Page 39 of The Mortal Queen

Nemed was her father. Sovereign to Tilren and high king of all the isles. He wouldn’t deliberately lie to her. Everything and all Nemed had done, however cruel and ruthless it may appear, was done in the name of mankind. In the name of sparing her race from the heathenous dominion of the fair folk.

Filverel touched his slender fingers to his lips, scouring every inch of the mortal queen till she felt nakedbefore him. His regard was frigid. As though his spirit had once been bespelled and frozen but never fully thawed. Even his fae markings trailed his flesh with caution, thin bands tiptoeing around his lanky frame.

“It was some decades ago that I met your great-grandfather. It’s been even longer since I met one of your ancestors—Barhan, I believe his name was. The man who built your Castle Neimedh and its walls, stone by stone. One of the first of your kind to scorch the earth, making way for more land than he could possibly do with.”

The words hit Aisling like a physical blow. Aisling bore a handful of memories of the fires the mortals lit. She would stand atop Tilren’s walls to witness the gilding of the horizon by flame. Breathing in the ash already staining the skies black. Ash that showered the North for several days after, choking her with the dust of all those slaughtered trees.

“Cellach, who bound Sidhe females in iron shackles and forced himself upon them. It was then Finnlug, your great-great-great-grandfather who killed fae children for sport. All of these fabled mortal sovereigns, keepers of those violet eyes you yourself have inherited.” Filverel leaned forward, as if considering cutting the hue from Aisling’s irises. “Tell me,mo Lúra, did you also inherit your father’s silver tongue?”

“Est mire lend,” Galad hissed in Rún, taking a step forward.

“She’ll learn sooner or later the true nature of her kind, if she doesn’t already know. This way will be far less painful than witnessing it for herself.”

“You speak as though the Aos Sí are innocent. As though the Aos Sí have not laid waste to mortal villages, terrorized from within the shadows of the wilderness till no mortal dare venture past their settlement walls, even for food for starving children. As though the Aos Sí did not steal, kill, or enchant innocents. As though the Aos Sí have not stolen our land,” Aisling said, her pulse quickening with the rage clawing likehands in a tomb for escape. The hawks squawking madly from above, blowing loose sheets of parchment with the flap of their wings.

“You are worse than ignorant. You are foolish,” Filverel said, laughing beneath his breath.

“Coirrigh dol beanga nó,” Galad snarled but again Filverel ignored him.

“None are innocent in war. But, if a centuries-old Sidhe may impart some wisdom, I suggest you find the truth for yourself instead of parroting the words of your kind. Of your father. All of us claim to know the truth; only some of us do. Find it for yourself before you stake your life and your loyalties on unchallenged lies.”

Aisling’s face flushed with fury, digging her nails into the palms of her hands. But Galad was already tugging her out the door, pulling her away from Filverel before Aisling could protest.

“Your letter will be delivered before the sun sets…mo Lúra.” The corners of Filverel’s lips twitched as Galad swung the door shut. The only sound, the hawks screeching madly from their shelves.

CHAPTER XIII

Another week passed and still Nemed hadn’t replied to Aisling’s letter. So, she waited each morning for the raven to return, envelope in beak, but with each new day, Galad was forced to awkwardly disappoint Aisling all over again.

More than enough time had already passed for Nemed to have both received and replied to her correspondence. In fact, it was Gilrel who informed Aisling that fae ravens travelled swiftly, capable of delivering a letter as far as the southern continent and return with a reply in no more than a handful of days. Tilren was a fraction of that distance and yet, Aisling felt as though it were on the other side of the Earth. A quiet, soundless corner of the Earth.

Aisling woke for the second time that night, swathed in furs, staring at her chamber’s coffered ceiling through the canopy above her bed. Lacey drapes weaving through windy wisterias, growing larger each day as if fed by her nightmares.

Idly, her thumb stroked the handle of an ivory dinner knife. A replacement for Iarbonel’s dagger, a dagger perhaps still lodged in the Cú Scáth’s corpse rotting somewhere in the near forest.

No longer did she weep for her clann. Rather most nights,she drifted in and out of consciousness, desperately clawing at the terrors that greeted her the moment she closed her eyes. Nightmares that were somehow worse than the conversations she rehearsed in her mind while awake: the trow hobbling towards her; Lir’s grin as the creature’s head rolled away and his vines relaxed; the Cú Scáth sinking its teeth in her flesh.

“He who wears the blood of the forest on his hands.”

“Find the truth for yourself before you stake your life and your loyalties on unchallenged lies.”

“The Aos Sí will try to deceive you. They will spin lies as easily as they spin their thread.”

Aisling wrenched her eyes shut, pressing the heels of her hands into her lids. Even the distant brush of trees in the midnight gale haunted her. Willows and elms knew just how many of their brothers and sisters her father had burned. Nemed who’d often summoned Tilrish festivals to smell the smoke, ash, and conquest clouding their northern skies in streaks of black and grey.

If only Nemed would respond. He could clarify all of this. Make sense of everything he’d gotten wrong and defend all that still stood unproven. He could reassure Aisling. So why, Aisling wondered repeatedly, had Nemed not replied?

Each day it became more and more difficult to remember their voices. Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, Annind. Dagfin. Everything they’d told her in the weeks before her wedding, muffled by time. A reality that made her ache with guilt, for the memories of her home and family were who she was, what made her who she was. And if she no longer had those, could no longer remember, what would become of her in this new, nonsensical world of the Aos Sí? A land of dangerous dances, forbidden wines, lethal tournaments, and knowing trees?

“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. Where youcome from.”

The chamber door creaked open. Followed by the unfurling ribbon of yellow, floral light, spilling into the room. Aisling’s mind yelled internally, fighting for the mortal queen to sit upright and ready herself. But Aisling’s body refused, weighed down and anchored by fatigue.

A shadow entered her chamber. They were silent, shutting the door behind them before sweeping towards the center of the room. It was obviously a male, impossibly tall, lean, strong, stripping his armor and tossing it across an ottoman. Aisling watched him through the transparent curtains as she feigned sleep. Herself clouded with exhaustion, wading on the brim of consciousness.

Lir entered the room the same way he did in her nightmares, silently, unexpectedly, in the dead of night. She was most likely still dreaming, unaware that she lay trapped in her subconscious. Although in her dreams, the fae king always climbed over the terrace and skulked towards her bed, wielding the same eyes as the night he’d killed the Cú Scáth. The same feral expression. All beast and bloodthirst. He didn’t enter through the door as he did now. He didn’t slowly strip off his clothes till nothing remained, save for his trousers. He didn’t disappear in the bathing chambers, the sound of running water filling Aisling’s ears. He didn’t pad across the room and hesitate before the bed, realizing Aisling now lay in his furs as well—as though he had forgotten–– didn’t watch her for what felt like an eternity as he did now. For he’d been gone for a week, perhaps more—time was different here—doing whatever it was he did in the forest with his knights. And before then, Lir and Aisling had scarcely shared a bed save for their wedding night.

Aisling’s eyes fluttered closed, somewhere between feigning and truly being asleep. Nevertheless, dream or not, Aisling heard the sweep of the curtains as Lir peeled apart the cobwebs. The weight of him tilting the edge of the bed. She felt him watch her, his eyes caressing the contours of herface. Drifting down her arms and hands. A regard as potent as physical touch itself. Aisling didn’t know for how long he stood there or for how long he watched her. Only that once her eyes fluttered open once more, fighting sleep, some dream-like poison, slumber’s tonic, he’d turned away. Setting a knife down on her bedside table.

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