Page 10 of The Savage Queen

Aisling leaped from the forecastle, starting for a bundle of rope at Fergus’s feet below the mainmast.

“Ash!” Annind sluggishly reached for her. She was too quick, already untangling the pile of rope as her fingers soaked her gloves with blood. Her burnt palms ripe with blisters from conjuring thedraiochta few days prior.

How had they been so stupid? So foolish to set sail without the proper precautions when such dangers abounded?

Aisling tied Fergus’s wrists, then Iarbonel’s, making quick work of her knots before she strapped them to the mainmast.

“What are you doing?!” Iarbonel’s face contorted, the eyes he shared with their mother narrowing in a cruelty her brother didn’t harbor when fully himself.

“Aisling?!” He struggled against her, but his movements were sloppy, weaker than normal.

“Trust me,” she whispered, but the look in both Fergus’s or Iarbonel’s expressions told her they didn’t and hadn’t since the day they’d discovered what she’d become.

Aisling bit down as she worked, ignoring the agony of her blistered hands. Sprinting to her brothers first for, if truth be told, she bore little pity for a crew she knew despised her. Her only motivation for preserving their lives, the potential for a delayed arrival to Fjallnorr. As well as whatever humanity she still clung to.

So, she bounded toward Annind, snatching his hands.

“Clever, faerie,” Killian said as Aisling left him to defend himself against the murúch, his lids growing heavy, eyes losing and gaining focus, warring with thedraiochttangling its fingers around his heart.

“How’d you figure it out?” he asked, his speech slurring, his body stiff, fighting for agency as he dipped his hand into his breast pocket.

“As I said before, the weaknesses of man are many.”

Aisling left Killian untied, refusing to waste another moment tethering a stranger instead of finding Dagfin, already moving to the edge of theStarling. The same dreamy expression he’d awarded her each time she’d woken him in the dead of night to sneak past Tilrish guards written across his face.

“Fin!” Aisling shouted, smacking into him and nearly toppling him over the side of the ship. Hardly able to catch her breath from weeks of running and lack of nutrition. Lungs burning in her chest.

“Ash?” He turned to her, a brief flash of sobriety quickly muddled into whatever charms the murúch threaded into a man’s heart.

“It’s not real, Fin,” she hissed, knotting his wrists again and again.

“What do you mean?” he asked, as though the mass choir of celestial voices wasn’t staining the fog with magic, thick enough to gulp.

“It’s Unseelie, Fin! Their voices steeped in magic, meant to either drown you or turn you to stone. You have to wake up!”

“Unseelie?” Dagfin’s brows pinched, watching Aisling closely.

And once she’d knotted his wrists again and again, Aisling left him, setting to work on Starn’s hands. Starn scowled at her, jerking his arms away from his sister, as though repulsed by her touch alone. Nevertheless, Aisling continued, blood spilling from her gloves in creeks of red and dying the sleeves of her linen dress.

A splash ruptured on the other side of the boat. Aisling swiveled. Three men leaped off the ship as though their lovers waited on the rocks dressed in their deepest, most heartfelt desires.

“Ada?” a crewmate mumbled, an older man, strong for his years, climbing over the edge of theStarling. “Ada!” He dove from the side of the ship, crashing into the foaming waters below.

“Lucia,” another man groaned, following the older mortal’s lead.

Aisling shook her head in disbelief. She hadn’t had time to tether them each to the mainmast. Couldn’t have woven them each together while her palms screamed with pain.

Even Annind, Iarbonel, and Fergus challenged her knots, pulling until Aisling feared they’d break their wrists to escape. Their eyes glazed over, focused on the crags now scraping the edges of theStarling.

“That’s your voice, Aisling,” Dagfin said, peering over the edge of theStarlingonce more, searching the mist for something he’d never find, his hands still bound and the rope pulling at the mainmast. “I can hear you,” he said. The strain of his voice ripped Aisling’s heart in two.

“You’re out there,” he drawled on, hisFaerakdetermination taking hold of his posture.

Wrists bound, Dagfin awkwardly drew a dagger from his belt and began sawing at the rope tied around his wrists, clearly having been tethered before in his years as aFaerakand well-versed in releasing himself.

Aisling blanched, glaring at the iron knife held backward and making easy work of her knots, unable to grab it herself without searing off her own hands. Such was the curse and weakness of magic. So, Aisling yanked Dagfin’s jacket, forcing him to face her.

“Enough Dagfin, I’m right here!” Aisling screamed, knotting her fists in his shirt. He shrugged her off, snapping the last cord of the rope and releasing himself. He shoved her against the ship’s edge with the iron knife still tightly clasped in his hands. His attention flickering between Aisling in his path and the rocks around them, the statues. Willing to do anything if it meant diving into a sea where the murúch’s anthem rose as their lust for flesh heated the air.

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