Page 51 of The Mortal Queen

Lir would protect Aisling to prevent further war with mankind. War, Lir had already gone to great lengths to avoid.Nemed had been right, Aisling reassured herself. A vow would appear sanctimonious enough until there was something that stood between Aisling’s life and what the fae king desired—needed. For example, negotiating with the Unseelie. All she could do was surrender to the fact that she was now here, amongst the Aos Sí and subject to her husband’s will. For this was her purpose. Clann Neimedh would want her to die if it meant protecting the union they’d sacrificed her for. And for a moment, a blame-worthy moment, Aisling allowed herself to consider that perhaps all this—this rationale to willingly join Lir on his quest—was more than an obligation. Perhaps all those years locked within Tilren’s walls had driven Aisling mad, for now she craved this, this adventure. To place a face to all the horrors she’d lay awake imagining. To encounter magic in all its loathsome form.

And as suddenly as the fae king had entered, he vanished out her chamber doors, leaving behind the smell of the earth after a storm. A wild perfume was abandoned in his wake. A fragrance that had long called Aisling past the walls of Tilren, across the verdant fields, and into the forbidden forests. A scent that drove her mad long into the nights when she grew restless of years cooped inside an iron keep. Long before she ever met the fae lord. And yet, perhaps her father had been right. Perhaps the fair folk did lure innocent mortal maidens into the wilds. Perhaps Aisling was still drunk on the fae king’s woodland stupor, foolishly dancing into his realm of wicked wonder.

CHAPTER XVII

“Why do we travel at night?” Aisling asked Lir. The fae king seized her waist, lifting the mortal queen onto Saoirse’s saddled back. Gilrel, Liam, and the rest of Lir’s knights mounted their beasts alongside the mortal queen. As well as, unfortunately, Filverel. One who’d grinned as she’d approached the stables with stags prepped and tethered to their belongings. Mounts prancing eagerly before the lip of the forest as though the rustling of the leaves in the night-time gale were curses only the beasts could understand.

“Unseelie prefer the night, creatures of shadow and moonlight,” Galad interjected, grabbing his saddle’s horn and swinging himself atop the mount. “It’s said the gods forged strange phantoms that climb down from the skies and lace every bite of night with a juice that makes the lips loose, the body wild, and the thoughts feral. And while the diurnal creatures slumber, their nocturnal brethren rise from their dens to stalk the midnight tonic till the sun ascends come dawn”—he grinned devilishly—“the evening fiends reign, beckoning their spirit brothers to drink up the starlight.”

For the past several hours, the sky had burned with embers of rose, the sun descending and bowing to great summits. Now, the moon took its seat on the starry throne, tilting its head toobserve their fae procession.

Aisling peered into the surrounding woods. Her skin grew cold. No longer pressed beneath the light, these forests had abandoned their daylight persona; now, the trees tiptoed in the shadows, humming to the chorus of mating insects. The woodland was watching. Anxious to greet its guests even if this fae cavalcade would forge a trail through its agrestal keep. Did they know Aisling was the daughter of he who burned so many of their kind? He who laid waste to countless trees till nothing but ash carpeted the floors upon which men built their castles?

“Frell regla ort uirli má téann lú le do guid scéalta,” Hagre chastised, sitting near enough to overhear their conversation. His fae accent was thicker than most. So dense, Aisling couldn’t interpret his words even when he spoke her tongue. Hagre was also the largest member of the Aos Sí, head shaved and scarred with countless angry lesions—iron wounds, Aisling realized.

“The mortal queen is not so easily frightened, Hagre,” Gilrel quipped, twirling a whisker in her paw. The marten donned countless weapons: daggers, small throwing axes, a custom bow, and a quiver filled to the brim with reeds. Aisling had already witnessed her proficiency with the bow, eager to behold how she made use of the rest.

“We’ll see how she fares against the bocanach then.” Filverel winked. The court advisor dressed in combat leathers of his own, throwing knives strapped across his bandolier, and his long hair tied behind his head.

“Try the fomorians,” Aedh added.

“The fomorians?” Aisling asked, all too aware of the foul taste the word burned onto her tongue.

“One of the more”––Rian chimed, nudging his stag nearer to Aisling’s––“viciousspecies of Unseelie.”

“Some say they were cast from the blackest cauldrons of the great Forge, skin as pale as the light of themoon, fangs carved for ripping their prey to shreds,” Aedh said, tossing back a thick flask of fae wine. Aedh bore the loudest laugh of all the fae knights, often cajoling the rest into some wild, misbehaved nonsense.

“And everything they touch, rots,” Cathan added. “The personifications of death and darkness and blight.”

Aisling averted her eyes from the shadows and yellow-eyed beasts peering back from the abyss beyond.

“You believe you’ll find these fomorians?” she asked.

“With your mortal scent wafting from this edge of the forest to the next, they won’t be able to resist crawling from their pits.” Aedh offered Aisling a drink from his flask. A flask Gilrel slapped away, hissing a vulgar phrase in Rún.

Aisling swallowed, Aedh’s descriptions given life in her imagination. What the beast wanted with her, Aisling dare not dwell upon lest she lose the resolve plated against her confidence like armor, the only variable precluding the chattering of her teeth. That and her willingness to remain poised before the fair folk.

Lir secured several more travel sacks onto Saoirse’s back, knotting them with a braided thread, a string of silver said to be sourced from starlight itself. Unbreakable save for by blades of gold, Gilrel explained after she’d caught Aisling admiring the embroidery of a freshly sown fae gown. But it was so fine and so lovely, Aisling knew Clodagh would go to great lengths to collect this string for herself, fae or not.

Lir leapt onto Saoirse’s back, positioning himself behind Aisling, his arms wrapped around her to grab the reins in his gloved hands.

“I can ride on my own,” Aisling hissed in a whisper, her breath catching at the cool touch of his armor against her bare skin. All the knights donned parts of their protective plating, gleaming, expertly cast trappings of metal. However, their bodies were, for the most part, not sheathed in silver but rather swathed in training leathers, strapped with every sortof fae weapon imaginable, only one of their shoulders padded with armor and chainmail around their torsos.

Some wore helmets while others wore hoods. Hoods that veiled their expressions in shadow. Lir’s own helmet, embellished with antlers that spread in bone-white wings, hung from the side of Saoirse’s saddle while his hood cast a dark band across the top half of his face. But no night was ever dark enough to extinguish the light in his feline eyes. Eyes that never ceased to catch her wandering glances.

“Would you prefer to ride unguarded should the Unseelie appear?” he asked, leaning his head down to whisper in her ear. Chills ran down Aisling’s spine at the heat of his breath, slithering around her throat until she felt it dissolve within the crater of her clavicle.

“Isn’t that the plan?”

“The plan is to lure them. Not feed them.”

Aisling huffed, “I’d prefer to be far from this place entirely.”

The mortal queen allowed the anger bubbling within to save her from sinking against his chest in search of heat. For despite the warm winds the forest sighed during the day, the dry heaves of night-time were cold and frigid, eager to be felt.

“But that’s not true, is it?” he challenged, commanding Saoirse forward and through the group of stags that surrounded them. “Your body hums with this,” he said and at the mention of Aisling’s body on his lips, every inch of her indeed heated. She squirmed, unable to sit still beneath the weight of his forwardness. “You’re attracted to the peril of it all,” he continued, bringing Saoirse to the forefront of their cavalcade.

“Isn’t everyone?” Aisling asked genuinely. For isn’t that what drove her father? Her brothers? Lir himself gone for days in the forest? Other than their responsibility, of course.

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