Page 69 of The Mortal Queen

“Can you do it again?” Lir asked Aisling. “Whatever it is you did to that Fomori, can you replicate it?”

“How can you be so sure it was me and not another nearby?”

Filverel shot daggers at the rest of the Aos Sí, threatening them to say no more. So, it was Lir who spoke, “As far as the Lore has described and as far as any of us have experienced or known, there is none who can summon fire. No Seelie. No Unseelie. No beast or creature or fiend known throughout the continents and beyond. It is a mortal tool that destroys what the Sidhe seek to build. We can use it, yes. Manipulate it, perhaps. But never summon it. Not through thedraiochtand not at all. Nor can the Unseelie.”

“And the mortals? Can they breathe through thedraiocht?” Aisling asked.

“As far as anyone has ever been concerned, no. It’s against one of the original laws,” Lir said, the evening wind running its cool fingers through his dark hair.

“Do you recall the story I once told you?” Rian said. “The tale in Cathan’s song?”

Aisling remembered the night, one of the evenings following her union. Before she’d ever set foot in Annwyn.

“After Ina attempted to save her love, Bres, from the kingdom of the greenwood, she was cursed. One of the more unfortunate consequences of such a curse was forbidding the mortals from ever being able to wield thedraiocht.”

Aisling shook her head. “What does Ina’s curse have to do with the mortals?”

The Aos Sí exchanged glances again. They were keeping thingsfrom her.

“No one else could’ve summoned the fire,” Lir continued. “It was yours. I could feel it.”

Aisling held her hands before her, turning them over in dawn’s first light.

“Wield the flames again,” Filverel demanded.

“Easca,” Lir hissed. To which each of the fair folk shuffled uneasily.

Galad stepped before the mortal queen. “Can you try?” he asked more gently.

Aisling considered him. Of course, she could attempt it, but Aisling knew nothing would occur. They were all mistaken. Misunderstanding whatever had happened to Gnoll. She was a mortal through and through. The only mortal princess in all the isles. She’d never heard of thedraiochtuntil a few weeks prior to this day. Still, there was a part of Aisling that hoped it was true. Prayed to the gods she’d never believed in that perhaps, just maybe, she did possess some magic. Was capable of wielding something of such power.

Aisling pushed past each of the Aos Sí surrounding her to face the lake’s expanse. It shimmered in glassy sheets of ice. Still. Silent. Frozen. Pines bowed around it, weighed down by the piles of snow sitting on their backs.

Lir moved behind her, the smell of him clouding around her in dreamy wisps. As always, the nearness of him warmed her lower abdomen, setting loose flocks within her stomach.

“Hold your hands out before you,” he said, tilting his head to whisper by her ear. Aisling batted away the heat creeping beneath her cheeks. She willed herself to focus.

“Close your eyes,” Lir commanded. And Aisling obeyed. “Inhale and exhale slowly.”

Aisling steadied her breath. So far, she felt nothing.

“Now what?” she asked in return, keeping her eyes closed.

“I like to imagine what I intend to summon,” Lir said.

“And then?”

“And then I invite thedraiocht. It will try to rule you butyou mustn’t let it. Like any wild animal, it seeks to be dominated lest it need to dominate. To be used and be useful.”

Aisling did as the fae king described, calling out to thedraiocht.

I wish to summon the fire,Aisling said in the hollows of her mind.

No one replied.

Are you there?

Silence.

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