Chapter XXII
CHAPTER XXII
AISLING
Goldenrod glories tangled themselves in Aisling’s hair, curling around her face, her throat, her arms, traveling beneath the sheets of her bed and hugging her body. Gently, mischievously lingering where her bare flesh touched the midnight breeze.
Aisling opened her eyes, springing awake before she was pressed against her bed, a hand covering her mouth and an axe to her throat.
“Shh,” Lir said, leaning over and pinning her. “The bear is just outside those mirrors.”
Aisling squirmed as the flowers grew larger, gripping her curves. She inhaled sharply, meeting Lir’s eyes fully for the first time. They shone with the same reflective sheen as the bloodthirsty, skulking beneath the judgment of the moon.
“I want to take you somewhere,” he purred.
Gradually, both he and the goldenrods released her.
“How did you get in here?” Aisling jolted upright.
“I slipped through a mirror.”
“Must you be so reckless? You threaten everything by visiting me.” Aisling stood from her bed.
A chemise sewn by brownies spilled around her ankles and onto the moonstone floors the moment she rose to her feet. Detailed with floral lace and dappled in pinprick small crystals like tears, it hugged her body before unraveling from her hips in silky waves that made endless her legs. Near translucent and shimmering with the wet sheen of sleet.
Lir’s eyes smoldered, seemingly forcing himself to meet her gaze.
“I should visit you more often at this hour.”
The tops of Aisling’s ears burned crimson, yet she refused to cover herself––an omission Lir affected her. One she wasn’t quick to surrender despite the fluttering inside her chest.
“You should be more cautious.”
“It’s more fun this way.” He smiled, a rogue of shadows already backing toward the window, his hand outstretched. Slender fingers coiled in fae designs Aisling had memorized what felt like a lifetime ago. His shirt was unlaced and rolled up to his elbows, while his axes remained strapped against his back. Hair damp and curling around his ears.
Aisling hesitated for only a moment, finally placing her hand in his, skin burning from a magic entirely different from her own. The taste of something forbidden staining her tongue and whetting her appetite.
He moved through a mirror, gently pulling Aisling after him. They both plunged through the passage, finding themselves atop one of Oighir’s rooftops.
Fjallnorr’s breath was cruel and unforgiving, biting Aisling’s skin and freezing her veins. More formidable than it’d been within the embrace of the woodland or aboard the Starling .
Lir glanced at her sidelong, pausing at the trembling of her shoulders. If Aisling were mortal, the weather would’ve been intolerable, but now, her fae blood burned from within, enough to keep her alive. Still the cold bit, taking advantage of what mortal flesh still remained.
Lir’s fingers twitched at his sides and a cloak of giant orchid petals bloomed, draping around Aisling’s shoulders and warming her instantly. The inside of the petals velvet smooth and soft.
Aisling avoided Lir’s eyes, adjusting the petals instead, as she followed him onward.
Atop Castle Oighir, it felt as though they were balancing on the tip of a summit, dancing with the wind. Their hair floating as though submerged in water, breathed to life by the dark gale.
“If it were possible, Oighir seems even larger from here,” Aisling said, avoiding Lir’s eyes even as they studied her in her periphery.
Lir didn’t respond.
Instead, he led her from rooftop to rooftop, leaping from one to the other, using the statues of roaring bears to prevent a plummet toward an inevitable death below. Aisling’s stomach fluttered, her knees weak, as she glared at the drop. The ice slick and ruthless beneath her slippers.
So, Lir grew tufts of grass and rubbery buds with each of his footsteps, melting the snow lying beneath to assist Aisling and prevent her from slipping.
They traversed a labyrinth of slumbering turrets, towers, flying buttresses, and bridges, slanted roofs, and statues atop Oighir’s glacial walls, twinkling beneath a blanket of stars.
Lir leapt atop one of the castle’s various gabled roofs, catching Aisling’s waist as she jumped behind him. Hands lingering even as he found a place to rest, leaning his back against a bell-tower and glaring down at the world far below. Arms crossed.
Monk’s moss, roaming roses, and ivy spread from the fae king and grew new life atop the castle despite winter’s oppressive chill. As though the forest were a droplet, dripped by the Forge where the fae king stood and rippled outward.
Aisling approached, feeling the same as the first night she’d met him. As though she were running straight for the edge of a crag, bracing for the inevitable plummet. The cord between them straightening, pulling, aching with either pain or pleasure. Aisling could no longer tell the difference.
“From the top of Annwyn’s eldest ash, one can collect the stars from the night sky. Or, at the least, that’s how it felt as a child when I’d first learned to fly and Crann Bethadh’s tallest branch was the furthest I’d dare venture.”
Aisling considered the realm of jewels overhead. As though thousands of spiders had spun their webs with threads of moonlight, dappled in gems of dew and smiling at all those who dared to change their stars.
“I can’t imagine you afraid of anything, even as a child.”
“Fear is natural, Aisling. It’s the wisdom of a fox torn between fleeing from the hunter or leaping from the brambles for the hare.”
