Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV
AISLING
Aisling rose from the black pond the same way she’d emerged from Annwyn’s aqueducts. Clawing toward the surface and the glimmer of light from above.
Water transcended time and space. Became a passage for those who belonged elsewhere, even in dreams and visions.
“ Aisling .” Lir called her name from the shadows in the surrounding forest, nothing more than a calm wind threading through her ears. Aisling turned to find him, meeting his eyes where he lay in the grass.
She approached him this time, ascending from the pond until she reached the blades of green, stretching herself out to lay beside him. As though Aisling and the fae king had returned to the feywilds, sleeping during the day and prowling at starlight. The rain descended toward the earth like stars made of honey, dripping from the sky.
His gaze was feline—more glorious than the rain that dappled his face in the storm’s most precious jewels.
“You shouldn’t trust a promise, Aisling.” He spoke to her, his voice thrumming through her core and pricking her skin.
“Yet I should trust yours?”
“You and I are different.”
“Aye, as you’ve told me countless times before, I am no longer as mortal as I once was. No longer belong to their world but rather with the Sidhe.”
“You misunderstand me: you belong nowhere other than with me.”
Aisling felt her heart splinter, forcing herself to tear her eyes from his. But the pain of it, his proximity, their cord, their fated string, knotting between them, fraying, pulling, tugging at her heart, snapped the dream into oblivion.
Aisling woke to the ghosts in the walls. The “adjusting” of cottages, inns, taverns, or ships built by man’s hands. Fae things didn’t creak. Their bones didn’t click nor groan. They breathed . Grew alongside the life breath of the wild.
“It can’t happen again,” Starn hissed, his voice traveling beneath Aisling’s door and into her quarters. “There cannot be any more fires. Every mortal man, fae, and fiend is hunting her.”
“Feradach is just as intent on obtaining the curse breaker as any other sovereign. Like every man aboard the Starling , he personally recruited trusted seafarers of Roktling. To enlist any man with a loose tongue would be to set our competitors upon us.”
“Aye, your father has done his part, but if you think they’re immune to the fear of her, then we’ve already lost this race to the fae king.”
“You’ve never shied away from a battle with the fae, Starn; why start now?”
Galad . Aisling’s mind spun at the memory of her eldest brother’s crimes. Her chest hollowed for her Sidhe friend. Rage bleeding across her tongue.
Starn scoffed. “As much as I’d enjoy nothing more than to bathe in the blood of my fae conquests, you know good and well, that isn’t what this is about.”
“What’s it all about then, Starn?” Dagfin’s tone dropped deathly low. “Why help Aisling?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Is she?” Dagfin challenged, and the question cut through Aisling’s heart. “Is that still how you see her?”
Aisling held her breath, both eager for and dreading her brother’s response, but it never came. The silence clawed at the Starling ’s walls, the grinding of bone on wood vibrating through Aisling’s core. So instead of replying, Starn changed the subject.
“If you’re ever to rule the North alongside me, to be a Roktan king, you cannot continue to be so lenient.”
“I won’t try to control her.”
“Your impulsivity, stubbornness, and heart have always gotten the best of you. But it can’t as a ruler, Fin. A sacrificial heart will only ever yield death in a world like this.”
“You may want nothing more than to sit on your father’s throne, Starn, but I can’t imagine anything more soul-sucking than standing behind a fleet instead of fighting with it. Nothing more hopeless than ordering those to do what I can do myself. Making choices that cost a part of my soul, even if for the greater good. You want authority, Starn. Leadership. And you’re good at it. Made for it even. Able to make the hard choices without bowing to the cost of them. Nemed’s favored child. But I can’t and won’t subject Aisling to it.”
Starn exhaled, frustration potent in his breath.
“You can’t outrun your blood nor your duty.”
Silence swelled between them until Aisling wondered if they’d left and she’d missed the sound of boots on floorboards. Now it was Dagfin’s turn to redirect the conversation.
“I’ll ensure there are no more ‘outbursts’ when it comes to Aisling,” Dagfin conceded, his voice rough with lack of sleep.
“This crew may be aware of what she is, but they don’t need reminding of why they despise the fae.”
“If I could take more Ocras, it would be?—”
“Ocras?” Starn repeated. “Do you have any Ocras left?”
“Enough,” Dagfin replied without hesitation.
