Page 55 of The Forever Queen

“Is that necessary?” Aisling asked, her voice betraying the heat she felt building inside.

“The closer your body to mine, the easier to shield you,” Lir said, his lips tickling her ear where he bent to whisper. The storm was loud, competing with his words.

Once, twice, the fae king wrapped the reins around his wrist and flicked, encouraging the mount forward.

“Your excuses grow tired,” Aisling said, straightening her back. She became needlessly stubborn in his presence, impatient, and cold. All of which appeared to encourage the fae king further. “The only creature I need to be shielded from, is you.”

Lir laughed. The sound rattled inside Aisling like the first notes of an organ seated in the righteous mouths of chapels. Deep, inhumane, and coupled with the echo of forgotten gods. A being whose age—whilst invisible to the eye—shone through his elegance, his violence, the wisdom and intelligence behind his every glance, and the burden born heavy in the slope of his shoulders.

“What are you suggesting?” he said, and while Aisling couldn’t see his face, a smile was apparent in the amused lilt of his voice.

“I do not know—or care to know for that matter—the history that lies between us. For whatever reason, your influence in my life is tangled, knotted, and fraying. Both difficult to understand and more frustrating to unravel. And so, you are a weakness to me,” Aisling said. “Even if you despise me.”

This inspired a strange noise from the fae king. He twitched, doing his best to hide his surprise at Aisling’s forwardness.

“You flatter yourself, sorceress,” Lir said. “You’d have to occupy my mind for me to despise you.”

Like a club to the face, Aisling felt the blow of the fae king’s indifference. She shouldn’t and didn’t care, she reminded herself, embarrassed she was hurt at all.

Geld approached the steepled gates of Castle Yillen veiled like a bride with the tempest. Two vast, armored bears stood on either side of the portcullis. They crossed their spears before the gate, still as statues.

“You deny that which my senses determine easily,” Aisling said. “I hear your heart jolt when you see me, I smell your anxiety when I’m near, and I taste your nerves when you accidentally touch me.” All truth. But none of that made Aisling so certain of the fae king’s disdain as her own. Whatever strange bond they shared sank its teeth into the marrow of her heart, and fed off the blood of her obsession.

Parasite, deceiver, distraction! Anduril screamed, squeezing Aisling till she feared the bruises that would follow shortly after.Seek the Goblet. Seek the Goblet. Seek the Goblet, the Blood Cord chanted like a mad man wailing through cobbled streets.

Lir said nothing. His silence, formidable.

The fae king nodded his head at the two bears, and they uncrossed their spears. Slowly, the portcullis released its teeth from the flagstones of Castle Yillen and heaved open.

Aisling and Lir passed through the gate like ghosts, laced in the supernatural mist of the Other as they stepped onto the jeweled stepping stones that spiraled toward the earth far below.

Aisling’s tongue turned to ash and her stomach knotted tightly. One small misstep from Geld and they’d all three plunge to their death.

Geld’s hooves struggled to adjust to the slick edge of the floating stones, the rain, and the moss that mischievously coated each step of their descent. Geld’s hooves slid off the edge of the fourth stone, sending the stag into a panic.

Aisling screamed, her dinner rising up her throat.

Without hesitation, Lir grabbed Aisling and pulled her tightly against him. His magic flared out, manifesting in vines like ropes that caught Geld’s hooves and straightened the stag. The stag whimpered and whined, prancing in place despite the vines that stuck the beast to the stones. At last, Geld calmed and continued, each step secured by Lir’s vines as they descended.

Nevertheless, Aisling’s heart fluttered as quickly as a cornered hare’s. Her body firmly pressed against the fae king’s.

Racat shrieked inside Aisling as if pierced by an iron reed. Thedragúnwhipped back and forth, struggling for breath as if the fae king’s proximity had made it manic. Anduril, on the other hand, smiled. The belt stifled Racat’s energy, smothering herdraiochttill it collapsed against the caverns of her soul—its chest rising and falling with brittle breath. The Blood Cord loosened and cooled, shimmering with satisfaction.

She didn’t love him, didn’t know him, nor remember him and yet, herdraiochtshriveled and smoked like a wilted flower, crushed beneath a boot.

You see? You see?Anduril said inside her mind.This is why we hate him.

Aisling clenched her jaw and matched the fae king’s silence. She’d mistaken their connection for obsession. It was only hatred. Enemies by blood once. Enemies by heart now. This much, Aisling knew.

CHAPTER XXIV

AISLING

“His bride, he brings,” the forest prattled in Rún. Aisling understood every alder, every yew, every ash perfectly as if they spoke inside her mind.

Lies, lies, liars, liars, Anduril said. Aisling ground her teeth. She knew the mischief of the fae world, but still herdraiochthuffed weakly, reaching for the trees’ words. Aisling shook away the warring of her thoughts, biting at the dissonance for the truth.

Ellwynbloomed beneath Geld’s hooves as they climbed off the last stepping stone and moved across the meadow before the forest. Every step summoned a bloom of violet petals and their sparkling pollen. Aisling wasn’t certain if Lir had intentionally or unintentionally grownellwynor if the forest had done so in his stead. But she marveled at the cloud of glittering dust following their wake.

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