Page 87 of The Mortal Queen

Leaning over the brink of a pool, the mortal queen peered down. Deep, bottomless ponds filled to the brim with sparkling waters. A looking glass that faded into endless black below. Somewhere far within them, Aisling could hear thedraiochtmurmuring to itself. Swimming and calling her under. Then it showed her an image. A strange, blurred vision of another place. Perhaps another time. A mountain valley filled to the brim with winged Sidhe.

Aisling craned her neck. She needed to see more. To understand. But it was a mistake. The mortal queen’s boot slipped and she flew towards the pool, the waters rushing towards her face. Aisling wrenched her eyes shut, waiting for impact. Instead, two hands reached around her waist and pulled her up. Aisling spun, colliding against Lir’s chest, his arms wrapped firmly around her.

“Watch your step,” he said with the ghost of a grin, pulling her back onto her feet. Aisling tilted her head up to face him, shivering at the sensation of his arms around her.

“And don’t look too closely,” Rian added.

The dryads escorting them giggled beneath their breath.

“What’s down there?” Aisling asked, carefully placing her boots from here on out.

“Some are nothing more than mirrors, glaring back at what glares in. Others are passages,” Lir said, spinning his axes in his hands.

“Passages? Like doorways?”

“Aye, thresholds to another place. Sometimes another time.”

“And what would’ve happened had I fallen in?” Aisling asked, following closely behind the fae king and tiptoeing along the narrow paths of grass interspersed between the pools.

“Depending on the pool, you could’ve been soaked for the rest of the evening. Or, you could’ve been lost to both time and space.”

Aisling’s violet eyes snapped towards the fae king. But before she could reply, the rows of willows stirred around them. It didn’t take long before the dryads, just as the two guiding them forward had done moments ago, peeled from the bark of their trees, leapt down from the canopies, crawled down the trunks like spiders, and perched atop the highest branches, all ogling the fae king, his bride and his two knights approaching. There were hundreds of them. Creatures part flora and seemingly part fair folk. As though the two were once blended in some primordial soup and spat out with a vengeance. But most impressive of all was what awaited them.

A gargantuan ash stood at the end of the field of mirrors, a tree so large that a kingdom of Aos Sí couldn’t wrap its arms around its grooved body. One whose branches exploded from the trunk in a great web of wooden limbs, hungry to expand as far as its branches would allow. Tangling amidst the willows surrounding it. And beneath it, unravelling like colossal snakes, its roots burst out before diving deep into the earth below them.

A groaning that nearly stripped Aisling’s ears erupted. The mortal queen pressed her palms against the sides of her head, wincing at the sheer volume of the noise, a roar as great as any fanged beast’s. The skin of the tree then, as if dissolved into a liquid form, began to move. Creaking and growling, from the ash a giant female took form, pulling against the bark to release herself like the dryads before her. Hair of flowering vines and thorny branches braided down her shoulders, sweeping the pools and stirring their depths. A woman as colossal as the tree itself, she knelt on her knees, blinking open eyes of glorious grey. For she bore no pupils nor an iris. Bulbs of smoke considering her guests with wicked delight.

Aisling sucked in a breath and trapped it in her chest.

“Hush now,” the giant cooed to the surrounding dryads, who whispered furiously to one another. “We’re in the presenceof a king.”

Aking. Not ‘our’ king, Aisling noticed. The beast’s voice boomed, a song of silk and velvet rattling through Aisling’s core to the soles of her boots.

She bent her head and knelt before the fae lord.

“Danu,” he said in greeting. “I’m assuming you know why we’ve come.” Lir tilted his head in return, his expression unreadable.

The empress grinned, her dark skin stretching. Vines of leafy hair falling around her rounded features and cloaking her bare breasts as she cocked her head to the side.

“I do,mo Damh Bán. I know what each of your desires are. Those that were, those that are, and those that will be.”

“Then you know I’ve come seeking what you’veseen: the end of the war between the mortals and the Sidhe.”

The empress laughed then, feirdhris, aiteann, and dris berries blooming across her arms, her chest, her hands, her hair, with every gleeful sound.

“I’ve seen the end of your petty feud. I’ve seen the end of everything. I’ve seen the beginning as well. But what’s more interesting is everything in between. For that isn’t the only thought that occupies your mind, is itmo Damh Bán?”

Lir considered for a moment, toying with the thread of starlight in his fist. But there was no fear in his posture. Rather, he was rather angry. Resolved to do what he must to get what he wanted.

Danu leaned closer, eyes wandering from Rian to Galad before landing on Aisling herself, standing on Lir’s left-hand side. The hair on Aisling’s arms stood to attention, Danu’s steely eyes like those of a spider studying her insect locked in the web.

“One of which being this beastly thing beside you,” Danu purred. “Don’t be rude, Lir. Introduce us.”

Lir hesitated, his body tightening as he considered. “This is Aisling, queen of the greenwood and of Annwyn.”

Aisling lowered her eyes out of respect.

“I dream of you often, little beast,” Danu said. “And so does he.” The empress gestured towards Lir, watching Aisling closely. A wolf hungry to pounce at a moment’s notice.

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