Page 86 of The Forever Queen

Seven storm seasons come but never go.

Come child, I hear the wild horns blow.

A western faerie weeps, broken by a lonely heart,

Cursed to the Other, destined to live apart.

The eerie melody of “The Architect of Yillen” moaned alive in Lir’s mind.

“And what became of them?” he asked.

Tara frowned. “Never seen or heard from again. As I said before, rumor claims she’s looking for someone or something. And all those she’s deemed unworthy of entering the Other, thus far, are collected by the Other’s galleon and sailed to their death. One after the other.”

Listen to the rain, child

But don’t be beguiled

For a faerie will drown you in her tears

Or she’ll steal you away for years

Just so that she might not be so lonely.

“How can you be certain?” Lir asked, but even as the question slid between his fangs, he knew the answer himself.

“I cannot be certain, but I distrust Niamh and so does the southern Sidhe world.”

“And yet, why would she leave the north untouched?”

Tara’s eyes drifted toward Lir.

“Niamh’s fear of you has kept her at bay, but fear is easily stifled by desire,” Tara said. “High king of the Sidhe on the mortal plane, master of Racat, with a grisly reputation and a penchant for violence. No other has reigned so powerfully, so forcefully, nor as wildly as you in the history of the Sidhe. Niamh is wise to avoid making an enemy of you…or, shewaswise.”

Lir opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. He looked to Aisling.

The sorceress gripped the Goblet more tightly. He could feel the magic of both Anduril and Racat bristling and waking with heat. He could taste it popping on the tip of his tongue as Aisling’s knuckles grew white and her pupils flooded her eyes black.

Lir frowned, recognizing once again the target Aisling’s power placed on her back and the hunters that gathered when she turned.

* * *

AISLING

Between the clouds, Castle Yillen shook with music. Bears, foxes, badgers, toads, and Sidhe danced until mortal feet would have bruised, drinking wine, spilling mead, and gulping special punches from the bulbs of giant tulips.

Below Castle Yillen, sat a lake as silver as any blade. A forest huddled around it like groves of druids falling to the knee to sip from its waters, rippling with the force of the storm around them.

This was where Aisling bathed while the rest of the Sidhe world celebrated the acquisition of the Goblet. The evening grew feverish with their celebration, the Other eager for the first sip to be drank from the chalice’s lip beneath the storm moon—the first since she’d obtained the artifact.

Aisling lifted the Goblet. She’d filled it once, twice, thrice with silver lake water only for the water to transform violet the moment it slithered over the Goblet’s brim. She poured it over her head and rinsing out the dirt, blood, and sweat from her tresses. Glittering, she stood waist deep in the loch. A dark body of water said to be where the gods once cupped their hands and collected their tears.

Aisling had snuck away from the crowds, the parties, the lights, the drinks, and the foods. She’d been overwhelmed with attention since she’d woken from Eogi swallowing her whole, then spitting her out.

She felt war inching closer, tasted the rot her father was infecting the Other with—grin spreading through the forest, even here by Castle Yillen, like a plague.

So, Aisling scrubbed the past several days off her skin, washing herself till the thoughts stopped spinning so quickly in her mind. A moment for her to sip from the Goblet alone and test its power for the first time. To once and for all seal the mortals’ fate with the treasure she’d earned. But in the same breath Aisling had poised the Goblet before her, the loch was transformed by the vibration of itsdraiocht. Like the Forge itself, the loch bubbled black, gurgling strangely as if struggling to speak. Crests and peaks formed atop the surface, its dark waters lunging for Aisling in great splashes, liquid edges stretching like fingers for the sorceress.

“By the Great Forge of Creation and the twin gods, a new master has stepped forward,” Aisling said, both her irises and her pupils fading to pure white as she spoke. Aisling shivered, her spine tingling as every word wrung with the echo of someone or something that was entirely Other. A voice possessing her body and using her lips to speak.

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