Page 98 of The Forever Queen

Starn shook with anger, the phantom blade rising behind him. It turned, sparkling between the bloodthirsty mists of the East.

The blade spun till its tip faced Aisling. He screamed and the sword darted for Aisling’s heart.

“That’s enough, Starn!” Nemed boomed, but he couldn’t let go of the wheel lest their ship spun into the city streets. He jerked the wheel and both Aisling and Starn were sent flying onto the main deck.

Aisling struggled to her feet, the weight of the iron fists bruising her wrists. She spun on her heel, biting through the pain of the fall. Starn was nowhere to be seen. The main deck was thick with fog and warm with death. Aisling held onto the main mast, slipping on the blood slick boards as the ship rocked.

“Where are you, sister?” Starn called, and from a distance, Aisling could see the glimmer of his phantom blade through the mist. He navigated carefully across the deck, averting his eyes from the men the fog devoured in his periphery.

Aisling pushed her back against the main mast. She considered climbing it or leaping overboard yet every direction spelled her name in death’s hand. She couldn’t climb with the iron fists, nor could she swim.

“Sister,” Starn called in a sing-song voice, the same way he had when they were children. The same way he did in her nightmares. “Come out of hiding, little sister.”

CHAPTER XXXIX

LIR

Traveling between worlds was an act of worship. One didn’t slip between realms without feeling the guttural rattle of the gods’ breath on your nape, the cosmic hum of the stars, or the vertigo of being flung like a leaf in a storm across spiritual bridges. But this time was different. Lir had no explicit direction he wished to travel. He only hadsomeonehe wished to travel toward. So, he clawed for the thread of fate that bound Aisling’s soul to his, and once he’d taken hold, he didn’t let go. His body flickering in and out of existence, bending and warping like a dream on the cusp of vanishing.

Lir woke in a bed of water, the surface glittering distantly above him. He blinked several times, allowing his mind to focus.

He tasted the water: salt, eastern spices, and rainwater churned by a forge-whittled ladle.

The Silver Sea.

A hundred or more ships bobbed close by, the shadow of their hulls like beasts surfacing for a breath of air. They reeked of iron, poisoning the waters in which he lay. But none so much as the largest ship of all at their center.

Lir swam toward the largest ship, ignoring the delirium, his blurry vision, or the ache in his centuries-old bones. He could feel the pounding of her heart, smell her perfume, and hear her heavy breath. He was close.

Lir emerged from the sea, wiping his dark hair from his eyes. Fog rolled atop the surface of beetle-black waters. It spoke manically, snapping its chops and spraying the seas with the foam that gathered at the corner of its fiendish lips.

Theceo. An Eastern Unseelie species that lacked sentience. It only wished to devour and to spread, claiming the lives of those it ate—dooming its victims to become that which reaped its life without mercy.

Lir cursed. The ceohad already skulked through the mortal village that surrounded the river in which he swam, climbing over the edge of the iron ship where he was certain Aisling was being held captive.

Lir’sdraiochtgrowled, thrashing inside and desperate to be freed. The moment the rabbit confessed Aisling was missing, Lir had feared it was mortal mischief at play. And of course, no such mischief could be executed without the Lady’s help.

Lir fumed, unsheathing his axes and slamming one into the side of the ship. He climbed up its side, his pointed ears overhearing the screeching of those hiding below deck the moment his blades punctured the ship’s iron and wood.

He used his second axe as a stepping stone so he could leap over the edge when the time was right. For now, he peered through the railing at the fore-deck like a wolf in wait.

CHAPTER XL

AISLING

Aisling hid in the mist, stepping over corpses and puddles of blood.

“Come out, come out, sister,” Starn continued to call. His voice carried a cruel smile—as if he relished the torment her eldest brother had a penchant for inspiring.

Aisling saw the glimmer of his phantom blade, dancing across the main deck in search of her. It swept through the mist and cut past the Unseelie hunched over a body in a mass of wispy white and teeth.

“Aisling,” he called for her. His voice accompanied by the screams, groans, and whispering of both mortal man and Unseelie.

Aisling sucked in a breath. Her iron fists were growing heavier by the minute and her head throbbed. Nevertheless, her adrenaline quieted her pains—the taste of revenge in the air renewing her might.

“You always lost at these games,” he said, his voice closer this time. Aisling tiptoed across the deck, cringing at the occasional clank of her chains dragging behind her. “You never could stop giggling when you were meant to be hiding.”

Aisling crouched behind three barrels pressed against the wall of the fore-deck.

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