Page 121 of The Forever Queen

Aisling averted her eyes, turning to the unlit candles frozen mid-melt. She picked up one and blew softly, lighting the candle and all others with violet flame.

The room was gilded by both fire and flower, theirdraiochtthick and ripe in the air.

Lir leaned his back against the wall, crossing his arms. He appeared cool as summer evening breezes, calm as undisturbed woodland ponds, and yet Aisling felt the thrashing inside him. Felt hisdraiochtseeking her own. A forest’s tempest, trapped inside him.

“Tomorrow is the last moon of the storm season…the war will most likely commence at daybreak if not sooner,” Lir said, his voice abandoning all levity.

Aisling approached him, studying the way he stiffened the nearer she grew. A vein snaking up his throat.

“Rest while you can,” Lir said, eyes darkening while he watched her move. Aisling relished his attention. The sensation of his eyes memorizing the nuances of her body was like fingertips to bare flesh. As if only she existed: Aisling, the enemy of his heart.

Run, flee, escape, walk away,Anduril pleaded.

Aisling shuddered, herdraiochtflaring wildly inside her as it’d never done before. She drew closer, her feet guiding her toward the Sidhe king as if bespelled.

“Where will you rest?” Aisling asked, her voice sleepy.

Lir straightened against the wall, knocking over a stack of books beside his elbow. He glanced at the commotion for a brief second, returning his eyes to Aisling as if she might vanish if he looked away too long.

“It’s not your concern,” he said, his voice rasping at the edges.

“Is it not?” Aisling asked, almost a whisper now that she was near enough to see the racing of his pulse. The snow winds, the only sound outside the crackling of Aisling’s candle wicks. “You’ve failed to conceal your tricks to me and now that I know with certainty you’ve hidden something from me, bewitched me, betrayed me somehow. You and everything you are is my ultimate concern,” Aisling said, chest to chest with the Sidhe king, forcing her to tip her chin up to meet his sage eyes above.

“Ask me then, sorceress faerie,” Lir said, leaning his head down and toward her. “For despite oath or bargain, by the Forge, I am incapable of telling a lie. So, ask me for the truth.”

Aisling gathered her thoughts in armfuls, struggling to focus when in his presence. This close up, the Sidhe king was no more than a dream, a legend, a mythic figment of her imagination, kindled by the tales of fantasy she’d hungered for as a child. He was the dark knight she’d clung to in the recesses of her most sacred wishes and the wild savage she’d felt inside herself.

“Do you love me?” Aisling asked, holding the Sidhe king’s eyes. Her breaths grew heavy, the beat of her heart throbbing even in her tongue while her body buzzed with adrenaline. It was strange this exhilaration—this connection between them––pulling her toward him by an intangible thread. What she felt was inexplicable, unfathomable, and without reason. A thirst only he could slake, bringing sweet salvation to her lips by the mouthful if he so wished it.

The forest green of Lir’s eyes were flecked with pain. His mouth bent oddly as if resisting the laws that compelled his tongue to speak the truth and the truth alone.

“Yes,” he answered at last.

But like a spell spoken, theirdraiochtsurged upward, the flower bulbs overcome with light and the candles blazing despite their small wicks. The Goblet beside them both, thrumming with excitement in the presence of their combined power.

No, Anduril roared, squeezing Aisling’s hips painfully and biting into her skin.

“Then why can I not remember?” Aisling asked, rising onto her tiptoes so their noses brushed against one another. Lir shut his eyes the moment she touched him, holding onto his arm for balance. “Why has the memory been cut from my mind and not my heart?”

Enough, Anduril screamed drawing blood from Aisling’s skin.

Lir opened his eyes, pupils drowning out his irises. His expression was heart-stricken, appearing and disappearing just as quickly.

“Because this cannot be,” Lir said beneath his breath as if forcing out the words.

“What cannot be?” Aisling asked, her lips a breath from his own, pulling the truth from between his fangs.

“You and I,” he said. “You and I are ruinous.”

Listen, listen, listen, listen, Anduril said.

“Since when does the high king of the Sidhe fear destruction, power, might and the devastation it leaves in its wake? Are you more virtuous than the tales my kin would have me believe?” Aisling asked, her body heating. “Where is my dark knight?”

My. The word fell from Aisling’s lips as second nature. A detail that hadn’t snuck past the Sidhe king undetected.

Lir shook his head. “It isn’t heroism that compels me,” he said, his gaze deepening the longer he held her eyes. “Not long ago, I was bespelled by a sorceress who donned the guise of a mortal princess. Violet-eyed, she cursed me with one glance, transforming all my desires, all my muses, all my thoughts into one unholy jinx alone: her.” Lir brushed her lips with his own. “You,” he clarified.

“And so, thief, violet-eyed sorceress, you have bested me,” Lir said, speaking into her lips. “Have mercy on my soul, for it swore an oath to serve you until the end. A heart for a heart,” Lir said. “My soul, your own. All that you covet, my heart’s labor.”

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