Page 80 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

Her hair was a pale shade of teal and hung as a heavy curtain over her shoulders and down to fan over the ground. Her skin was so translucent that Aisling could make out the blue-green veins that spiderwebbed underneath. It shone dimly, as if she’d bathed in the pool and its glow had dried there.

She sat cross-legged amongst the crystals, nestled so tightly between them that it was difficult to tell where they ended and she began. When she shifted slightly and the white silk of her dress moved with her, Aisling noticed that the crystals didn’t end where she began, after all—it was as though she was becoming one with them, merging. And when the faerie raised her head to look towards them, Aisling found only crystalline clusters that jutted out at harsh angles from her eye sockets above hollow cheeks.

“Sit,” she commanded. Her voice was ancient and resonant in the vast cavern. It had all the sweetness of youth and the callousness of age. Low and gravelly, yet somehow high and melodic, too, as though she were two speaking as one.

Aisling and Kael both sank wordlessly to their knees. They had to press close together to fit side-by-side on the only patch of ground devoid of crystals.

“A human woman and a Fae king,” Sítheach observed. “An unlikely pairing, though noweaker for it.”

She shifted again, and Aisling had to take a deep breath to settle a passing wave of nausea when her eyes landed on the Diviner’s bent leg. A long, opaque crystal as thick as Aisling’s arm had grown up through the muscle of her thigh. Its pointed tip emerged just above her knee.

“Thank you for seeing us,” Kael said. He spoke to her in that same hushed, reverent tone he’d used with the Shadowwood Mother.

Sítheach dipped her head, then turned those unseeing eyes toward Aisling. “You are a great deal more than you appear, Red Woman.”

Aisling wasn’t sure how to respond, so she stayed silent.

“You have an affinity for things,” Sítheach continued, “for sensing the weather, the emotions of others. For finding your way even through the most unfamiliar territory.”

“I have no magic,” Aisling argued.

“No, you do not. It is a human trait; one that has all but disappeared over the years as the world has aged and changed and died all around us. Similar to intuition, but more than that.Deeperthan that. It is useful if you know how to listen to it properly.”

“Keeps me dry, at least,” Aisling said wryly. Beside her, Kael tucked his chin into his chest, hiding a smirk beneath his hair. Her mother had worked hard to cultivate that in Aisling from an early age, even as Aisling grew older and tried her best to push her and her stories away. She’d done Aisling more favors than she’d ever realized. There on Brook Isle, limited in its modern amenities, Aisling’s affinity had flourished. It made sense then why she’d never been able to feel shifting weather patterns the same way in the city.

Sítheach drew a finger up and down the unblemished surface of a crystal beside her, and the humming in the air grew a fraction louder. “It does much more than that.”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“He might disagree.” Sítheach nodded towards Kael. He stiffened slightly when she added, “You have altered the way he wields his magic. Just as you can receive, you can project.”

“I didn’t know that’s what I was doing,” Aisling said.

“It takes more than just kind words and a soft touch to calm a tempest as wild as his,” Sítheach explained. “But that is not why you have come here. Ask me your question.”

Aisling hesitated, steadying her voice. Her breath. One second passed, then another, before she said finally, “Tell us how we raise the Silver Saints.”

An affinity.Kael understood, then, how Aisling seemed to effortlessly give him that control that had for so long eluded him. How even from deep within the Undercastle, she’d smelled the snow. He moved one hand slowly to capture Aisling’s where it rested on her knee and laced his fingers between hers. He wished in that moment that he could project the things he felt for her, too.

Sítheach regarded the pair for some time while she considered Aisling’s request. Still running one finger over the crystal beside her, she dipped her other hand into the pool. The glow it cast rippled across the cavern’s ceiling, sending light refractions spinning. The hum of the magic grew louder still.

“You wish for them to end the war between courts,” Sítheach said—a statement,not a question.

“I—we—hope that they can guide the courts to peace, how they did in the early days.” Aisling’s voice was steady and sure, and Kael was once more struck by her bravery. Her conviction. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

“The Silver Saints are born of the stars,” Sítheach mused, dragging her hand through the water. “A light that can only be seen in darkness.”

Aisling’s sharp intake of breath beside him caught Kael’s attention. Her eyes were wide, focused on Sítheach, and her hand gripped his fiercely.

“Guided by celestial light,”she recited breathlessly. “They were in the prophecy all along.”

“Take care with such assumptions, child. The strength of our prophecies lies in their interpretation, not in the intent of the originator.”

“If we call, will they answer?” Kael asked.

“To call the Silver Saints is a difficult thing, and costly, but it can be done.” The Diviner tipped her chin up, catching fractals of light on the crystals that grew from her eyes. She’d been devoured further and further by her power: each glance into time brought forth a new crystal that would grow unabated where it emerged, be it from the cavern or from Sítheach herself. He was all too familiar with that feeling of being consumed by raw magic. The physical manifestation of hers was as horrifying as it was beautiful.

“Has it been done before?” Aisling was leaning forward, mesmerized by the ancient faerie.

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