Page 72 of The Mortal Queen

“The only other weakness the Sidhe bear from which they cannot heal—other than iron—is fire.”

Aisling’s heart panged.

“Nemed doesn’t just burn the forests to spread his walls. With fire, he purges the Sidhe without having to risk his men in battle.”

Lir was wrong. He had to be. Nemed wouldn’t, couldn’t, know that by burning the woods he was not only slaying centuries-old, sentient trees but also the Sidhe. It was an accident. A misunderstanding, for her father couldn’t be so cruel. His methods were harsh, cold, ruthless at times but always to defend mankind. Never to be the aggressor unprovoked. Aisling knew her father was a man of great fury, of hatred at times. Capable of doing what the average man could not. But that was what was required of a king: to do what others couldn’t for the sake of his people. Even if it meant sacrificing his own morality and goodness. Hadn’t Lir done the same with the fomorians?

Lir descended the staircase first, gesturing for Aisling to follow. The walls and steps were caked with slick, defrosting moss, stone wet and marbled away by the millenniabefore it. Aisling could both hear and smell the water sloshing around down below. Salt and mildew lurked beneath the cavern where the light from above faded until both she and Lir were shrouded in shadow, nothing but the walls on either side of the narrow passage to guide their way.

“Hold onto me,” Lir said, his voice an unembodied spirit amidst the darkness. Aisling swallowed, reaching for the back of his leathers and pulling herself closer to him. He was warm, a beacon guiding her further into the abyss. Every step was a blind one, trusting the rhythm and pace of the ones before it.

At last, they reached the bottom of the staircase. The floor levelled and Lir walked onward, one stealthy step after another. Aisling fisted her hands in his shirt, avoiding the twin axes crossed at his back and resisting the urge to squeal at the frigid touch of the water splashing her boots. Shallow waves, lapping onto the jagged rocks upon which they walked, reaching for their ankles, hungry to pull them under.

But still there was no light. Only darkness and the sound of water in an endless underground cavern, slapping at the walls around them.

Lir reached for Aisling’s hand. The mortal queen wrenched her eyes shut. She knew what was coming. And, sure enough, the scrape of the fae king’s dagger sliding from his scabbard echoed in the cavern.

“I’ll try to make it painless,” he said, pricking the mortal queen’s fingertip. Aisling flinched at the sting of it. Her blood warmly oozed down her finger, so Lir extended her hand and allowed every scarlet drop to drip into the waters below them. Her blood burst into inky, crimson clouds just below the surface of the water.

But there was little time to focus on her own blood. The waters below them bubbled like a boiling cauldron, birthing a strange, green light from the heart of their inky depths. The light grew, casting a pale, sickly glow into the cavern.

Aisling’s eyes widened, her chest tightening at the sight ofwhat emerged from below. Several of them. Perhaps twenty, writhing beneath the surface of the water.

Lir reached for the tether of starlight between them, wrapping the excess thread around his wrist till they were separated by only a handful of breaths.

“Stay close to me.” Lir stepped forward, placing himself before Aisling on the stone platform.

And from the frothing waters, the figures emerged. Creatures who bore the upper bodies of darkly beautiful women but where legs should sprout there were none. Only the lengthy, thick, scaly tails of shimmering ivory, glittering in the waters beneath them like eels, eels tangling their slippery bodies. Knotting and unknotting.

They looked up at Aisling and Lir with round, pearly eyes, their alabaster hair plastered against their scalps, a wicked contrast to the soft green of their fair complexions. And as the water washed over their slick and otherworldly forms, they swam nearer to the small peninsula in which Lir and Aisling stood. Shimmering, sharp, onyx rock stroked by the spidery fingers of the creatures below them.

“Mo Damh Bán,” the first said in Rún, her voice as lovely as her song, “it’s been too long. I’ve thought of you every day since we last met.” The merrow swam closer, seductively eyeing the fae king. But before Lir could speak, her eyes landed on Aisling.

“Is this she? The mortal queen of Annwyn?” Each of their bobbing heads turned towards Aisling, eyeing her skeptically. “I smelled her in the forest but never have I tasted anything quite like her blood.” The merrow shifted into Aisling’s tongue effortlessly. She licked her lips, exposing a collection of razor white teeth punctuated by fangs longer than Lir’s own. Aisling shivered, instinctively stepping nearer to the fae king.

“Although,” the merrow continued, “she certainly isn’t Peitho or Narisea.”

Aisling bristled, folding her hands into fistsat her sides. The mortal queen wasn’t certain why the mention of Lir’s firstcaeraaroused anything in her other than pity, sympathy for the fae king’s loss. But it did. Like a knife twisting at the center of her chest.

“I have a question for you, Sakaala,” Lir said, kneeling and peering into the variant Aos Sí’s luminous orbs.

“Anything for you,mo Damh Bán.” Sakaala grinned, batting her jeweled eyelashes and moving closer still. “Lest we meet the same fate as the fomorians.”

“Their blood seeped through the earth, into our caverns and drove us mad.” Another creature grinned, slithering in place

“Let it be a lesson on the consequences of threatening their queen,” Lir said, and all could discern the threat lurking within. That promise of violence in every drip of his fae accent.

Sakaala’s eyes met Aisling’s: eyes whose depths held the secrets of the sea and its pearl-tipped storms.

Aisling willed herself not to flinch. Not to stutter before such a frighteningly beautiful monster as this. One whose skin detailed years, potentially centuries in the darkest depths of the Ashild Sea.

“Always so territorial, Lir. I can’t say I’m not jealous,” Sakaala purred.

Aisling glanced at the fae king, but Lir’s expression only darkened as he pulled back his hood. A severity in his eyes Aisling had beheld once or twice before.

Sakaala pulled her torso above the water, her thin fingers gripping the stones beneath. Now, Aisling could see the merrow’s fae markings, the tribal tattoos that spun around her sculpted abdomen and arms. A warrior, like the fair folk she’d come to know in Annwyn.

Sakaala leaned forward until her pointed nose was but a mere breadth’s width from Lir’s own. She licked her lips again. Full, ruby lips sensually shimmering in the cave’s light. Against her own volition, Aisling’s eyes trailed towards theexaggerated arch of the merrow’s back, her lean torso, the supple curve of her bare breasts.

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