Page 37 of The Forever Queen

Hours before, Tahsman was glittering. A copper chalice settled at the center of the southern wastelands with a singing, laughing, merry heart of a kingdom at its center. Winds ran dry and hot, brushing the branches of skeletal, spindly trees and the cracked earth. They blew from the north, scraping up the sides of Tahsman’s sparkling gates and into the kingdom itself, billowing below the wings of Aos Sí as they darted between the corridors of their home. Bridges, walkways, and towers stretched and pulled like hardened honey or melted sugars—amber and trapping the light of the sun. All of which fell at the knee to the fire hand.

Nemed swallowedwystriadaily, curled before the hearth like an incubus atop a body. The fire hand spread thescull draiochtfrom knight to knight. Their eyes lit like hot coals, the corners of their lips curled with smoke and the heat of the Lady’s wildfire inside. They spat, they screamed, they spoke, and fire bred quickly. It grew and multiplied as if alive. As if the wystria, nestled inside the chasm of mortal man’s heart was as hungry for Aos Sí’s destruction as Nemed himself. This was the nature of shadow magic: it ate from the will of its master.

Nemed sucked in a breath, relishing the taste of the Lady’s dark magic. It growled inside his gut, stuck to his insides like tar, and clawed at his throat to be released. He bit down on its overzealous whims, finding strange satisfaction in harnessing such powers. But none of that was as fulfilling as what the wystria did.

The Aos Sí screamed for their lives like a symphony of birds crushed slowly. Their whimpering dimmed to muffled cries within the first hour and by the fifth, only the crackling of the flames popped and snapped atop piles of Aos Sí bones. This was conquest. This was war. This was power, Nemed realized, as he tickled the wystria’s dark desires between his teeth with his tongue.

The fire hand walked forward, taking in the image of his triumph—ichor crunching beneath the iron soles of his boots. He dragged his left leg, his limp less noticeable with the strength of the wystria inside him. And had it not been for the mortal knight, dead atop the cobbles, Nemed would’ve explored every death-marked alley, every blood-soaked chamber, and every splintered bone to indulge his victory—his fae genocide. Instead, he stopped short and knelt beside his knight.

The man had been dead for some time, a gem-encrusted fae spear impaling his chest. He was young, perhaps not even past his fourth decade with a blade still firmly clutched in his right hand. Nemed knelt beside him, brushing back hair stuck to his face by both blood and sweat.

The fire hand had ventured to Tahsman with only a handful of men. Aisling had destroyed most mortal fleets, but it’d been thewystria that offered humankind power over the Aos Sí at long last. The ability to venture into the feywilds and their kingdoms one by one and reclaim all that was rightfully theirs despite their small numbers. And so, Nemed had done just that: Tahsman was the third Aos Sí kingdom the mortals had taken, pillaged, ravaged, and destroyed in every violent capacity war allowed.

The wystria thrashed inside Nemed’s mouth, eager for release. He clenched his jaw but thought better of it, his hand hesitating on the knight’s forehead. Slowly, he opened his mouth and let the wystria slip off his tongue. It fell from his mouth like a floating lantern, falling gradually toward the knight. It hesitated briefly, before diving down.

The wystria nestled into the cavity of the knight’s mouth. It burned more brightly, biting chunks from Nemed’s soul to complete its work. The fire hand winced—a combination of pain and pleasure rattling through his body each time thescull draiochttook what it was owed.

The knight’s eyes opened, but they burned not with human life, only with the will of shadowed magic—Nemed’sscull draiochtand the bits of his soul it’d eaten.

The knight rose to his feet, pulling the spear from his chest with a slushy release. He stood dead but tall, waiting on Nemed’s signal to continue the destruction they’d already wrought over Tahsman. Starn’s raven, a letter in its beak, landed on a statue lithely.

CHAPTER XIV

LIR

The smell of warm milk cider floated from the old fox’s cottage in a wispy tendril, teasing Lir where he crouched in the rain. The cottage was overgrown with ivy and wildflowers, sprouting atop the shingled roof, the cracks between stones, and even the smoking chimney, nestled between a family of pines.

“Through the wetland it comes, hungry, hungry for more than crumbs, mo Damh Bán,” the trees said between the groans of thunder overhead. “Not too long from now.”

Lir didn’t trust the trees here in the Other. They spoke in riddles, spoke too loudly, and too often. So had it not been for Lir’s own sense that what he was attracting was indeed coming, he wouldn’t have relied on their messages that his waiting was almost over.

Lir dipped his fist back into the wetland and exhaled. Thedraiochthowled inside, summoning a rich magic that vibrated with the surrounding storm. Wetweed bloomed inside his fist and then spread throughout the body of water. It grew dense and lush, transforming the wetland into a feast.

At last, the waters rippled and moved, forming a mound of water as the monster approached.

Lir stood from his crouch and watched as the creature lifted its head, springing for the Sidhe king. Lir anticipated this. Most Unseelie were chaotic in nature, driven by hunger and hunger alone.

Lir didn’t flinch. Instead, roots rose like tentacles, reaching and grabbing for the slippery fiend. They tangled around its head, its throat, binding the massive creature in a bed of wetweed.

It shrieked an unholy cry, squirming for its life after having fallen prey to Lir’s trap. Yet, its struggle was in vain. And once it stilled, Lir could see the green of its slimy flesh, the coarse mane that grew down the ridge of its head, its neck, and its back. Its square teeth and glowing red eyes.

A kelpie.

“Asteria missto pastera lek,” Lir said. It was a command for the Unseelie to bow to its sovereign: a necessary display of subservience to the more dominant between the pair. And so long as the kelpie understood Lir was in control, it would obey.

The kelpie wailed, thrashing in Lir’s vines. The more it struggled, the more tightly Lir held it with his roots, inspiring the wetweed to grow bountifully.

“Asteria missto pastera lek,” Lir repeated, and after several painful heartbeats, the kelpie surrendered.

Lir untangled his roots, slithering away like a nest of snakes. The smell of the kelpie’s wounds from its skin having been rubbed raw, stained the air where milk cider once had.

“Protect these waters and the old fox who lives here,” Lir continued, “and you shall not want for your next meal.”

Both cautiously and weakly, the kelpie took its first bite of wetweed. One bite became many, and soon the Unseelie was devouring what Lir had grown with ravenous gulps. And with every swallow, the bargain between the old fox and Lir was satisfied—thedraiochtstirring through the surrounding forest in great howls of wind.

So, by the time Lir entered the fox’s cottage, doubling over to fit inside the small door, the fox had already sensed the completion of Lir’s debt as well.

“Take a seat,mo Damh Bán.” The fox greeted Lir, leaping from his stool to fetch another for the Sidhe king. The fox was dry now and wrapped in a woolen shawl, cupping his pottered bowl filled generously to the brim. “I’d offer for you to remove your weaponry so you might be more comfortable, but considering who you are, I’ll abstain. Simply know that welcoming a sovereign, even an Aos Sí king, is my utmost priority.”

---