Page 41 of The Red Woman and the White Bear

Aisling recounted, as she had to Rodney, the story of her meeting with the Shadowwood Mother. She knew it by heart now, whichhelped her get it out despite the voice in her mind that begged her to stop, to keep mouth shut, to take it back.

Finally, her story ended. Thick, stony silence settled between the two. Minutes passed. When Aisling looked up, Kael’s eyes, which since the night before had borne a quiet softness for her, had hardened. He’d drawn himself up to stand tall and rigid, every bit the unyielding king he was promised to be.

“So it is you who would see the downfall of the Unseelie Fae. The destruction of my kingdom.”

She shouldn’t have expected less. She’d misled him and earned his trust under false pretenses. She was the enemy. Even still, his response lit a small ember of anger in her. It was Kael and his unquenchable bloodlust that kept the battle raging. His insatiable quest for power over the totality of the realm that prevented peace.

“It would seem that you’re able to do that just fine without my help.” When Kael didn’t entertain her comment with a response, she held his gaze for a moment before she added, “And besides that, the resolution of your war is hardlydestruction.”

“The Red Woman is not welcome in my court. I should kill you where you stand.” He pronounced the words slowly with lethal calm.

Aisling shook her head, certain. “You won’t.”

“That’s twice now you’ve betrayed me. You will not be granted a third opportunity.” The way his fingers brushed over the hilt of the dagger sheathed at his hip did not go unnoticed. Aisling’s confidence dimmed.

“You won’t kill me.” She wavered, less certain this time.

Far faster than she could comprehend, he lunged across the study. Several books cascaded from the shelf overhead when Aisling’s back slammed against it, her head meeting stone with a loud crack. Kael’s face was inches from hers, teeth bared in a menacing snarl. His fingers curled around her throat. They twitched once, then again, before he dropped his hand back to his dagger and narrowed his eyes.

“Run.”

That word—that singular syllable—sent a cold shot of fear straight to her bones.

So Aisling ran.

Each loud slap of her slippers on the stone floor echoed like a death knell as she ran blindly through the corridors of the Undercastle. She shed her cloak as she went; she’d be faster without it weighing her down. She knew the path to the spiral stairs well enough by now that she didn’t have to question where her feet carried her, and soon enough she’d reached its base. But she couldn’t slow.

She took the steps two at a time, tripping and cracking her knee on a sharp edge twice on the way up. Warm blood seeped through her pants and collected around her ankle. But she couldn’t slow.

Outside, the cold air only tightened her lungs further. If Kael had sent guards in her pursuit, she was unable to hear them over the ragged, heaving gasps that sounded more like sobs than breaths. But she couldn’t slow.

Aisling aimed for the tree line and prayed that she would be able to find the Thin Place once she was inside the forest. It was dark, and snow was falling, and everything looked the same no matterwhich way she turned. She staggered ahead, dizzy and disoriented. Her movement sent a flurry of glowing white orbs spinning from where they had been resting soundly in the low-hanging branches that Aisling carelessly batted out of her way.

They twirled around her, giggling when their tiny fingers caught the hem of her shirt and tore out strands of her hair. One flitted close enough for Aisling to make out a female figure with skin like frosted glass. The light they emitted seemed to come from within their small bodies, and their wings fluttered so rapidly to keep them aloft that Aisling couldn’t see them at all. She could hear them, though, as they whizzed past her ears. She swiped at the beings erratically, knocking one from her shoulder and two from where they’d wrapped themselves in her hair. They shrieked—an ugly, grating sound—but eventually fell behind as she continued to run.

It took her far longer than she would have liked to find the Veil, which glimmered faintly inside a hole in the trunk of a giant old pine. Its gnarled roots grasped cruelly at her ankles as she approached and threw herself headlong through that sticky sheen of magic.

And then she was back in the old mine, back in the forest she knew as well in the dark as she did in the light. It was night there, too, though snow hadn’t yet fallen on Brook Isle. Aisling stumbled out of the cave, earning another several bruises in the process, and sprinted with renewed speed once she exited its mouth.

This was her world, her woods. It smelled of home: of earth and sea and just faintly of car exhaust and chimney smoke. But now, heart racing and legs burning, the shadows of the towering pines felt oppressive. The keening and cooing of the birds,threatening.“Here!”they seemed to call as she pushed through the undergrowth,“She’s over here!”She had to pause every few paces to remind herself to breathe.

Aisling angled her path toward the road. Once her feet hit gravel, she stopped at last. She doubled over, hands on her knees, and retched onto the ground. Her stomach violently expelled the bile she had struggled to keep down since her confrontation with Lyre. Once she was able to stand again, she closed her eyes and strained to hear any sign of chase: twigs snapping, branches cracking, galloping hooves striking the dirt. She’d crossed out of the borderlands, she knew, though it would have hardly made a difference to a soldier acting on his king’s orders. As she waited in the dark, she found only the quiet hum of the forest. The birdsong softened; the trees no longer appeared ominous.

She wouldn’t be so foolish as to think he hadn’t ordered her execution; not after the hatred she’d heard in his voice.Run.It haunted her, that cold tone. So different from the kindness that had been there only moments before. But she deserved it. She deserved every ounce of hatred he could find in his heart for her.

Limping, Aisling finally turned away from the trees and headed in the direction of town. Every inch of her hurt. Vaguely, secretly, she thought that it might not be the worst thing if a sentry were to burst from the woods and run her straight through with a spear. Maybe then someone else would be declared the Red Woman, and she’d be free of the ache in her chest that now seemed like it might be permanent.

It would be a small mercy: death.

He was stuck still, rooted to the ground where he stood. Kael hadn’t taken a breath in so long that his body forced him to do so reflexively. When he sucked in a shaky gasp, the air still smelled of her.The Red Woman.The very being he had been warned about since he was old enough to read the prophecies for himself had been standing right there in front of him. Worse, he had let her see all of his most vulnerable parts. Let her touch him, touch things so deep he was unaware that they even existed. And he had liked it.

Aisling’s empathy had been at once a balm and a torment to Kael. It unnerved him to lay himself bare before her. So he had resisted her, fighting against the flicker of hope that threatened to ignite within him, for as long as he was able. Yet, deepdown in some unacknowledged part of himself, he longed for the gentleness she promised, even as he feared it might ruin him.

It had.

Methild entered quietly to receive her taskings for the day, and though Kael could see her thin lips moving, he was unable to hear her words. The sound of blood rushing in his ears blocked out everything else, even as he shouted at her to leave. She scurried out hastily and made to shut the door behind her, but Kael was already halfway across the threshold.

The sense of calm still left in his chest from the night before was torched instantly by blinding hot fury. He’d been foolish to think that the girl could chase it away—she had only swept it into a darkened corner. It had been waiting there for exactly this.

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