Page 88 of The Mortal Queen

Danu turned towards the fae king, releasing the mortal queen from her regard.

“So, your mother’s prophecy at last came to be. Did you know that? When you agreed to the union did you foresee your mother’s prophecy fulfilling itself? Or did you intend to behead the mortal princess?”

Lir’s eyes flashed like lightning. Sage storms thrashing behind his thick lashes.

Aisling held her breath. For Danu had asked the same question that’d plagued the mortal queen’s mind since Peitho’s revelation during their outing. One she herself desperately craved an answer to, an answer void of deceptions, spells, glamours, or lies.

“I knew,” Lir said, before tightening his fists at his sides. Aisling whipped her head in Lir’s direction, studying his tormented expression. “I knew of my mother’s prophecy before the union.”

“What prophecy?” Aisling blurted, the words spilling out of her mouth before she had an opportunity to stop them.

“Ash,” Galad warned from behind, but Aisling shrugged him off. His words but a distant chime beyond the buzzing in her ears.

“He hasn’t told you?” Danu asked, grinning from ear to ear. “Shame, Lir. Must I always be the one to tell the story? I suppose I’m best at it.”

Aisling’s head swiveled between the empress and the fae king. Her temples throbbing, her mouth going dry till her tongue was nothing but ash between her teeth.

“Before his mother and the people of Iod were cursed, she gave one last prophecy, for she was blessed with asightlike my own, a warning to her only son, the heir of the greenwood. A promise that he’d be bound to not one but twocaeras. And the second would be a love unmatched, a reckless, ruinous love capable of destroying kingdoms and plaguing the Earth. A harbinger of great upheaval and certain death.”

Aisling took a step back, wobbling on her weak knees. She couldn’t look at Lir. Not now. One glance in his direction and she didn’t know what would become of her. But she could feel the heat of his gaze on her. Cutting into her skin.

“Aisling,” he said, his voice the thunder of a woodland storm.

His mother was cursed alongside her people. She gave one last prophecy to her only son.

Cathan’s song. His tale the night after their union.

“Ina was punished by the gods; both she and the entirety of her mountain kingdom cursed for all eternity. A kingdom doomed to a damned legacy. But before that, it’s said she had one last vision. A prophecy she shared with her only son.”

Aisling’s tongue caught in her throat.

“Your mother was Ina, the queen of the mountains. Of Iod. One of the twelve original sovereigns.” Aisling’s chest rose and fell, reaching for breath, but the air was thin. “Your father was Bres. The king of the greenwood. You’re the heir of two original sovereigns.” Aisling lifted her eyes to Lir’s. He watched her. Still as the pine on a windless day. Eyes harrowed. Rimmed with a silent sort of torture. A vein corded through his neck where his chest rose and fell to the rhythm of Aisling’s own.

“Aye, he is,” Danu answered for the fae lord. “The most powerful Sidhe sovereign known to this realm.”

Lir’s wings. He was a child of both the mountains and the forest. It was why Castle Annwyn was carved into the mountain.

“What was the curse?” Aisling demanded, turning her gaze towards the empress. Heat built in Aisling’s palms as thedraiochtbegan to feed off the mortal queen’s anger. Aisling hushed it down, grinding her teeth to control it as best she could. “What happened to Ina and Iod?”

Danu leaned back, delighted.

“The gods stripped her of her powers, of her wings, of her ability to summon thedraiocht. They made her weak. Cursed her and all those belonging to Iod this way. And from that day onward, Ina and her people were destined to live less than a measly century, their long Sidhe lifespans stolen from their lungs.”

“They were—” Aisling choked on the words.

“They were made mortal. Iod were the first humans and the ancestors of your kind.”

Aisling shook her head, violet eyes as wide as violet moons.

“But you aren’t quite like your kind, are you?” Danu continued, her silver eyes glistening with amusement. “You’re something else now.”

“What do you know?” Lir snarled, his voice laced with something that stripped Aisling’s heart bare.

“Like your mother, she’s the first of a new kind.”

“What kind?” Lir demanded, snapping like a wolf.

Danu closed her mouth, smiling mischievously, leaning forward to dip her lichen-covered finger into the nearest pool.

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