Aisling breathed a laugh. “Is this the wisdom that compelled you to betray the peace our union symbolized? To pursue the curse breaker? To prevent Danu from ever usurping you, dare as she might?”
Lir faced her. His attention spellbinding. Making wild her heart till she prayed he couldn’t glean its thrashing. The edge of his lips and the tips of his fangs mesmerizing.
“So Fionn spilled more than just his motivations. Or his affections.”
“Aye, your brother made certain he tore apart any and all veils that might lead me back to you. A work the Lady admired, considering she too warns me to keep my distance from you.”
Lir’s eyes glittered.
“You wouldn’t be so attracted to me if I were more transparent, ellwyn .”
Fire seeped beneath Aisling’s cheeks, so she bit her tongue, resisting the sort of cunning warfare Aisling was aware the fae king preferred—knew knocked her off balance.
“I despise you,” she said, eyes prickling with heat. The emotion bubbling to the surface and muddling her voice now that they were at long last alone, hidden, safe, and outside the realm of dreams for the first time since she’d run from him.
“Never,” she continued, “never will you or any other leave me to rot in the dark again.”
Lir shifted, adopting the lethal poise that struck gods’ fear in all that lived and breathed.
“And yet,” he replied, his voice deepening, “if you truly despised me, right now you’d be by my brother’s side or searching for the princeling. Instead, you’re here with me.” He stepped closer, the air no longer cold but stiflingly hot. “The dark, ellwyn , is magic incarnate. When the beasts of the feywild are most alive. A realm ruled by desire and crowned by feral indulgence. The dark is whole, rich, all-encompassing. The dark is feared . You and I weren’t made for the light, ellwyn . You were left to rot perhaps but seized the shadows and wore them like a hide on your back until you became the feared, and now, the dark is yours to rule. Ours to rule.”
Aisling shook her head, the fists at her sides growing numb with cold, or something else, she wasn’t certain.
“You wish to own me.”
Lir scoffed as though the prospect was ridiculous. “I wish for you to be mine . The two are very different.”
“You think I’m not aware your plans are made in the same image as your brother’s? That you intend to use me to not only obtain the curse breaker but to end all and any threats against your sovereignship? I am not a tool nor a weapon nor an ill-omen. I am my own.”
Lir appraised her, silent before at last speaking.
“Is that what you think? That I believe you a tool?”
“Give me another reason for the absence of your fury?! Why neither you nor your knights have placed my head on a pike for treason? For fleeing from their king? Why else would you come for me when even my túath never did?”
Lir’s expression twisted, his anger at last seeping through.
“You wouldn’t survive my fury,” he said, moving closer till their chests were but a breath from touching. Till Aisling tilted her head entirely back, glaring up and into his eyes.
The forest he’d grown atop the cathedral rose and spread with increased need.
“So where is my wisdom, fae king? And why do I no longer fear you?”
“You should.”
Lir pressed his hands against the wall on either side of her. She could see the rise and fall of his chest, the movement of his throat as he swallowed, and feel the heat of his breath. Roses and five-pointed leaves grew around the wall, creeping into her hair and around her throat. Her arms, her waist, doing what Aisling—just for a moment, a sinful heartbeat—wished Lir did with his hands. Binding her to the wall possessively, as though his prey might flee should he blink.
Aisling closed her eyes, doing her best to banish his spells.
Stay away from the Sidhe king, Aisling .
“You and I were forged for one another,” he said, a breathless whisper scalding her cheeks. “When together, our draiocht grows, spills over the brim of the goblet others sanction to limit our power. To control us.” He lowered one hand, knotting his fingers through Aisling’s. “But when apart, we grow weak, half of the soul we were forged to become.”
“ A love unmatched, a reckless ruinous love capable of destroying kingdoms and plaguing the earth. A harbinger of great upheaval and certain death .” Danu’s words at the Isle of Mirrors slithered into Aisling’s mind and around her heart.
His vines gripped her more tightly.
“Try summoning your flames,” he said.
“I cannot. Fionn’s magic dulls my own and I’m not yet powerful enough to withstand it.”
“You’re as powerful as you believe yourself to be, Aisling. Whether you were locked inside an iron fortress, traded to the Sidhe, or captured by Fionn, you have always been powerful enough. You only need want it enough.”
A stone grew in Aisling’s throat, impossible to swallow.
“I want it more than anything.”
“Then summon your draiocht .”
Lir lifted their hands, fingers still laced, and parted them. His palm a few inches from her own.
Aisling focused.
In the caverns of her draiocht , she searched for that familiar beast. To her surprise it moved, slithered to its threshold and glared up at her. Ice cracking and splintering as it defrosted the sleep Fionn had witched inside her. Comforted by the proximity of Lir’s own draiocht , the thread between them braiding tightly. Humming alive.
His magic was like a wolf, hungry and snarling, excited by the scent of her own. Nuzzling her fury awake and burning through the ice.
So, Aisling summoned it.
Burn , she commanded.
