Page 29 of The Mortal Queen

Aisling clumsily stepped to the tempo. Her movements were ungainly compared to the Aos Sí. Growing more and more engrossed by the purling incense around her, the splashing of wine at her feet, the smell of the fair folk and their sweat as they twirled. Absorbed until she saw where Gilrel danced. Where a fox grabbed the handmaid’s paws and spun her. Where the Aos Sí formed a large circle, the air thickening around them. As dense as syrup. The luminescent flowers humming more brightly. The stars grinning from their bed of black above.

It would be easy, simple, to join them. To leap into their circle and frolic alongside them. In fact, Aisling wanted to do nothing more than just that: to lose herself in the pounding of the sheep skins, the plucking of cords, the hollow breath of the flute, the voices of the Aos Sí singing louder and louder and louder. The glazed eyes of the trow strangling her memory, desperate to be remembered. So just for tonight, she’d forget her heart was made of fire and iron. She would dance amongst these beasts. Spin until her feet were bruised and the image of the trow was lost to sweet oblivion. To forget her family and the ache the memory of them elicited. Forget Tilren. Forget she was mortal. Forget how powerless she was. Forget her fear. Forget how it felt to kill. A sensation that confused her. Made her mind tilt along with the dancers.

So, Aisling stepped forward, into the circle of Aos Sí.

CHAPTER X

A hand wrapped around Aisling’s wrist. It pulled her back, spinning her towards her captor.

“Aren’t there mortal tales of wolves that warn maidens not to wander alone?” a familiar voice said from nearby. Aisling leapt at the sight of him, clutching her chest.

Lir stood before her, his sleeves rolled to his elbows and his pants cuffed above his ankles. Even from where she stood Aisling could smell his cologne of pine, wet leaves, and woodland memories. Sacred, age-old oaks and ashes.

Haloed in firelight, he approached in smoke and the sensual rhythm of the music.

“This maiden wishes to join the wolves’ dance,” Aisling said, her stupor dampening her anger. Washing away the bitter taste of the day with tea sugars and winter spices. A dense, sparkling cloud muffling every sober thought.

“The choice is yours,” he said, stepping nearer still, “but you should know the risks of entering a Sidhe ring.”

Aisling glanced over her shoulder at the dance, the feverish haze a muse to their every movement.

“Once a gathering of Sidhe forms a circle, they bond their ‘magic,’ forming a cradle of mass enchantment. For a human to step foot in one…let’s say it’s unwise.”

“Have you seen it before?” Aisling slurred, blinking to readjust her focus.

“A mortal step into a Sidhe circle?”

Aisling nodded in response, doing her best to shake away the haze.

“I’ve seen mortals dance themselves into their graves, infants stolen by the hands of the Other. For even after the Sidhe have left, the power remains.”

Aisling looked down at the fair folk’s feet. Mushrooms grew beneath their toes, bubbling from the earth till Aisling believed she heard them giggling. Was this how the dancing Aos Sí had created that labyrinth of hedge and rose at the center of the arena?

“Then why form one if they are indeed so dangerous?” Aisling asked, watching them over her shoulder.

“Dangerous to mortals,” Lir clarified. “To the Sidhe, such power and unity are euphoric.” The fae king fixed his eyes upon her. Eyes that cut into her soul, explored her till she felt bare before him. At times, Aisling believed him a figment of her imagination. The muse of grisly fireside tales breathed to life in the flesh. To the mortals, he was a wicked sovereign who sat on a throne of mortal blood and bones. Her betrothed, measuring her as he’d measured so many humans prior to shredding their flesh with fangs now sheathed in wine.

“You’re charmed, aren’t you?” Lir settled his feline eyes on her own unfocused ones.

“What?”

“The music, the dancing, the circle. Even when you’re near to such spells it affects you, doesn’t it?”

Aisling’s body responded for her, swaying to and fro, her violet orbs pooling with black. For the music rippled through her, every note promised bliss. The night gripped her jaw and poured its tonic past her parted lips as the stars cackled.

Aisling’s feet picked up once more, the rage still burning a hole at her core. But the music, the lights, the smells. It was alltoo enticing, too easy to lose herself.

Lir was nothing more than a blur when he spun her towards him, danced with her inside the fae ring. His wicked grin was a mess of pearls and diamonds whirling in the opposite direction the world rotated. TheSnaidhma kaleidoscope of glittering dust and laughter till she began to fly. No not fly. Glide through the revelry in the arms of another. Her eyes rolled as she struggled to reply to the oaks hanging their heavy heads to ask her for her name.

Aisling wasn’t certain how much time had passed when the debauchery faded into a distant, collective murmur. Only that every step further from theSnaidhmmade her more aware of how truly alone she was with the fae king. His heart beating against her right temple. Aisling hadn’t believed he bore a heart. Perhaps he’d stolen it.

The mortal queen blinked rapidly. Her internal, lucid self, fighting to regain control. To claw its way out of this slippery stupor and towards sobriety once more. For her feverish, muddy mind was already tearing like gossamer.

Aisling counted Lir’s steps as he neared the trees. The great shadows of the forest cloaked them both at its lip. She was one, perhaps two steps away from foregoing one world and entering another. A realm of trees that eyed her warily, arguing back and forth as they leaned forward for a closer look.

Lir set Aisling down on a bed of moss, placing her as far from theSnaidhmas possible without entering the shadowed keep of the greenwood. From this distance, the music and uproar of theSnaidhmwere but a drawl, vibrating through the earth.

These were his feywilds, Aisling repeatedin her mind. A concept she struggled to wrap her mind around. For Aisling had always been taught the forest was wild, untamable, insatiable, ruthless, but not more so than its monarch. The sovereign who knelt beside her now, watching as she inhaled her sanity once more. The way his eyes perused her unsettled her more than she could describe.

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