36. Affinity
K ael was still on edge that morning as Aisling settled against him in his bed, tucked amongst sheets of dark silk and warm, heavy furs and a mountain of pillows. He’d spent the better part of the evening shut away in his study with the Lesser Prelates and when he’d finally emerged, the tightness of his jaw told Aisling everything she needed to know. So she’d handed him a book—one of his favorites, she remembered from their first visit to the library—and asked him to tell her about it.
Now, as the fire had diminished to embers and several candles around the chamber had burned themselves out, Kael was relaxed beside her, his heartbeat slower where her head lay against his chest. Engrossed in the history of a treatise between distant dominions, he alternated between reading passages out loud and falling silent, immersed in the words he likely knew by heart.
Mid-sentence, Aisling sat up with a start and he looked at her, alarmed.
“Laure knows your full name,” she said. Amidst everything that had happened since her return, between Kael’s affliction and their search for information about the Silver Saints, she’d forgotten entirely what Laure had so pointedly shared with her that first day.
Kael set the book aside and his expression of concern shifted to one closer to amusement. “Does she?”
“She said it to me when I arrived, she wanted me to know it. I’m sorry, I meant to tell you sooner. I would never use it, I swear.” Her words came out in a rush, strung together almost incoherently in a bid to get them out before he could draw any of his own conclusions.
“And what did she tell you it is?” Kael raised an eyebrow, lips twitching up into a smile. When Aisling refused, he found her hand atop the blankets and squeezed. “You can say it.”
Aisling looked down, then away. She couldn’t look at him when she said it. “Kael Ardhen.”
Kael shook his head. “That is not my whole name, though there are several whom I have allowed to believe otherwise.”
“Really?” Aisling met his eyes again, relief washing over her. Laure, arrogant as she was, would have no control over him. He was still free.
Kael shook his head again, then leaned in. He brought his face so close to Aisling’s own that his lips lightly brushed against hers when he said, “Kael Elethyr Ardhen. ”
Aisling’s lungs seized and she pulled away sharply, eyes wide, shocked by the gift he’d just willingly given her. It didn’t feel right; she hadn’t earned it. She didn’t deserve it. “I didn’t mean for you to tell me; I wasn’t trying to get it out of you.”
“I know.” Kael smiled and pulled her back in. This time, his lips captured hers in a gentle kiss. “Say it.”
She hesitated. Inside, the wild thrumming of her heart matched exactly the fluttering pace of the butterflies’ wings as they made frantic laps around her stomach. He waited patiently, eyes closed, lips again just a hair’s breadth from hers.
“Kael Elethyr Ardhen,” she repeated.
Smoothly, he lifted her to straddle his hips and leaned back into the pillows, pulling her down with him. Where their bodies connected, a mellow warmth spread through Aisling in waves. “Again.”
“Kael Elethyr Ardhen.” She whispered it this time, punctuating each word with another kiss. His body shuddered beneath hers.
Aisling dropped her head and murmured his name a third time into the crook of his neck, then captured the sensitive skin there between her teeth. Gently at first, then harder. Kael’s mouth fell open and the low growl that escaped from deep in his throat drew a rush of desire, hot as a flame, to Aisling’s core. She could have devoured that sound. She bit down once more, just to feel his grip on her waist tighten again before she relented. She sucked lightly on the spot she’d bitten, soothing the marks she left with the tip of her tongue.
Everything outside of the two of them faded and blurred until there was only the softness of Kael’s skin under her lips, the taste of it on her tongue, the hard press of his body, the hold he had on her. She ventured further up his neck, exploring still with her tongue and lips and teeth, eliciting another deep growl.
“Stop teasing,” he admonished. His words came out as a strangled gasp, but there was no real force behind them. He wanted this, too. He wanted her, too.
“Make me.” She whispered the command against the shell of his pointed ear, then nipped softly at his lobe.