The draiocht rose, bursting upwards and into her lungs. Pain was the first taste and then euphoria. The coursing, the purling, the surge of magic through one’s bones as it crackled and brightened, spilling over and ready to be brandished like a blade.
A soft, radiant fire billowed around her hand. Small, just more than a match’s heat, but it was more than she’d been capable of before either the fear gorta or since stepping foot in Oighir. Illuminating Lir’s hand, still poised before her own, in violet light. His draiocht tangling itself through her own, strengthening her fires by his mere proximity.
Aisling braced herself for the pain. For the agony of her flesh burning against her fires. But it never came. Her hands were whole. Unbloodied and unmarred by her own magic.
Aisling exhaled, in awe her skin no longer burned.
Still, Fionn’s collar around her throat squeezed, urging Aisling to stifle her magic lest it truly choke her. A reminder Aisling was still imprisoned by Fionn in Oighir lest Lir win his tests. And by the flaring of Lir’s expression, Aisling knew he saw the collar squeeze too. His temper swiftly quelled by Aisling’s relieved laugh that she’d been able to summon fire at all without blistering or burning. Because of him.
Aisling swallowed. The intimacy of their draiocht humming, vibrating, growing together, toe curling.
Fionn was wrong. It wasn’t Seelie, Unseelie, or even Forge territory that renewed Aisling’s draiocht and made her strong. It was Lir. Together, their power mutually awakened, but when apart, their magic wilted. Fate cackled, spinning their thread and tightening the noose. Bound by the Forge to either create or destroy. Either way, magnificent together.
“Why is it like this?” Aisling asked, her voice uneven.
“I don’t know,” Lir said. “There are no legends nor myths that chronicle a similar pairing. I felt this… bond ,” he said, brows knotting as though dissatisfied with that title, “the night of our union when you touched my axes for the first time. The feeling grew over our time together, then wreaked havoc on my soul when you disappeared.” He paused again before continuing. “When I thought you died and the bond severed…my draiocht forever changed.”
He gazed down at her, sage eyes purpled by her fires.
Aisling shivered.
“Do you know what a true binding is?” Lir asked, every word slow, as though he were sifting through his mind for a coherent thought.
“The union of two caeras ,” Aisling replied breathlessly.
“No, not a binding. A true binding.”
Fionn had been the first to speak its name. But at the time, Aisling had assumed he’d been referencing a marriage, only possible between two souls chosen by the Forge to be tethered for eternity.
“Two souls can truly bind without being caeras . A way of knotting oneself with another and carving it into the Lady’s constellations. But for two caeras to truly bind…” Lir exhaled against her neck, unable to find the words given the moment. The heat of his breath spine-chilling.
“At the Snaidhm ,” he continued at last, “we were intended to be celebrating our true binding.”
Aisling paused. “A consummation.”
Lir met Aisling’s gaze.
Aisling’s eyes darted back and forth, processing the fae king’s words, desperately collecting the thoughts whirring inside her mind. Her cheeks flushed and hot, and her tongue thick inside her mouth.
“For whatever reason the gods intend, our draiocht is weak when apart and powerful together. And if we truly bind…unstoppable.”
“It isn’t the same for other caera ? When they truly bind?” Aisling asked.
“No,” he said. “A true binding would embolden our magic beyond what this realm or the next has ever witnessed. We’d be limitless, Aisling.”
Limitless.
Adrenaline drummed inside Aisling’s chest.
“Is this a confession of your love, barbarian lord?” Aisling asked, grasping at her venom but sounding flustered instead.
“Who said anything about love?” Lir said, and against Aisling’s own volition her heart splintered. She didn’t love Lir—no, she couldn’t love him. He was no longer her enemy by blood but by power. Both she and Lir racing for dominion whether it be at Lofgren’s Rise or elsewhere. But with these new words, with Lir’s proposal of a true binding, a fork in the road was written in the stars: to either truly bind with Lir or battle him for an eternity.
Aisling’s heart burned with hate for him, desperately, manically, bound to his. Because he left her in the dark, because he hunted her, because he risked everything Aisling wanted for his own motives, and now, had the nerve to try and align with her if it meant his own success. To use her. And still, her heart translated his flippancy for any affection between them as betrayal.
Aisling lit like a broken star, violet, and pulsing. Shriveling Lir’s shackles of vines to ash at her feet. The collar at Aisling’s neck strangling her till it ringed her neck with red.
Lir stepped back, studying her expression. Her fires forcing a distance between them. A fleck of hurt flashing across Lir’s face and disappearing before Aisling knew if it was real or her imagination. His nostrils flaring at the bruising already forming around her throat thanks to Fionn’s collar.
“Win this last test for me,” Aisling said. “Free us from Oighir and then we’ll venture our separate ways to Lofgren’s Rise. And should we both survive? Only then would I consider a true binding for the benefit of emboldening my might alone.”
Lir smiled, but it was joyless and wicked. Weaving a bloody rose around her hand till she held it between her fingers.
“I have no intention of ever letting you go again, ellwyn .”