Page 4 of The Forever Queen

Despite bitter winter and its formidable blade, even death’s knee will bend to the bloom. A phrase the Sidhe expressed to one another often enough that Aisling had become familiar with its translation.

Lir slammed the axe into the felled oak, vines bursting from the blade upon impact. Aisling’s nose burned with his magic, hisdraiochtmoaning against her own, the forest tossing madly as the felled oak grew back to life and bloomed as if anew; a creature to rival Huriel’s great size and age; Castle Annwyn, grumbling at the weight of Lir’s spells in the distance.

Once the oak stood as a giant before them, straight and proud, Aisling closed her eyes and inhaled like she and Lir had practiced in preparation for this occasion.

I summon the fire, she said to thedraiocht.

Racat, thedragúnwho embodied her magic, laughed beneath his breath inside her, wasting not a moment to burst upward and from Aisling.

The oak’s leaves grew not green but violet and licked with flame. Both Lir’s and Aisling’s magic of life and death, intertwining, braiding, knotting until all the north and beyond held its breath at their splendor. An oak of wood and flame, blazing in the heart of Annwyn.

It was unheard of. Thedraiochtand firewere irreconcilable. As antithetical as day and night, mixed by the spoon of Lir and Aisling’s power. So, in addition to Annwyn’s splendor, there was horror. Fear bleeding acrossImbolclike blood on linen. A myth few would believe, born before them.

Annwyn roared more loudly, the realm itself juddering with the force of their excitement. But even so, Aisling still heard Lir’s voice rise above the others.

“Ash!” Lir shouted.

Aisling found Lir’s eyes amidst the elation. But Lir, without warning, reacted with wicked speed, and Aisling watched their celebrations shift into shock—into panic––before Aisling felt hot sap seeping into the fabric of her gown, just above the heart.

Blood.

She hadn’t felt the arrow pierce just below her collar, nor the sizzling and popping of her blood against the iron arrowhead. The shock had protected her against the initial waves of pain. Her ears ringing so loudly she could scarcely hear the chaos. Aisling touched the arrow sticking from her chest, eyes drifting from the reed to Lir before her. He stared at Aisling’s wound, but his left hand clutched his opposite bleeding shoulder. He was hurt. A wound to match Aisling’s own. Except, the iron arrow responsible for the wound in Lir’s shoulder was gone. Gone, having cut through the fae king and into Aisling.

Iron had teeth. Or, at least, it felt that way ever since Aisling’s mortal blood had thinned to a whisper. Even its stench, its rust, its texture bit into Aisling’s flesh and needled its way into the marrow of her bones.

Aisling lay in Lir’s arms, pulling the arrow from her chest as chaos blazed around them. Lir hissed something beneath his breath, bloody poppies sprouting madly at her wound where the fae king’s attention struggled to think of anything else, ignoring his own violent injury.

Aisling cared little for her pain, horrified by the devastation that surrounded them. Iron arrows showeredImbolcas well as both Seelie and Unseelie screams. The scraping of swords being released from their scabbards was a symphony of promised death––from either the Seelie or mortals, Aisling was unsure.

Galad, Gilrel, Peitho, and Filverel twisted with their blades, slicing and cutting shadows. Shadows that grew and warped, growing larger as they surroundedImbolcand the frenzy of forge-born creatures. Their stags lay lifeless at the edge of the wood, Sidhe were staked through with iron spears, and the Sidhe animals that raised their weapons lay horns, hooves, and paws down, vacant eyes void of their Forge blood.

“Mortals,” Aisling said between her teeth.

Lir pulled her possessively against himself.

“We need to leave,” Lir said, scooping Aisling into his arms as he stood.

“No,” Aisling said, her heart hammering. Or Lir’s, she wasn’t certain.

“A trevus noralla in cept,” Galad shouted to Lir, slicing through a mortal knight and spraying them all in his fleshling stench. The human collapsed next to Aisling, his armor chinking, the weight of him making a gruesome thud as he hit the earth. Aisling didn’t recognize him, but his trappings spoke for themselves. This mortal stranger, clad in Tilrish tartans: the scarlet wool that once belonged to Aisling’s mortal clann.

Smoke billowed from the corners of his mouth, an ember dimming between his teeth. As if his mouth were a furnace hungry for more coals.

Aisling smelled it before she spoke its name beneath her breath.

“Draiocht.”

Aisling’s chest tightened, her heart hammering madly. She was weak from her injury, her complexion paling.

“Starn was behind this,” Aisling hissed, smelling the Lady’s influence. “And my father.” An indescribable anger simmered within her at the realization.

“Galad!” Lir shouted, capturing his knight’s attention. His voice was rougher, darker than it’d been before. “Escort Aisling to the castle.” Galad nodded his head, gently taking Aisling from Lir’s arms.

“No,” Aisling bit, struggling in Galad’s grip. “No, I must find them.”

Lir opened his mouth to speak but was cut short, swiveling on his heel and cutting through another mortal attacker. Their human screams piqued something in Aisling she couldn’t quite describe but longed to hear again. And again she did, Lir conjuring fledgling trees that sprouted and overturned the soil, the flowers, the moss-soft grass beneath their feet. Hisdraiocht, teasing her own despite the blood that flooded from his arrow wound, doing its best to heal whilst Lir expended moredraiocht.

To the Sidhe, magic was breath. They inhaled it, filling their lungs with the primordial sighs of the Forge, and without it, they couldn’t survive. Without thedraiocht, they would suffocate. But too much of thedraiochtand they’d grow breathless, gasping for more, insatiable, unable to catch their breath, and the weight of their power would be enough to crush their chests and cease their eternal hearts. The more powerful the magic, the greater the cost.

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