Page 114 of The Mortal Queen

This was an ambush. A cornering of every mortal sovereign: tiarna, chieftain, king, and queen. The Unseelie were here to destroy all the mortal isles in one fell swoop. Their bipedal beasts—boars, bears, wolves, serpents—marching beside them, clad in complete armor and weaponry.

“No,” Nemed confessed, aware or unaware ofthe trap Lir had orchestrated, Aisling was unsure. Her tongue caught in her throat. Unsure whether she wished to snap her mouth shut or yell at the top of her lungs. “Man is indentured to no one and no thing.”

The Unseelie would leave no man alive. All bones would be sucked clean. Still, there was a glimmer of hope: there were more mortal sentinels here than fair folk, each cloaked in undiluted iron—potentially among them, more Faerak. Hunters that Nemed claimed killed Unseelie for sport.

And despite the fragile bond between Unseelie and Seelie, Aisling knew their newfound support was founded on Lir’s betrayal of the mortals. His deception, a declaration of the end to the treaty that had proven disadvantageous to the Sidhe’s sister race. A promise to slaughter every mortal sovereign in the name of the Sidhe. To keep his kin from the brink of extinction and the Unseelie fed. A retaliation against Danu’s prophecy.

“You will lose this war.”

Words that had shattered the fae king’s world. The belief he’d lost Aisling as he’d once lost Narisea drove him further into madness. Had rendered any alliance or treaty or attempts at peace null and void. For where was the worth in risking his bond to the Unseelie for an alliance that would, according to Danu’s prophecy, inevitably end in his loss regardless? And despite the boiling of Aisling’s blood for his trickery, the very nature her father had forewarned, and she’d ignored, Aisling understood. Knew this war wouldn’t end in coexistence but in dominion. The strongest to rule them all.

“For once we agree.” Lir bore his fangs, eyes fixing upon Aisling with unparalleled triumph. The cord between them snapped to attention and nearly knocked the wind from her lungs. For there was a part of Aisling that felt no betrayal at all. That felt equal measure victorious because the Sidhe bore the advantage. The Seelie part of her rejoiced alongside the barbarian king while the human part mourned, stretchedbetween two loyalties.

But whatever the mortals could achieve in their attempts for retaliation were rendered obsolete once the hordes of Unseelie unmasked themselves from the forest’s shadows. As the trees stretched and rose into the heavens with feral need. fomorians mounted on Cú Scáth, dryads leaping from the trees, goblins hobbling from their caves, and stranger, more frightening creatures slipping into the rain and into the open. Creatures Aisling had never heard of or seen before. All imbued with thedraiochtand prepared to bloody the emerald pastures in which they all stood.

And once Nemed realized what Lir had done, how he’d indeed employed both mischief and trickery to obtain his wants, it was too late. His violet eyes widened the same moment Clodagh shrieked. The Unseelie stalked towards them from every direction, the growing trees, the groaning cliffs. Every mortal instinctively gasping, clutching their chests, fainting, or reaching for their weapons, backing away as their enemies surrounded them.

“Take the clann leaders and every woman and child!” Starn bellowed to a group of twenty or so sentinels, already ushering the high king and his lady towards various destriers prepped and ready to ride. Immediately, Starn had shifted into the soldier his father had bred him to be.

Aisling caught her father’s eyes as he was rushed away, Nemed’s expression a combination of both horror and violence. Of shock and dread. His lips parted, still processing what was rapidly unspooling. He, the near victor of a war he’d surrendered in the name of peace, his daughter the pawn he’d deemed valuable enough to purchase such harmony. All for naught.

In a panic, many mortals ran. Aisling cursed their foolishness. Horses for the lower-ranking nobles were gathered and mounts haphazardly prepared amidst the discord. The circle, the union, was swiftly dissolving, everymortal counting their breaths until they were far from this place. Their mares stomping, whinnying, bucking.

And as the Unseelie trudged closer and closer, Lir said nothing, his lips curled at the edges.

Filverel laughed as the mortals trampled one another, Galad positioned himself beside his king, Peitho searched the crowd for Dagfin––every member of the Sidhe drawing their weapons and deciding on their victims.

