Page 5 of The Forever Queen

“Lir will deal with them,” Galad whispered in Aisling’s ear, holding her firmly in his grip.

“They’re mine to deal with,” Aisling growled, averting her eyes from the corpses of three Forge badgers and a hare piled atop one another, blood dripping from the corners of their gaping mouths.

This was an ambush. An onslaught. Devilry on behalf of humankind. On behalf of her father. And Aisling knew Starn was nearby. She could smell him. So close and most likely the wielder of the arrow that’d struck both her and Lir. It’d been too precise, too perfect not to have been aided by the Lady’s sorcery.

Aisling jerked free of Galad’s grasp.

“Ash!” the knight cried, but it was too late.

Aisling felt Racat’s excitement before her own, boiling in her gut and whistling through her teeth like steam from a cauldron.

Is this what you want? Racat asked inside her mind, his voice echoing.

“Aye,” Aisling said aloud. And it was done.

The oak’s leaves of violet fire grew alongside Lir’s fledglings, his vines, his brambles of thorns and needles. Every lick of flame devouring the world that it touched, magnified by Lir’s power. So while the Lady was well versed in trickery, she’d told one truth: Lir’s and Aisling’s magic, side by side, was devastation incarnate.

Both mortals and forge-born creatures became swathed in her flames, in Lir’s magic. Their world was the crackling, raging flame of a candle whose wick was too long. Too persistent and too eager to burn.

More, Racat growled.More!

Lir shuffled backward, alarmed by the magnitude of their combined power. Aisling and Lir had performed brief spells together, played in the woods with flames and flowers between their lips and teeth, but never had they toyed with battle magic to this degree. And it was ruinous.

“Enough!” Aisling screamed at Racat to no avail. She’d let thedragúngo too far. He was a garland of flame, wicking throughImbolcand destroying everything in his path, nearly including the Sidhe themselves.

“Enough!” Aisling ordered Racat, falling to her knees, her entire body possessed by the fire.

It is never enough, dear friend, Racat replied.

Lir raced toward Aisling; Galad struggled through hordes of burning mortals; Gilrel screamed her name, but it was out of Aisling’s control. And now, Annwyn would burn.

CHAPTER II

AISLING

“Stop, Aisling!” Gilrel wailed, landing lithely beside Aisling. Burning tears slipped from Aisling’s eyes as she met Gilrel’s horrified expression.

“I can’t.” Aisling closed her eyes, and she cried more embers that floated up and into the fire that engulfed them. Galad, Lir, Peitho, and Filverel were among the hundreds that battled both Aisling’s fire and the mortals for their lives.

“You can,” a voice said, but it wasn’t Gilrel’s. It was a male’s, as soft and lilting as snow falling. “Just say the word.”

Aisling and Gilrel both whipped their heads in the voice’s direction.

Fionn.

He appeared without forewarning. He stood silver and sparkling. Boots jagged with ice and the angry, angled perfection of frost. A snapping wolf at his side.

Aisling sprung to her feet awkwardly, staggering backward and away from the son of Winter: Lir’s brother and he who’d both imprisoned Aisling and dulled herdraiocht. Attempted to unbind her and Lir so that Fionn and Aisling might come into union and rule over both Seelie and Unseelie in Lir’s stead.

“Another step forward and I’ll have your head, sovereign or not,” Gilrel said, pointing her blade at Fionn. Frigg, his silver wolf, snapped his jaws at the pine marten. Gilrel gripped her hilt more tightly, glaring down at the hound with her beady eyes.

“Be my guest,” Fionn said, cool as the permafrost. “And together, we’ll burn in Aisling’sdraiocht.”

Gilrel hesitated, the devastation around them proof enough of Fionn’s words.

“What do you want, Fionn?” Aisling growled through thedraiochtseeping from her pores. The vibration of her magic unbearable.

“To help you.”

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