Page 90 of The Forever Queen

Aisling shook her head, doing her best to focus her vision, her thoughts, her mind. Yet, it was futile. Futile as she was lifted by both the chain and a body that held her from the tossing sea.

Aisling blinked repeatedly, still choking on salt water as she fought her captor.

“Drop her here!” another voice said. They didn’t speak Rún. Their tongues were round and blunt. A stark contrast to the lilted, melodic voices of the Sidhe.

“Careful,” someone else said. “Set her down gently…that’s it.”

“How long will her magic persist?” the first voice asked.

“Until she’s calm,” the second said. “The iron will make quick work of such a process.”

“It’s harming her,” a new voice added.

“A necessary evil,” the first said. His voice was deep and filled with memory. One that had, at one point in Aisling’s life, been the center of her small world. A pang of deepest sorrow filling her to the bone with grief. Grief and unfathomable anger.

“Leave her,” the second voice said. “She’ll exhaust herself soon enough.”

But Aisling didn’t feel she’d ever be calm again. The pain of the iron, the stench of humans, the vomiting of salt water, the weakness of her muscles. It crossed her mind she might die here: a flower of flaming violet slapped against creaking floorboards that rocked side to side.

CHAPTER XXXIV

LIR

Lir started toward Niamh’s threshold, reaching for the handle when the door swung open. A small rabbit appeared in the doorway, shivering as it peered up and met eyes with the Sidhe King. Between its paws, it carried the Goblet of Lore.

Lir’s stomach catapulted into his throat. Dread making his bones cold.

“Mo Damh Bán,” the rabbit chirped, offering Niamh the Goblet for safekeeping as it spoke. “I have some bad news.”

“What is it?” Lir said, already in a bad temper.

“It concerns the sorceress,mo Damh Bán,” the rabbit said.

“What’s happened?” he asked, Niamh stepping behind him to understand the conversation well.

The rabbit dithered, eyes darting back and forth.

“She’s been taken,mo Damh Bán.”

CHAPTER XXXV

AISLING

Aisling woke with a blade at her throat. Yet, the sword bore no wielder. It floated before the sorceress, the tip scratching where her throat bobbed.

Alone, half of Aisling’s face was clasped with an iron mask, burning her lips when she tried to scream. Iron fists clasped her hands, chained to the wooden walls surrounding her. She rocked from side to side, desperately trying to light herself on fire. Racat squirmed within, choking on its own flames, struggling to inhale and exhale thedraiocht.

No longer was Aisling soaked, nor dressed in her night slip from Castle Yillen. Now she wore a homely, wool dress, patterned with Tilrish tartans at the waist and hem. It sparked with her magic, burning holes through the craftsmanship but failing to devour it in flames entirely.

The door at the far end of the room creaked open. Two eyes twinkled from the dark slit of the threshold, hesitating before entering. Normally, Aisling could’ve smelled or sensed whosoever watched her from the entryway, but no longer. The iron mask prevented her from experiencing or feeling anything other than its stench.

Slowly, once Aisling had settled, someone opened the door fully. From the shadows, a woman tiptoed into the room, chest rising and falling with unnatural fear. She considered Aisling for several minutes before revealing her face in the torchlight, at last, unveiling herself.

Clodagh, Aisling’s mother and queen of Tilren, stood before her.

Aisling froze. Her heart hammered inside her chest, painfully shoving at her ribs. She could scarcely breathe. Could scarcely believe this wasn’t some cruel deception, mirage, illusion on behalf of the Lady or Danu.

“Aisling,” she said. Aisling’s heart tightened painfully. Her mother’s voice cut bluntly through her—the rounded, common accent of Tilrish mortals made terrible by the sickly-sweet inflection of her mother’s tongue. Brutally familiar.

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