The forest loomed over all their heads. It twisted its branches to break loose its roots and march onward. Among them, a beast so large, so ancient, Aisling knew its name. Could feel thedraiochtmove through every vein within its ghostly figure. Something birthed from the Forge, before the mountains, before the rivers, before the seas. A child the gods named themselves. Had breathed with sighs of northern winds, the reflection of deep pools, the jewels of the earth itself, and a brush ofdraiocht. A creature birthed and cast to protect the greenwood. To cure those who lived within its agrestal bastion.

Leshy.

A colossal, phantom of a giant made in the image of man. His beard and hair tufts of glittering clouds, braided through with the spirit form of flowers and thorns and leafy ferns. Every step, vibrating through the earth, unbalancing the mortals.

But it was hardly Leshy Starn cared for as he raced towards where Galad stood, his blade in hand. Iarbonel, Fergus, Dagfin, and Annind scattered throughout the bedlam either defending themselves or attacking. Iron against magic. Mortal blood against fae breath.

Aisling swiveled, doing her best to make sense of the chaos, the clash of blades and shields, shrieks of the injured or dying, the stomp of Lir’s legions rising from the woodland, the tearing of the earth as his forest moved nearer. Mortals raced for their lives on horseback only to be trailed and tackled by packs of purple-skinned trolls.

Aisling inhaled a breath, thedraiochtpushing at her throat to be released. But she couldn’t. Not here, not now. Her family battled around her and so did the Sidhe, a bloody mixing of her two worlds. To harm either would be to harm herself. For before her very eyes, Starn leapt into the air, lunging for Galad as the fae knight parried swiftly, the two of them locked blade to blade with violence in their eyes.

And if that weren’t enough to tear Aisling’s heart in two, Gilrel swept the feet of mortal sentinels with her small axe and brought them to their knees; Fergus jabbed at an armored bear who’d ridden with Aisling to theSnaidhm; Iarbonel tangled with Tyr, and Annind dodged Filverel’s attempts, lifting his shield at the precise moment. But worst of all, Peitho held Dagfin pinned to the ground, her sword tracing a line of blood along the angles of his throat, both her boots nailing Dagfin’s hands to the ground.

Aisling shook her head, witnessing the tragedy and unable to act. Helplessly caught between two worlds, for to harm the Sidhe would make her new world more an enemy than it already was, and to harm the mortals would be to betray her own blood. Her childhood. One half of her heart.

Peitho lifted her sword above her head, beaming from ear to ear. She was seconds away from beheading the Roktan prince, at last, delivering to the magic what it demanded.

“No,” Aisling whispered breathlessly, picking up her feet and racing through the labyrinth of metal and mud and bodies and blood.

The fae princess whipped her head in Aisling’s direction the moment she emerged from the folds of battle,her temper flaring the moment their eyes met, and Peitho knew. Knew what Aisling had come to prevent. So Peitho drew a dagger with her free hand and flicked it in Aisling’s direction.

Dagfin screamed something unintelligible, but it mattered not, for the orchestra of battle muffled as thedraiochtburst open its door and tore at Aisling until at last it was free.

Violet flames wrapped around Peitho’s dagger. It fell to the earth, no more than dust. Peitho glared at Aisling with both loathing and alarm. But it was too late for the fae princess. Aisling was already guiding thedraiochttowards her, its flames enveloping her hands and crawling up her arms.

Peitho screamed as she staggered back, swatting at the fire uselessly. Her sword was a forgotten memory atop the red-soaked fields.

Immediately, Dagfin leapt to his feet. Their eyes met briefly, sparking, before reality struck once more. The Roktan prince knelt to the ground, retrieving whatever weapons he could from the bodies of the deceased piling around them, reaching for Aisling’s hand and racing through the madness with her a step behind.

“There are destriers just within that crevice of the crags as well as three sentinels. I had horses saddled last night and bid our men wait till this evening unknowing…” his words trailed off. Unknowing the Sidhe had prepared an ambush. Unknowing the Sidhe would fool them all into complacency.

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