Page 83 of The Mortal Queen

They were alone now. The four of them. A day’s worth of travel from the Isle of Mirrors.

CHAPTER XXV

An hour before dawn, Aisling sat on a cliff’s edge. Lir, Galad, and Rian were already dozing beside the fire Aisling had lit earlier, dreaming deeply. But sleep, ever since Aisling’s union, had eluded the mortal queen. Dreams came at a steep cost: hours of thinking, of worrying, of anxiously waiting for the sun to set so she could trail onwards. Nightmares that embellished her most wicked memories with greater horrors. The Cú Scáth devouring her belly as she watched, the fomorians forcing her to dance upon the fae knights’ bones. Losing control of her violet flames till they devoured her in licks of an all-consuming wildfire. At times, she even found herself running through Tilren, banging on Castle Neimedh only for her tuath to have forgotten her. To her clannsmen, her name, her face, her voice was but a foreign word in their ears. Meaningless. A series of vowels strung together. To her family, she’d vanished like a ghost come morning light.

So, Aisling sat on the cliff’s ledge, dangling her legs over the steep drop. A wall of bark-like stone descended into a mess of clouds beneath her. And further beyond, on the horizon, were the endless feywilds preparing for the coronation of the rising sun. But even from this vantage point, Aisling could seeblotches of black. Areas where Nemed’s fires had burned through the wilderness. A thief of fire and ash—fire that Aisling recklessly toyed with on her fingertips, jewels of deepest plum fluttering from the tips of her nails.

“You should be resting, or are you unable to resist certain peril?” a familiar voice purred from behind. Aisling turned to find Lir approaching, brushing sleep disheveled hair from his eyes.

“You’ve said that to me before,” the mortal queen replied, doing her best to steady the rapid pace of her heart the fae king’s presence inspired.

“You need to be reminded of your more destructive tendencies,” he said, sitting beside her on the cliff’s edge. His legs were much, much longer than her own. His boots dangling farther down the wall than Aisling’s. The mortal queen swallowed as his thigh brushed her own.

“Perhaps you should focus on your own destructive tendencies instead of mine,” Aisling quipped, forcing herself to concentrate on the flames at her fingertips.

“I have many.”

“Tell me one,” she said, daring a glance in his direction. Lir’s sage eyes shimmered with lilac, reflecting the light of Aisling’s fire. He sat transfixed by her fingers toying with the flames. Aisling had never seen him look at anything like that, with such fascination. An expression that softened his features. Made him nearly real and not the otherworldly king that the mortal queen knew he was. But moments like these, looks like those, made her forget. Just for a moment.

“You,” he said, eyes flitting towards Aisling. Catching her eyes before she had a chance to look away. Aisling blinked at the fae lord, her breath hitching in her chest.

“Do you fear me?” she asked against her own volition. But the words didn’t feel like her own. As though she were listening to another woman speak to the mythic warrior beside her.

The corners of Lir’s lips curled slightly. A mischievous smile, steeped in the promise of something forbidden. Something dangerous. Something she shouldn’t explore, yet wanted to all the more.

“Aye, I do,” he said, returning his attention back to Aisling’s hand. Emerald vines grew from nothing, twirling around her arm, tickling the bare skin of her wrist. Aisling shivered at the touch. A caress as light, as gentle as the kiss of a taunting breeze.

The vines curved towards her fingertips, bedizened by her flames. And once the lianas touched her fires, they sizzled, blackened, then wilted until they were nothing more than ash, floating off the cliff and into the sea of clouds below. All the life he breathed, she destroyed.

“You once told me you live in fear,” Aisling said, remembering his words. “What else do you fear?” As soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them. It wasn’t her place to ask such intimate questions of the fae king. One whose armor ran deeper than the steel plating he sported. One who bore his fangs and snarled at the slightest provocation or threat. He wasn’t simply the stag, the winged Aos Sí in her moonlit dreams, she needed to remind herself. He was also the wolf—insatiable, predatory, lethal. Gloriously fierce. A fact that had been all-encompassing at one point.

Lir averted his gaze, turning instead towards the forested expanse before them.

“I fear my people’s suffering,” he confessed, his voice deeper than it had been before. “I fear making an unforgivable mistake, a lapse of judgement that would put my people in jeopardy”—he paused—“like my mother did.” His eyes flicked back to Aisling.

Like his mother did? Lir had only ever mentioned his mother once before. Before they’d come across the fomorians. But what crime could his mother have committed to harm the people of Annwyn? The kingdom of greenwood?Aisling stilled, afraid to move lest the fae king build up those walls of ice, stone by stone, once more.

“I fear losing what’s mine.”

“Like you lost Narisea and Peitho,” Aisling surmised, deigning to mention the child he’d lost alongside his firstcaera. It was too great a risk but she couldn’t help herself. Despite her better judgement, she needed to know. Wanted to know.

Lir bristled. But whatever he found in her amethyst eyes dispelled the tension her query aroused, his shoulders softening.

“Like I lost Narisea,” he confirmed, seemingly surprised Aisling knew of her at all. But of course, she did. Not only had Peitho mentioned his firstcaera,but others had spoken her name as well. Balor. Sakaala. And his neglect of Peitho didn’t escape Aisling’s notice.

“What was she like?” Aisling asked, torn between wanting to know the answer and running before she heard a genuine response.

Lir’s expression fell as he studied his hands in his lap.

“She was born with a spear in her hand and the forest in her heart. A wicked temper.” The fae king smiled, fangs flashing in the firelight. “She was wild,” he said, considering for a moment, “like you.”

Aisling’s heart skipped a beat. But Aisling was no warrior. She was a princess, hardly capable of throwing a dagger, much less a spear.

“And you?” the fae king asked. “Have you ever given your heart to another?”

As if the question had summoned his face, Dagfin appeared in the mortal queen’s mind. Aisling shuffled away the image, her heart twisting at the thought of him. The way he smelled of smoke and Roktish incense. His voice, a song of home. A place that now felt more like a dream than reality. “I’ve missed you.”

“Don’t tell me it’s the princeling,” Lir said, as if reading her thoughts.

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