Page 71 of The Mortal Queen

Lir stood silent for a moment, listening to the surrounding forest. He closed his eyes, brow pinching as he concentrated. Whatever it was he communicated to the trees, they responded, groaning on a phantom wind. A wind that tunneled through the forest, Aisling’s braid catching the leaves that flew like sparrows. By now, the strange hum that’d called Aisling into the forest had lowered, buzzing in the distance.

“This way,” Lir said, gesturing for Aisling to follow him.

The mortal queen glanced over her shoulder, searching for the fae camp they were leaving behind.

“What about the others?”

“What about them?”

“Won’t we need their help?”

Lir stopped in his tracks, turning to face the mortal queen.

“You doubt me?” he asked, a roguish grin baring his fangs.

“I doubt myself. I can’t be of much help should anything happen,” Aisling said, thinking of the countless fomorians that descended upon both her and Lir a few weeks prior.

“You shouldn’t,” Lir said, “you may be more capable than I.”

Lir turned his back to Aisling, continuing further into the icy woodland.

“You still believe I can wield thedraiocht?” Aisling hurriedafter him.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Aisling wrinkled her brow. “Because I couldn’t summon the fire the night at the lake.”

“I’d have been surprised if you had,” he said. “Your use of thedraiochtis still young. Undisciplined.I can sense it. And so can the forest. We feel it in your blood whenever you’re near.” His eyes flickered towards her, their regard as frightening as any great predator but equally as lovely.

Aisling tore her eyes from the fae king. Is that what Yddra had told him? What the trees whispered to Lir throughout the day and night alike?

“Initially, I thought it your will. That wildness within you, you seek so persistently to stifle. That heathenous heart that allows you to live amongst us.” Lir gestured towards the surrounding woodland. Aisling paused. For indeed she craved the grass beneath her bare feet, the smell of wet leaves, the wind purling through the forest.

“Within you lives a wild spirit.” The forest stirred then, swaying their great bodies to the sound of their lord’s voice. “There’s magic in your blood.”

Aisling clenched her fists at her sides.

“Then do you fear such magic in me?” Aisling searched his expression, an expression that rarely gave anything away it wished not to.

Lir met her gaze. “It interests me.”

“Then why does Filverel?—”

“Fil fears your father will use you as a weapon if he discovers your abilities.”

“Filverel believes I’d burn the forests for my father?” Aisling asked.

Lir stopped in his tracks, looking at the ground. Aisling followed his gaze. A stone staircase travelled deep into the earth below. Steps that faded into blackness.

Moss, flowers, and vines snaked around the staircase, stretching their fingers and plunging into the earth until theytoo, disappeared into the abyss. But that wasn’t all. As the staircase crossed the surface of the earth and into the underground, there stood an open doorway made of stone carved into the likeness of a woman’s head frozen for eternity with a gaping maw. A cavernous mouth where the staircase unfurled like a rock-ridden tongue.

“Aye. He thinks that if you’re reunited with your father, you’ll let him use you,” Lir continued, “to destroy the woodlands and burn the Sidhe.”

Aisling blanched, lips parting as she considered the fae king.

“You don’t know do you?” he asked. “Surely your father has told you this.”

Aisling shook her head.

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