Roughly, urgently, Kael ripped open the thin shift Aisling had changed into, shredding the fabric easily between his hands until it fell from her shoulders, then tossed it to the floor. When he flipped her onto her back he was far from gentle, and her mind went blank with surprise at the quick movement, at the sensation that trailed over her skin behind his hand that caressed her breasts, her curves. He pushed himself up off of her then, straightening to kneel between her legs, and tore at his own clothing. Aisling couldn’t keep her eyes from roving over his body, studying his form. A predator, a warrior, and now: hers. She wanted to memorize every inch of him.
Kael pinned Aisling beneath him. She was caged in by his muscular arms as he lowered himself down until the arcs of their hips just barely, barely touched. His silver eyes never left hers, that searing gaze raising goosebumps across her skin. She splayed her fingers over his back to explore the ridges of muscle there that flexed and rippled as he moved against her.
He paused for a beat, just long enough to allow them both to savor that delicious tension building between their bodies. The intensity of the anticipation brought the blood roaring to life in Aisling’s veins. When he finally dropped his hips the rest of the way and slid into her, filling her, she couldn’t stifle the sharp cry that had been waiting in her chest.
She drove her hips up against his hard, channeling all of the frustration and anger and longing and regret she could dig up from within herself that had been growing there for weeks. Kael took all of her emotion and matched it effortlessly with his own.
His kisses were consuming, claiming her, but even in those punishing thrusts she found the same gentleness that he’d shown her in their quiet, solitary moments by brushing back her hair or sweeping a thumb across her cheek. His pleasure and hers wove together in a single tapestry, stunningly vibrant and so delicate that it seemed one wrong move could have torn it to shreds. They were consumed by that brutal pleasure, and for a brief moment the world was still on its axis.
Aisling’s body wound tighter and tighter, the flame that Kael ignited burning hotter and hotter still until she came undone and pulled him straight over that edge with her. Her climax tore the air from her lungs, while Kael’s pleasured cries grew louder as he rode her through those rolling waves of ecstasy until they were both quaking.
Sweat-soaked and spent, they melted into each other. Kael remained on top of her, pressing her into the mattress, and she languidly threaded her fingers through his moonspun hair in long, smooth strokes. Aisling was afraid to speak and break that spell that they’d both fallen under, so she closed her eyes and committed the moment to memory with every ounce of energy she had left, cataloging every bit of feeling until she drifted into a dreamless sleep.
“Can you ride?” Kael stood beside his great skeletal mare as the sun set that night, turning the fresh snow on the ground a soft shade of lavender to match the darkening sky. Aisling tugged her cloak tighter around her shoulders, the same one she’d shed when she ran from the Undercastle before. Its thick wool was a welcome barrier against the evening breeze.
“Sort of. But not well, and not fast,” Aisling answered honestly. Rodney snorted; he’d been plenty amused by her attempts to ride back and forth from Solanthis.
“You will ride with me, then.” While Kael adjusted the saddle, Aisling turned away from the mare’s unnerving, milky eyes to Rodney.
“Take Briar and go home,” she told him. “There’s no sense in you waiting here for me.”
“You’ll only be gone overnight, Ash, I’m sure I can find some way to keep myself entertained,” Rodney insisted playfully. “There’s plenty of trouble I can get myself into while you’re away.”
Though she knew she wouldn’t be able to convince him otherwise, Aisling felt guilty for him staying. She felt guilty for wanting him to stay. But before she could argue further, Kael was at her side, helping her onto his horse. He mounted behind her, far more gracefully than she had. When he reached for the reins, holding her tightly against him, the press of his body made her blush fiercely.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather take your own horse?” Raif’s mare cantered around them in a wide circle, warming up for the ride. It seemed as eager as Kael’s to get moving.
“We will get there quicker this way,” Kael said. He pulled Aisling in even closer and purred in her ear, “I prefer this anyhow.”
His breath, warm against her icy skin, made her shiver.
The ride was long and the wind harsh and biting as the horses flew northward through the forest. Aisling spent much of it with her chin tucked and eyes closed. When they slowed occasionally to let the horses walk, Kael would sweep his cloak forward to cocoon her inside with him, keeping one hand loose on the reins and the other arm encircling her waist. The rhythmic movement of his hips against hers might have set her blood boiling again if it hadn’t been so cold.
