Page 2 of The Forever Queen

“End my wanting, Lady,” Nemed said. “For your want and mine are the same.”

The Lady pursed her lips. She stood still for a long while—her empty, spidery glare uncanny.

“I have already shared with you that which I am forbidden to share,” the Lady said, her attention shifting to Starn’s enchanted blade sitting on his hip.

“You, too, have committed sacrilege then,” Nemed said. “Our hands are sullied equally. We’ve both measured the tails of fate and have found one to be both worse than sacrilege and worse than death.” Nemed’s eyes drifted to his knight lying face down on the cobbles in a pool of his own blood. “If Aisling and her barbarian lord are ungoverned and unbridled, we are both denied our want: order, the will of fate, and the continuation of all that currently is and will be.”

The Lady seemed to hold her breath, mulling over the high king’s words with the patience of eternity.

At last, she spoke.

“Do you wish to destroy or to rule the Forge and all its creation?” she asked, her voice bouncing off the walls of the tower.

The corners of Nemed’s lips curled and he exchanged glances with his son.

“There is no satisfaction in conquering the dead. I wish for mankind to rule,” Nemed said. “But if—to stop my daughter’s will and that of the Forge—I must destroy…then so be it.”

The Lady tilted her head back further, the spiders in her eyes squirming amongst one another.

She sucked in a ragged breath as if her lungs were still not fully remade.

“What do you know of the gateway?”

Nemed and Starn shifted.

The Lady studied him until he spoke.

“The Forbidden Lore claims it’s the entrance to the Otherworld—locked to mankind,” Starn said, his words falling off his tongue before he could think better of it.

“The Otherworld has many doors through which to slip in and out of the spirit realm. But the first created is the most powerful. Conquer it, destroy it, hide it, and all other doors will follow in kind,” the Lady said.

Nemed swallowed hard, forcing Starn to wonder if his heart was thudding as violently as his own.

“Where is this gateway?” Nemed asked, his voice suddenly thick and wet.

The Lady smiled.

“It moves,” she said. “Hunt it, find it, and Aisling will be stopped. Our wants will be fulfilled.”

“But how?” Starn asked. “Aisling destroyed nearly every northern fleet at Lofgren’s Rise. We are dwindling and crippled.”

“Aisling is weak after expending so much fury. It’s why hers and Lir’s bond hasn’t scorched the earth yet,” Nemed said. “She is useless in battle and more pitiful with a blade. But once her magic returns to her?—”

“Wystria,” the Lady called. In the palm of her hand, a sparkling ball of flame bloomed. It spun slowly and glowed brightly, gilding all that felt its warm gaze. Neither Nemed nor Starn blinked, transfixed by her magic. “Wildfire,” she translated.

The Lady lifted her palm to her lips and blew on the flame. Softly, it floated to the high king and his son but stopped a pace short. It bobbed for a moment, crackling as it burned. And then, it cleaved itself in two, one half drifting to Nemed and one to Starn.

“Eat and be filled and spit flame,” the Lady said, but it rang throughout the tower like a curse.

Starn’s stomach flipped, but he mirrored his father regardless. After Nemed, he took the flame in his hand, brought it to his mouth, and swallowed it whole.

The Lady watched, her fingers moving as if working thread on an invisible loom.

“Hear me Forge, hear me fate,

let man and magic meet at the gate.

A curse will be a boon,

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