Page 90 of The Mortal Queen

Lir growled, his fangs cutting his bottom lip.

“What must I do? Kill him? Serve his head on a pike? Will that end the war? Prevent what you’ve seen?” Lir said, his fists glowing with pale green light. The forest swung from side to side as though preparing for an oncoming storm. The shadows deepened and the earth grumbled as though irate itself. Aisling inhaled sharply, overcome with the maddened shrieks of the northern feywilds building around them. The woodland responding to its fae lord.

The dryads cowered behind their trees, some sinking back into the branches of the willow.

“Return to Annwyn,” Danu insisted, shutting her eyes and sinking back into her tree form.

“I command you to help me!” Lir shouted, his knuckles growing white around the hilt of his blades. But it was too late. No longer did the woman stand before them. Only the quiet ash whose roots snaked beneath it, lashing out like vipers and shoving the fae king and his knights back. They were thrown into the pool. Aisling dragged along after them, pulled into the abyss by a tether of starlight.

CHAPTER XXVII

Aisling clawed upward. She wasn’t certain how long she’d been submerged, swimming through darkness, until she’d spotted the rays of light, penetrating the water like trails of a reed. Had it not been for her ability to breathe through thedraiocht, Aisling would’ve drowned. Lost in some dark cavern where there was no north nor south. No west, nor east. Only black and the oily fingers of the pool, stroking her to sleep.

The mortal queen broke through the surface, gasping for air. The world spun or rather, the cavern in which she stood spun. No longer was she in the Isle of Mirrors amidst the dryads. No. She stood in a chamber of stone, a great corridor that stretched endlessly forward into an abyss. The only light, a hole in the ceiling further down the hall, glowing with the fresh rays of early afternoon. The stench of mold and mildew vegetating in the air. It was then Aisling understood she was underground.

Roots crawled along the stone walls, rising from the knee-deep water flooding the corridor, water she’d somehow emerged from, and surrounded the mortal queen from all sides.

Aisling watched them slither along the rocks. The way theyhugged the cool edge of every crease. Rubbing their bellies against the dampness of the passage. But beyond the roots, the vines, the moss sucking every stone, were twinkling gems. Colorful if it weren’t for the filth of the subterranean tunnel. Every gem methodically hammered into the walls till it formed a mural.

Aisling pushed through the murky waters. Her leathers and tunic weighed heavy on her shoulders, sticking to her abdomen and back.

And as she tore at the vines, cautious as they snapped and hissed at her carelessness, she could feel thedraiochtwaking in the tunnel. Great magic swelling through the vast chamber, a perpetually crashing wave. Magic that brought these ancient murals to life. How long had they existed down here? Whereverherewas. Aisling shook her head. Masterpieces of shattered, gleaming shards chronicling the conception of the world according to the fair folk.

The mortal queen peeled away the hair stuck to her face.

The narrative began with two faceless figures in the dark. All that existed were these two males radiating with celestial, white light. But amidst such blackness burned an ember. A red spark, flickering as Aisling traced the rubies with her fingertips. The mural brightened, spun into motion.

The two figures approached the ember, stoking it to life with their breath until it blazed greater and greater, hundreds of rubies hammered into the stone to reflect such a marvel. A marvel that came to be known as the Great Forge of Creation. Nothing else existed. Only the two figures and the Forge, churning its fires until the rubies transformed into blue mountains, seas, valleys, forests, islands, icy plains on the left. And on the right, the rubies became something else Aisling didn’t recognize: a landscape she could scarcely behold, thanks to the roots tightly clasped over the mural at this end of the corridor. But what Aisling did see was enough. These were the two planes. That of the Other on the right and that of theworld Aisling inhabited on the left; the mortal world Nemed had called it. Both forged in the beginning of all things.

Aisling walked further down the wall, tearing at the stubborn lianas when she found a familiar image. Aisling stepped back, inhaling sharply.

It was a crowned male figure standing amongst eleven other sovereigns, both male and female. Each carrying a gift in their hands. And the first male, the one that’d caught Aisling’s attention, wore a crown of gilded antlers. Carried Lir’s twin axes in his hands. The blade she’d chosen at their union.

This was Bres. Lir’s father. And further down, stood Ina, a female glittering in gold. But she was the only one of the monarchs who didn’t boast a weapon. Her head was crowned by the image of a three-eyed owl, looking back at Aisling and considering her in return. Ina’s gift ofsight.

Aisling’s eyes devoured the mural, running down the walls of the corridor and into the darkness.

The fae sovereigns took ownership of the seas: flecks of kyanite embroidered with opals, multiplying and swirling around their merrow monarch; the great planes: sheets of cornelian splintering like rays of sun; the mountains: jagged mounds of amethyst piercing skies of moonstone; and so many more. The world took shape as the original two males stirred the Forge, a ruby growing larger with every churn. But it was the golden Ina rushing towards the city of emeralds that stole Aisling’s attention, Bres impaled by another fae queen, one Aisling didn’t recognize, and Ina weeping tears of kyanite as his gemstone dulled.

Enraged, the Forge overflowed, rubies tunnelling through Iod’s amethysts until every gold-flecked subject of Ina was damned, writhing as their lights dulled as well. No longer as strong, as powerful, forced to live opposed to the world for which they were cast. No longer immortal.

Aisling stepped away fromthe mural.

“I was among those who had voted against the union, considering it was practically an execution bound to exacerbate mortal and fae tensions. But alas, here we are. The mortal princess lives.” Even Filverel hadn’t known the truth. A secret Lir hoarded until Danu exposed it against his will. And now, the mortal queen was faced with the reality of her kind’s heritage.

“Man was born of nothing, but nevertheless born first.”

Nemed was wrong. Mankind, the mortal queen’s own blood, had been Ina’s curse for her ill-fated love. Aisling had only lived in Annwyn for a short time. How many more lies, unspoken truths, and deceptions would she unravel in a lifetime?

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

The mortal queen’s mind was a tangle of disbelief. The world as she knew it was changing. No, it had always been this way. Only now her memory was corrupted by a newfound cynicism for the ‘truths’ she’d believed blindly. The doctrine she’d never questioned.

“Return to Annwyn. The fire hand is but a step in the right direction.”

Nemed wanted peace. Wanted the well-being of his kind. Wanted the mortals to thrive. He wouldn’t jeopardize that after all Aisling’s union had done to solidify the treaty. But even as Aisling rationalized her father’s lies, the words did little to assuage the growing anxiety that’d taken root long before this day.

In the cold, her shoulders trembled. She held herself closer, tugging her drenched arms against her body. The tether of starlight hung from her wrist, frayed where she’d been torn apart from Rian, Galad, and Lir. The fae king’s expression as the thread snapped between them, flashing across her memory.

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