Page 130 of The Forever Queen

The Other shuddered, a mortal unwelcome in this spirit realm. And so, the grin spread throughout the plane with wicked speed, closing in on the gateway with its disease as Aisling worked. Their mortal influence corrupting from the inside out.

Starn reached his head through. Aisling held back when her brother entered, waiting instead for the tip of Galad’s blade to sever her brother’s head from body. And sever Galad did. In a slushy thud, Starn’s head hit the ground and rolled down the roots of the ash. Her father gaped, expression blank as he clawed through the gate to reach his son’s head.

I summon the draiocht, Aisling whispered.I summon it all.

Racat grinned, ear to ear.At long last. The Goblet focused on hers and Lir’s combined power.

Aisling’s magic flared, blood dripping from her nostrils as she focused on her clann, her father, and let go.

Aisling!The Lady shrieked between the folds of oblivion, reaching for Aisling through the veil. But it was too late.

The gateway ripped apart and warped with her flames. The dream tree shrieked with pain, its limbs crumpling and curling in like a dead spider’s legs.

Aisling felt the lives of her clann end, staring vacantly long after their flesh had melted from their bones. There was an instinctual pang of grief followed by absolute fulfillment. In this one fleeting moment, Aisling, at last, had everything: power, love, and release. Vengeance, sweet on her tongue as she collapsed across from the Sidhe king. Both swathed in flames, the storm washing away their blood.

CHAPTER LX

AISLING

The Great Forge of Creation bubbled darkly from the brim of the Goblet.

Neither here nor there, Aisling stood in darkness, caught somewhere in between. Her wings fluttered at her back and her blade was licked with violet flame.

Aisling smelled the plum-fresh perfume of the Goblet. Slowly, she brought the chalice to her lips, its brew dripping down the corner of her mouth and down the edge of her throat. Aisling drank and drank, guzzling until not a drop was left.

At last, she came up for air. Pupils dilating across the whites of her eyes.

“Rise,” Racat purred, “Rise and reign everlasting.”

Aisling wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Her gown glittering even in the darkness.

“May I take one last sip of the Goblet?” Aisling asked, not entirely sure whom she asked.

“Take as many as you like,” Racat said.

Aisling brought the Goblet to her lips once more, tasting its sickly-sweet sap. She closed her eyes and thought of her intent, of returning what was stolen.

CHAPTER LXI

Prophecies, self-fulfilled or otherwise, were cunning. Visions and ill omens were only as powerful as those who believed in their shadowed magic. But to those who had faith in their blades and their unique ability to carve destiny from the battle of wills, fate cowered. The dauntless pointed their swords in the direction of their conquests and not away.

Ina foresaw an impossible magic. Whilst some claimed such sorcery was the product of the gods and their cruel mischief, others deemed it a miracle. All the same, it was a magic more powerful than a blade, more unbreakable than a spell, and greater than any prophecy.

Combined, Aisling and Lir’sdraiochtwas the only magic powerful enough to destroy the gate and protect the Forge and all its kin, this much Ina knew. The Seelie queen of Iod toyed with different outcomes, stirring the waters of time and rearranging the endings. In some tales, the mortals passed through the gateway and destroyed the spirit world. In others, Aisling and Lir burned both realms to nothing more than ash. But perhaps, Aisling and Lir were always meant to destroy the gateway to protect the Forge. Perhaps, there was never another ending.

Aisling stuck her hand into the Goblet, elbow deep. She rummaged through the brew, stealing every forge-born creature remaining in the mortal plane and delivering them to the Other—magic sucked from the veins of the mortal plane until Aisling had her fill.

The mortals and the fae could never coexist. Mankind destroyed, bled, and blazed through the earth the Sidhe lived off. And so, the forge-born were best protected in a realm of their own. Still, their magic thrummed through the earth, between the trees, beneath the mountains, within the wind. Just beyond mortal touch.

Without mercy, Aisling spared only those who’d supported Lir and Annwyn. Others, such as Danu’s Unseelie, met brutal ends. Danu herself was given to Lir who rebuilt Annwyn in the depths of the Other’s most ancient woods. His castle, forged by the forest itself for their sovereign.

Over the span of eternity, Lir cut Danu’s branches one by one. He kept the empress alive, a ghost that would haunt Annwyn’s corridors till the realm’s end.

The Sidhe king of the greenwood reigned as high king of the Other—a period of unadulterated magic filling the Other to the bone with enchantments. Still, once a year, the Sidhe king journeyed to the ash tree at the center of the field where Niamh’s gateway once stood.

On the eve ofSamhain, when the veil was thinnest, Lir would sleep below the tree and wait for her.

She tiptoed through the mists of time, pulling apart the tapestry of the universe, and slipping into Lir’s arms just before he woke. She, having given her life to destroy the gate and save Lir, became the gateway herself. A spirit of beginnings and endings. A creature of the in-between. A savage beast and magic incarnate, she was limitless. Aisling was free, anchored to the tangible only by her love for her nightmare, enemy king.

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