Page 16 of The Forever Queen

“Seliac niv lenelle santi lelluna, te mes crai sen shetek duachte my frei lewen,” she said.

Despite bitter winter and its formidable blade, even death’s knee will bend to the bloom.

A bidding of good luck the Forge knew Lir needed.

* * *

Lir and Galad descended the spiral staircase, greeted by a chill far more potent than even Castle Annwyn’s dungeons were accustomed to. A century-old badger guided them through the dimness, carrying a lantern of brightly glowing flower bulbs that shuddered with the cold. The hoop of keys, dangling at the badger’s belt, jingled every step further into the abyss.

“I thought you bespelled his draiocht,” Galad said, eyeing the frost that stuck against the stones and their coats of moss.

Lir worked his jaw. “Aisling requested the enchantment be broken. If it were my decision, my brother would’ve suffocated under such spells the night of Imbolc.”

Galad grimaced at the ice glazing the steps thickly now.

“It isn’t like her,” Galad continued. “She’s usually more…”

“Merciless?” Lir asked.

“Unforgiving.”

Galad, Lir, and the badger exchanged glances.

“Fionn is a tool for Aisling,” Lir explained. “And if Aisling is anything, it’s clever. She’s well adept at compartmentalizing her feelings to find an advantage in favor of her ends. Something more of the Sidhe, including myself, would do well to mirror if we’re to rewrite prophecies.”

Galad nodded in understanding, opening his mouth to speak but thinking better of it. The winter Lir’s dungeons were now possessed with, was more than enough to herald Fionn’s growing presence. For wherever the air grew cold, Fionn would be listening.

At long last, the badger shuffled onto sheets of ice in the pure dark, nothing but his lantern to shed light on the wooden boat, frozen where the pools of a cistern once rippled. Pools bewitched by Angharad, a water nymph from Niltaor, who Bres—Lir’s father—commissioned to enchant the waters so that whosoever stood within their depths, suffered from a mind lost between clouds, a soothed spirit, and an eagerness to both stay and rest. A brew one yawn short of a sleep potion. However, suchdraiochtwas petrified by the same winter that froze a forest solid.

Lir reached for a nearby flower. He blew against its petals once, twice, thrice.

The flower’s petals floated away, multiplying into billions of new buds, brightening the room till the impression of daylight was given and all could be seen.

Colossal pillars, carved in the image of bucking stags carried the barreled, mosaic ceilings on their antlers. They protected the willows that grew upside down, branches plunging into the waters of the cistern and forming various cages with their limbs. Here, in Castle Annwyn’s dungeons, prisoners would rot waist-deep in both the pitch dark and Angharad’s enchanted waters.

Yet, the behemoth willow—that caged the son of Winter at the far end of the cistern—was frozen solid. Now, it resembled an ice giant’s hand, punching down to protect Lir’s elder brother from the summer green of his forest kingdom. Fionn and Frigg were shielded between the giant’s fingers.

Lir buried his irritation and Fionn’s silvery eyes twinkled with interest, his chin lifting the moment Lir and Galad’s boots set foot on the ice, forgoing the boat they would’ve once sailed to access each cell, and approaching on foot. The badger was shortly behind.

“I expected to see you sooner, brother,” Fionn said, listlessly reclining on jagged ice as though it were cushions and pelts. He didn’t move, didn’t so much as stand, the image of a king interrupted whilst relaxing in his throne room. Yet, the hollows of his eyes betrayed him—the hungry curve of his lips when he flashed his fangs.

“How long has it been?” Lir asked, feigning sincerity. The other prisoners they passed, nothing more than piles of bones, half-submerged beneath frozen waters.

“Three days give or take,” Frigg snapped.

“When Aisling convinced you to let me aid you both and the Sidhe at large, I didn’t realize that meant my accommodations would remain those that once imprisoned me,” Fionn said.

“And after three days in these dungeons, I anticipated more enthusiasm at our arrival.” Lir stopped a few paces from Fionn’s cell. Galad and the badger following suit.

“Let’s see.” Fionn, at last, straightened, studying Lir and Galad more closely.

“Your hands are empty. So are your pockets stuffed with fog pastries, yule gelatin, or twelfthtide rolls?” Frigg asked.

“If not,”Fionn added, “then our indifference at your arrival is better exchanged with the disappointment you aren’t your caera.”

Lir grinned, flashing his fangs like a wolf before it bites. That familiar, warm shadow spreading beneath his skin with violence.

The Sidhe king crouched beside the cage. Now, he met Fionn’s stare where the son of Winter sat, lazily unsheathing one of his axes and lodging its blade into the ice beside him in the same movement. The cistern juddered with his strength. “So, tell me what you have planned.”

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