As they drew nearer to their destination, Raif rode ahead at a canter while Kael pulled his horse into a more leisurely pace.
“I never asked you whether you learned anything about your mother during your time in the Seelie Court.”
Aisling didn’t answer right away; instead, she took in their surroundings. The forest had thinned significantly, enough so that the moon, directly above them now, illuminated their path. A lock of Kael’s hair had fallen forward onto her shoulder, and its silver cast shone an even brighter shade of white in the moonlight. She had to tamp down the urge to turn in the saddle to take in all of him, glowing this way.
“I don’t think they were as kind to her as her memory made her believe,” she said finally. Her mother had died defending it: her memory of the Fae. But those memories had all been false, implanted into her mind so that her body could be used to entertain.
“A great many things can be concealed beneath a beautiful exterior,” Kael supplied. “I hope that you will not let it tarnish your memory of her.”
Aisling considered this for a moment before shaking her head. If anything, it had softened her memory of her mother. She’d been magicked into believing the Fae’s illusion, and that same magic had held her there in the Wild. After all of these years, Aisling no longer blamed her mother for willingly leaving her family for days at a time; the will had never truly been hers alone. More than that, if it hadn’t been for her mother, Aisling may not have understood as quickly the hidden cruelty of the Seelie Fae. Maybe she’d still be there, preparing with Laure to kill Kael. Maybe the tea and gowns and wildflowers and pretty words would have fooled her, too.
Rather than pushing her to speak further on the topic, Kael let Aisling reflect to herself, merely pressing a kiss to the crown of her head and riding on in silence. She was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t realize when they drew to a stop beside Raif.
“Hello, Red Woman.” A familiar voice pulled Aisling out of her head. The Shadowwood Mother stood hunched in the center of the trail, wizened hands bracing her weight against a walking stick taller than her head. “I had hoped you would find your way here eventually .
“And you,” she turned her attention to Kael then, who’d slid from the saddle and was standing with his shoulder against Aisling’s knee. The Shadowwood Mother looked at him with that same soul-searching gaze she’d fixed on Aisling once before. “You’ve had quite a journey, as well.”
“How are you here?” Aisling breathed. It felt like a lifetime had passed since they’d met. She was almost a different person entirely now—at least, she felt that way. She was braver, maybe. Less willing to be cowed by others. By fate.
“I am not confined to that thicket, girl. I consort with The Diviner often.”
“Will she see us?” Kael asked, voice soft and deferential.
The Shadowwood Mother was unmoved by his tone but nodded tersely and countered, “Are you so sure she’s not already expecting you?”
Without another word, she turned and hobbled slowly up the trail. Raif split off to take up guard somewhere unseen while Kael led his mare by the reins after the Shadowwood Mother. Aisling dug her fingers into its mane to hide their trembling.
Turning the corner, the Shadowwood Mother led them to a rocky outcropping that would have seemed out of place in this part of the forest, had the giant boulders that formed it not been covered in a thick layer of moss camouflaging it against the trees. There was an opening there, low to the ground, that looked far too small for either of them to pass through. The Shadowwood Mother gestured towards it with her walking stick.
“In you go,” she ordered.
Kael helped Aisling down from the saddle and guided her with a hand on the small of her back to the entrance. The steady pressure there steeled her.
Aisling crouched down low, inching forward uncomfortably through the gap between mossy boulders. But just as she braced herself to feel the rocks scrape against her body, she’d already passed through to the other side where it opened into a tunnel.
“Glamoured to look smaller than it is,” Kael said from behind her once he emerged, straightening back up to stand at his full height.
Aisling’s sarcastic comeback died in her throat as she stepped forward, turning around in a full circle to take in the space. Crystals—hundreds of them, in different sizes and configurations—protruded like spikes from every surface. There was a narrow path down the center, but most of it had been eroded away by a tiny stream that trickled from some unseen source beneath their feet. It ran the length of the tunnel, disappearing around the curve ahead of them. The water glowed a soft white, as pure as the moonlight outside, and that glow lit the cave system as it refracted off of the crystal clusters.
