Page 84 of The Forever Queen

Aisling gasped, lips falling apart in amazement. She turned to Lir to gauge his reaction. He smiled proudly, genuine joy spreading across the exhaustion beneath.

“You’ve done it, Aisling.” Niamh grabbed Aisling’s hand and squeezed it. “You can rest for a time.”

“No,” Aisling said, almost leaping from the bed. “They’re coming. On the last moon of the storm season,” she blurted, eyes growing wide with urgency. “They will come.”

“The mortals?” Filverel asked, brows raising at Aisling’s sudden excitement. Filverel, Galad, Peitho, and Gilrel smiled at her, their presence in the Other bittersweet for it suggested Annwyn, too, had fallen to the mortals—a thought, a possibility Aisling couldn’t stomach just yet.

“My father,” Aisling said, “my brothers…”

“You need to rest,” Tara said, setting a gentle hand on Aisling’s shoulder.

“There is no time,” Aisling said. “They will come on the last moon of the storm season. They will try to enter the Other.”

“How can you know this?” Dagda asked, both anger and panic detailing their voice.

“The Lady,” Aisling said. “The Lady showed it to me.”

“She cannot be trusted,” Fionn said, seemingly unaware of the irony in his warnings.

“No, she cannot,” Aisling admitted. “But she hasn’t given this information to me kindly. She’s done it to scare me—to convince me my defeat has already been written.”

“We cannot know for sure,” Lir said, his voice blooming and standing out amidst the rest. Aisling warmed to it immediately, lingering on his gaze a moment too long.

“The last moon of the storm season is approaching,” Niamh said. “If Aisling is correct, time is fleeting indeed.”

The room fell quiet, each deep in thought. They exchanged glances, but the reality was clear: war was on their doorstep and they were unprepared to greet it, each and all of them still licking their wounds from the falling of their kingdoms in the mortal plane.

This was the beginning of the end.

CHAPTER XXXI

LIR

The clouds parted and the sun screamed awake. It shook like a prisoner in a cage, reaching through the bars of its cell with its rays.

Niamh watched Lir closely from the largest throne. She was framed by both her water mares, delightedly eating salted candy from a giant daisy’s disk. The room was shaped like the moon and as the day faded, so, too, did the light spilling in from the glass ceilings above. Rain tapped against the panes steadily, accompanied by the rabid breath of mist.

“And so we begin,” she said, more to herself than any of the other Sidhe sovereigns paying attention. A round table of myths, speaking amongst one another.

The Other froze in suspense, waiting for the Sidhe sovereigns to address the matters at hand.

“This is our last chance,” Katari said, opening the conversation. Katari of the Gilding Sun reigned from southern Niltaor with Siwe at his side. Siwe, his bride and Peitho’s mother. They ruled by daybright with the brilliance of summer’s buzzing heat. And so, Lir knew the sun thrashing up above was no coincidence.

“Aisling must protect each and every gateway,” Lottie said. “Not one can be left vulnerable. We must act now. Use the Goblet now.”

“It’s too soon,” Percy said. “The Goblet can only be sipped beneath a storm moon. We must wait for the next. Regardless, it’s impossible to destroy every gateway.”

“Nothing is impossible with the Goblet,” Mac Cuill added.

“Perhaps she should destroy them all,” Tara offered.

“And confine us to the Other for all eternity?” Fionn asked, outraged, frost flying from his fingertips as he gestured. “Perhaps it would be better to destroy but a few and not all.”

“There may be no other choice,” Lottie said. “There’s nothing left for us on the mortal plane regardless. Each and all our kingdoms have been taken over, burned to the ground, or destroyed entirely, forcing us here and now.”

“Here, we can rebuild,” Dagda said, agreeing.

“And yet, there was reason the gods sent us to the mortal plane. We weren’t meant for the spirit world alone,” Percy said.

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