Page 1 of The Mortal Queen

CHAPTER I

Some say they arrived on dark clouds, descending towards the Earth on ships forged from thunderheads. Some say they emerged from the world beneath the waves, born of the deep—a land where even tyrants could not spread their hands and conquer. And still others believe they were here all along, living parallel to mankind. Between the trees, beneath the mountains, within the wind. Just beyond mortal touch.

To Aisling, it mattered not where the Aos Sí came from, from what abyss the fair folk crawled from. Only that they were savages the Forbidden Lore considered warriors, heroes, ancient deities, breathed to life by the blood of the Forge. They were feral, fierce, powerful, a race that defied all that mankind had done to carve itself into the earth.

To Aisling, the Aos Sí were a punishment. Divine retribution for mankind’s condemnation of the Forbidden Lore, the tales of creation, and the origin of the Earth.

“Are you afraid?” her mother asked, cloaking Aisling’s face with a scarlet veil. The torchlight caught the beading of her crimson gown, setting the princess ablaze like a cave of twinkling rubies.

“No,” Aisling lied, grateful for the veil shrouding herexpression. Although fear had its uses, the proclamation of it rarely did. Not to mention, Aisling wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction. Clodagh believed she was weak. Believed she was unfit to sacrifice herself for Tilren or the North. A sentiment that mirrored her father’s own. Had she not been the only daughter of noble birth in all the Isles of Rinn Dúin, perhaps she wouldn’t be here, dressing herself for the unimaginable.

Three knocks sounded against her chamber doors. Before either of the women could grant permission, the door swung open. Four young men entered, only a handful of years Aisling’s senior, each dressed in Neimedh tartans and Tilrish finery: Starn, Fergus, Iarbonel, and Annind.

“It’s time, Sister,” Starn, the eldest of her brothers, proclaimed. He swallowed, studying Aisling’s dress, her slippers, her sweeping veil, the crown of ebony braids that unraveled like ink down her spine.

Aisling tore her eyes from her brothers, a sharp pain splintering her heart. She didn’t look like herself; these were not Tilrish clothes nor styles. And what’s more, Starn’s gaze was one of mourning, indulging in this fleeting moment, place, person, soon to be a memory. Soon to be forgotten. Soon to be gone.

Aisling nodded, straightening her posture and following her brothers from her quarters. They escorted her through their fortress, a formality, for she’d walked these halls a thousand times, ran through these very corridors as a barefoot child, the cook waving her wooden spoon, chasing her for stealing soda-bread before supper. Helping Starn sneak the wolfhound pups into their rooms, naming them after the Tilrish kings of the past, their great-grandfathers. Annind shushed her as they hid behind the study’s drapes from their father’s wrath, their toes peeking out beneath the scarlet trim.

Just beyond Castle Neimedh’s threshold, Fergus took Aisling’s hand as she climbed into her carriage. This was as faras her brothers would accompany her. Clann Neimedh, her family, all except her father, would travel separately until they arrived and met in neutral land, territory unclaimed by either mortal or fair folk.

But the world outside of Tilren, through the carriage window’s smudged pane, was not as Aisling remembered it. The wilderness, the land outside of Clann Neimedh’s reach, had grown wilder, more feral, inching towards her carriage, eager to catch a glimpse of her father’s generous offering, the Tilrish high king’s sacrifice in the name of the North. This unbridled land a direct foil to the scorched and burnt pastures closest to Tilren’s walls. And such blackened fields a declaration of mortal authority over the wilds.

But as the trees grew denser, the destriers pulling the carriage whinnied and stomped their hooves restlessly, eyeing the woodland as if the forest would swallow them whole. A host of tall, thin, wooden sentinels peeping from their beds of needles. Groaning as they extended their spidery fingers and scraped the carriage windows with their branches. And, indeed, the forest had dared to swallow Tilren whole, its creeping vines slithering up their stone terraces, burned again and again by mortal men. As if these leaves, roots, and flowers were another attempt on behalf of the fair folk to reclaim what was never theirs to begin with.

As a child, Aisling roamed these verdant fields, explored the crags that slumbered like mighty giants, danced through these wicked kingdoms of greenwood, oblivious to the perils of fair folk or, at the very least, uncaring. Bewitched by the natural world’s beauty and sung from her sleep to inhale its tempestuous opiate. But the violence of war, battle, and conquest had forced Aisling deep behind mortal walls until she was prohibited from ever stepping foot outside Tilren’s boundaries lest the sole mortal princess of the isles be captured by the fair folk.

