Page 107 of The Savage Queen

“Never,” he growled, his voice dangerously deep, “threaten that again.”

Aisling resisted the urge to wilt, grinding her teeth and leveling her scowl.

“Why the change of heart?” Aisling asked. “At Peitho and Dagfin’s union, you were forge-bent on either killing me or protecting me. So, what’s changed?”

Lir closed his eyes, battling something Aisling didn’t understand. His face contorting with frustration, anger, and boundless yearning. Enough to spill past his walls and poison Aisling’s resolve.

Lir bared his teeth. “A piece of whatever sanity still bloomed in my bones was ripped the moment I thought I’d lost you and burned entirely when you left me.”

Aisling willed the fluttering of her heart to stop. The rhythm of Lir’s heart pounding, maddening.

“Without one another,” Lir said, “we’re half of our true potential. Made obvious by our months apart.”

Lir cupped her neck with his bare fingers, sliding his hand up and into her hair. Chills ran down Aisling’s spine, vanishing the words on her tongue. Burning her lips where his hand moved, finding her jaw and pressing his thumb against her bottom lip. Mercilessly, his eyes grazed her mouth.

“Maybe you need me more than I need you,” Aisling said. “Maybe you bare your fangs now, but you still mourn the loss of your wings. What Danu took from you.”

Lir wrenched his eyes shut.

“Danu will pay for what she’s done,” Lir said.

“Aye, she will, by either you or I but she’ll pay all the same.”

Lir searched her face, but whether he found whatever he searched for, Aisling wasn’t certain.

“Let me see your scars,” Aisling said, her voice lowering.

Lir hesitated. This demand was a risk. To, for a breath, lay down their serrated words, their blades, their enemy masks, and allow Aisling a glimpse beneath his armor. As she’d done for him.

Lir clenched his jaw, the sharp edge of it slick with rain. And just when Aisling believed he’d leave her there, standing in the storm to wallow in his grief as he’d done the past several days, he pulled off his leathers, his tunic, his pauldron, his hood, till nothing except for his axes and their bandolier were trapped against his bare chest. An abdomen chiseled, lean, and etched in fae markings.

Painfully, she swallowed the stone in her throat, daring herself not to stray from his gaze, even as he unsheathed his axes and turned, displaying his scars in all their glory.

Fair folk flesh healed rapidly. Miraculously. But these were the scars of deep, lifelong wounds that could never heal entirely. Angry, jagged, deep, and fresh, they tore into his shoulder blades as though blunt knives had clumsily dug out Lir’s wings. The memory of his pain and Aisling’s fires, lacing every stroke. The image of it, a tale better left forgotten.

Before Aisling could think better of it, she reached for him, that familiar sadness she’d felt upon waking, reigniting and pressing the backs of her eyes with heat. Her fingertips traced each scar, and the moment they touched his back, Lir flinched.Shoulders shuddering the longer she trailed every angle. And yet, Aisling felt as though she were already on borrowed time, Lir capable of snapping at her like a wolf protects its wounds.

“Thank you,” Lir said instead. “For sparing my life.”

Aisling opened her mouth to speak but stopped short. He didn’t need to thank her. There was no reality where Aisling would’ve let him die. The decision already forged in her bones and in her heart.

CHAPTER XXXV

DAGFIN

For each day the Ocras dwindled, Dagfin found the north grew colder. The wilderness harsher. He’d bought enough Ocras from Bludhaven to last the rest of the journey lest he endure severe injury. In which case, Dagfin only harbored what was necessary to heal himself and no more. But it was his appetite that truly plagued him. The desperate need to remind his tongue of its taste.

Dagfin stood at the mountain’s edge peering into the valley that lay between it and another ridge. Lofgren’s Rise was another half day’s journey, and so, they’d chosen to rest while still able.

Gilrel stood with Aisling at a river’s shoreline at the center of the valley, instructing Aisling on the best form and technique for wielding a blade. At first, she began the lesson with the marten’s sword. Something small, weightless. Then they offered her Galad’s weapon––a wicked sharp longsword forged with gleaming metals and cast so its edge curved.

Aisling performed better than she ever had in Tilren. She’d been miserable at their lessons, often chastised for her lack of skill. Starn, Iarbonel, Fergus, and Annind condescending her for her weakness. But Dagfin never understood their scorn. Aislingwas powerful before she ever inherited magic. She was fearless in the face of nightmares, of authority, of those who told her she couldn’t do whatever she liked. She was quick-witted and cunning. And she was hungry for a throne Dagfin never bore the courage to seize himself. Indeed, while Dagfin ran from the Roktan crown, Aisling pursued a crown of her own making. And yet, Dagfin was the hero the north heralded as Prince of Demons Death. Aisling, a traitorous thief and witch.

Dagfin couldn’t deny the shadows he’d witnessed, seeping beneath her skin like veins filled with tar while she burned theStarling’s crew. It was survival. A means of preserving their own lives.A necessary means to an end, Dagfin repeated till he exhausted himself. And how she slayed Danu’s Unseelie but a few nights prior, winning a battle hundreds of mortal men had fought before her and lost…Aisling simply bore the ability to win. She’d done what Dagfin’s own father would have done to protect his people. Aisling was just more powerful. Still, Dagfin found it unsettled him. Made him fear for her soul. For whatever this binding between her and the fae king was becoming. The urge to rip it apart if it meant rescuing her, more reasonable by the hour.

No, she was brave and would stop at nothing, even in the face of pain, of danger, of conflict. Whether it be Nemed’s wrath as children or the gods’ now. She could fight the fae king’s influence.

“Sulking doesn’t befit you,” a feminine voice sounded from behind.

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