Kael’s hand again on her back urged Aisling to move, and so she followed the stream toward the tunnel’s curve. A low hum reverberated around them, a quiet chord that Aisling thought might be emanating from within the crystals themselves. And when she touched a finger to the tip of a large formation that rose nearly to hip height, she felt that chord’s vibration there. The whole space was singing with magic.
The hum grew louder as they rounded the curve, where the tunnel spilled into a wide cavern. It, too, was covered in those same singing crystals. The stream traversed between them and dumped into a small pool in the center, on the far side of which sat a faerie whose beauty was so pure and blinding Aisling nearly had to look away.
Her hair was a pale shade of teal and hung as a heavy curtain over her shoulders and down to fan over the ground. Her skin was so translucent that Aisling could make out the blue-green veins that spiderwebbed underneath. It shone dimly, as if she’d bathed in the pool and its glow had dried there.
She sat cross-legged amongst the crystals, nestled so tightly between them that it was difficult to tell where they ended and she began. When she shifted slightly and the white silk of her dress moved with her, Aisling noticed that the crystals didn’t end where she began, after all—it was as though she was becoming one with them, merging. And when the faerie raised her head to look towards them, Aisling found only crystalline clusters that jutted out at harsh angles from her eye sockets above hollow cheeks.
“Sit,” she commanded. Her voice was ancient and resonant in the vast cavern. It had all the sweetness of youth and the callousness of age. Low and gravelly, yet somehow high and melodic, too, as though she were two speaking as one.
Aisling and Kael both sank wordlessly to their knees. They had to press close together to fit side-by-side on the only patch of ground devoid of crystals.
“A human woman and a Fae king,” Sítheach observed. “An unlikely pairing, though no weaker for it.”
She shifted again, and Aisling had to take a deep breath to settle a passing wave of nausea when her eyes landed on the Diviner’s bent leg. A long, opaque crystal as thick as Aisling’s arm had grown up through the muscle of her thigh. Its pointed tip emerged just above her knee.
“Thank you for seeing us,” Kael said. He spoke to her in that same hushed, reverent tone he’d used with the Shadowwood Mother.
Sítheach dipped her head, then turned those unseeing eyes toward Aisling. “You are a great deal more than you appear, Red Woman.”
Aisling wasn’t sure how to respond, so she stayed silent.
“You have an affinity for things,” Sítheach continued, “for sensing the weather, the emotions of others. For finding your way even through the most unfamiliar territory.”
“I have no magic,” Aisling argued.
“No, you do not. It is a human trait; one that has all but disappeared over the years as the world has aged and changed and died all around us. Similar to intuition, but more than that. Deeper than that. It is useful if you know how to listen to it properly.”
“Keeps me dry, at least,” Aisling said wryly. Beside her, Kael tucked his chin into his chest, hiding a smirk beneath his hair. Her mother had worked hard to cultivate that in Aisling from an early age, even as Aisling grew older and tried her best to push her and her stories away. She’d done Aisling more favors than she’d ever realized. There on Brook Isle, limited in its modern amenities, Aisling’s affinity had flourished. It made sense then why she’d never been able to feel shifting weather patterns the same way in the city .
Sítheach drew a finger up and down the unblemished surface of a crystal beside her, and the humming in the air grew a fraction louder. “It does much more than that.”
“Not that I’ve noticed.”
“He might disagree.” Sítheach nodded towards Kael. He stiffened slightly when she added, “You have altered the way he wields his magic. Just as you can receive, you can project.”
“I didn’t know that’s what I was doing,” Aisling said.
“It takes more than just kind words and a soft touch to calm a tempest as wild as his,” Sítheach explained. “But that is not why you have come here. Ask me your question.”
Aisling hesitated, steadying her voice. Her breath. One second passed, then another, before she said finally, “Tell us how we raise the Silver Saints.”