“No matter what, Aisling, do not forgetwho you are,” Nemed told her, sitting on the carriage bench across from her own. Her father was a tall, broad man, handsome if it weren’t for the horizontal scar that stretched across the bridge of his nose and both of his cheek bones as though his head were nearly sliced in half––a mark bestowed by the Aos Sí themselves, a touch of their fury gifted by battle. “Do not forget the world that made you. They will try to deceive you. They will spin lies as easily as they spin their thread. No matter what or how much they take from you, do not let them take who you are or where you come from.”

Despite the cold, sweat dappled across Aisling’s forehead, her palms, her lower back. She didn’t dare respond to her father. Not unless he requested it or gave her permission. She only nodded, staring out the window once more. She would obey him. For, of course, she would never, could never, forget all she’d ever known: the iron keep and the family that had protected her all her life.

She heard the drums first. And as the night aged, the torchlight in the distance became her beacon in the darkness, a light she dreaded to approach, wishing rather to dissolve into shadow than travel any further. Indeed, Iarbonel had always been the one most afraid of the dark when the siblings were but infants, Aisling, despite her age, comforting her older brother when Nemed snuffed out the candlelight come evening. To Aisling, darkness was pure, whole, all-encompassing, capable of swallowing whatever it desired.

But onward they rode until Aisling could give form to the mass of black interrupted by firelight: crowds of creatures, tents, and blazing stakes nailed to the ground.

The beat of the drums drifted through the evening breeze, echoing off the walls of the cliffs. Great crags surrounding the seemingly endless expanse of wilderness where this ring of fire burned. Stone giants come to witness her fate.

“And remember, Aisling: even in your dying breath, never give them the satisfaction of seeing you wilt, witnessing yourfear,” Nemed said, his voice low and as formidable as the thumping of the drums, like the heartbeat of the Forge itself. “You represent all of our kind when among them now. Never forget that.”

Aisling chewed on the inside of her cheek, sucking in a breath she scarcely possessed the courage to exhale. To release the air from the cage within her.

The carriage stopped. Aisling clutched the seat as the vehicle rocked, settling into place. It was time. They had arrived. Far quicker than the mortal princess would’ve liked, for even now she considered running, fleeing into the shadowed realm of the wood till she found her iron walls once more.

Outside those thin carriage doors, whispers from the crowd filled the air and Aisling had to stop herself from choking on their sound. Hundreds of murmuring voices, Aos Sí and mortals alike, awaiting her arrival. But there was another tongue Aisling didn’t recognize, hissing amongst the babbling of her own people.

Aisling looked to Nemed for direction. He met her eyes as the door opened, nodding encouragingly as he gestured for her to exit. A glimmer of warmth flashed across the violet eyes they shared, a glimpse of vulnerability, of affection, of love, appearing as swiftly as it vanished.

Her eldest brother, Starn, stood waiting outside the carriage, lips pressed into a thin, hard line. Since Aisling was a child, she’d imagined this day, of all days, unraveling differently: her mother, Clodagh, beaming with pride, Tilrish pipes bellowing in the northern winds, her brothers’ teasing shaking the carriage. But never had she anticipated the glint of fury, as sharp as a blade, in Starn’s gaze. The mournful edge to Nemed’s usual stony expression.

Nemed offered his daughter his gloved hand as he awkwardly disembarked himself, both legs made of iron prosthetics, another gift from theAos Sí.

The sea of spectators hushed the moment he emerged.

Aisling swallowed the stone in her throat and accepted her father’s gesture. Perhaps the last time, the princess realized, she might hold her father’s hand.

The throng of guests continued to murmur wildly, gasping as the princess stepped forth from her carriage and walked through the path of parted attendees. Aisling stared at the grass beneath her slippers, slickened by the dew beading on its blades. She couldn’t bring herself to face this foul species. To brave the frightful tales she’d overheard her wet-nurses spin when they believed her asleep, ghost stories summoned in the flesh around her.

Nevertheless, even from the corner of her eye, she witnessed how the Aos Sí towered above the mortals amongst them. Felt the intensity of their unrelenting glares, studying her every step. These fair folk despised her. Loathed every drop of blood that made her human.

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