“Fin, don’t exchange one demon for another. If?—”
“Enough with your lectures. This isn’t the same. The Ocras will be the difference between what keeps us alive and what doesn’t.”
Starn exhaled.
“Let me stand guard tonight,” her brother offered. Indeed, the brothers began their journey rotating their night watch of Aisling but slowly, Dagfin took on each of their shifts. This despite most, mortal or fae, wanted Aisling dead. “You can’t continue this way, Fin.”
“I’m fine,” he assured, but Aisling wasn’t convinced, and she didn’t believe Starn was either.
At last, footsteps beat against the Starling ’s floors, fading as they turned down the corridor. It was only a handful of seconds later that Aisling’s door clicked open.
“You’re awake,” Dagfin said, relief sweeping his expression. His hair was unruly, and his eyes dark-washed with familiar exhaustion. He closed the door behind him.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
Aisling nodded her head in place of a lie, concealing her hands between the folds of wool.
She shoved the fresh memory of Starn’s words to the side, boiling her blood till she felt like a kettle whistling with heat.
“Good. Nightmares enjoy the open sea.” And although Aisling knew he spoke of Lir, unable to utter his name aloud, Aisling only thought of herself.
“Is that what I am?” she asked sincerely. “A nightmare?”
But Dagfin hesitated, searching for the words as he paused beside her bed. Was she a demon? A monster cast by the blood of the Forge? The questions lingered between them. None knew what she was nor would be. None knew what enchantments had bespelled her being. Only Lofgren’s Rise bore any hope of answering those questions. Questions which branded Aisling’s mind and fought for attention every hour of the day.
“You’re Aisling,” he said. He crouched beside where she lay and ran his fingers through her tangled tresses. She’d taught Dagfin how to braid hair when they were children. When she needed to pin back her mane to better run through Tilren’s alleys. When he’d called her name repeatedly, searching for her. And rarely, if ever, did he find her lest she wished for him to.
“Do you remember the tale of Odhran and the Weight of the Night?” he asked.
Aisling closed her eyes, remembering but feigning ignorance so he’d tell it again.
“Odhran was forged in a cauldron of churning sun, destined to heat our realm come summer solstice and vanish at the autumn equinox. But when Nefae, maiden of stars, perished after a duel with Lora, mistress of midnight, the night dripped from the sky, threatening to flood the entire realm in evening. So, Odhran ignored his destiny and his making, catching the night sky before it dissolved entirely and swung it onto his shoulders. The sun called Odhran home every summer, the voice vanishing come autumn, but Odhran couldn’t move lest the night collapse. Forced to carry the weight of the night till the end of time.
“Some believe he found his way home, solved the burden of the night sky, and returned. Others believe he’s still there, watching us from up above. But even if he cannot return, legend has it his constellation lights a path home for those weary and lost: a true passage home.”
If Aisling never opened her eyes, she could pretend they were hiding beneath her covers in Castle Neimedh as children, whispering stories till dawn arrived on the golden chariot. But this peace, this taste of a home, was something she could never return to. Even if she followed Odhran’s constellation.
“You need to rest,” she replied, catching his hand and holding it against her face.
His expression muddled the moment their skin met. Shoulders slackening. Eyes flickering despite the dark circles haloing his eyes like fog. Since the day of the ambush, Aisling couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept more than a handful of hours.
“I’ll be good as new by morning.”
“Fin, let my brothers stand guard. Or allow me to?—”
“No.” The word spun silence into the air, string unspooling from its bobbin. His body went rigid, forcing himself to pull away.
“You don’t trust them.” These were words Aisling knew neither she nor Dagfin wished to speak into existence but bred flames of suspicion, nevertheless.
“Do you?”
Aisling considered. The image of Galad’s branding flashed across her mind’s eye against her own volition. She thought of how her brothers’ eyes betrayed them—flecked with fear and lack of recognition for their only sister.
“Truthfully, no. Yet not one of my brothers has ever laid a hand on me nor threatened me with a weapon. And yet you have.”
Dagfin hung his head. Indeed, Dagfin had used an iron bolo to quiet Aisling’s flames and detain her, scalding her skin and rendering her diminished of all power and strength. A betrayal, a necessity, her salvation, all in one.
“Ash, I?—”
“Promise me you’ll never wield iron against me again.”
Dagfin met her eyes.
“I promise,” he said, watching her with the churning of the Ashild behind his lashes. No more than a whisper.