengthen itself in the wild so that when you must call upon it, it is most powerful in your name. Strop your blade rather than dull it. Sharpen your claws and fangs and horns rather than let them waste away. And be prepared when you at last call upon your wolf. Make sure you yourself are wilder, more feral. More powerful until it is you who eats, you who wields, you who calls upon the weapon you challenged, instead of it you.”