Page 110 of The Savage Queen

Indeed, Aisling’s brothers and Killian claimed they were returning home as soon as they’d escaped Oighir. But now that Aisling thought of it, her brothers’ plans had been designed with Annind’s health in mind and so, once Fionn had remedied him back to health to gain Aisling’s favor, there was no longer reason to return to Tilren.

Aisling cursed beneath her breath. She should’ve anticipated this but with everything unravelling so swiftly around her, she’d forgotten about her clann entirely. Glad to be rid of them.

Aisling shook her head.

“May I borrow a blade?” she asked. Galad did a double take, searching her eyes.

He handed Aisling a dagger from his bandolier and watched as she sliced her palm. The smell of her blood affording her the rest of their party’s attention.

“For theFaerak?” Galad asked as Aisling let her blood drip into the cauldron. Dagfin flicked his eyes away, understanding that it was the half of Aisling’s blood that ran fae that allowed him entry.

“Aye,” Aisling replied.

“We’ll see if it works,” Galad said, collecting his dagger.

“And if it doesn’t?”

Galad hesitated, avoiding looking at theFaerak.

“Just as with his union with Peitho, thedraiochtdoesn’t take kindly to being deceived.”

Aisling’s heart stuttered. Glaring at the trail of blood scraped across the dusty, snow-ridden floors and into Iod’s winding halls.

Iod was breathtaking.

An endless city carved from the mountains and dusted in snow, divided by a slender valley parting the rise beforeit connected overtop once more. An arch in and of itself riddled with staircases, terraces, turrets, and battlements, and warmed by floating lanterns of fae light. Snowy owls perched and flapping their wings on every ledge. Carvings and statues of winged Sidhe dancing, battling, soaring. And where the staircases didn’t lead, still homes, arcades, shops, and village levels cut into the highest layers of stone, spindly towers suspended in the air by magic alone—reached only by those who could fly and no other.

All of it, abandoned and preserved despite the millennia that passed since Ina had forsaken her kingdom.

A land of ghosts and curses, casting whispers into the wind as their group walked inside.

Aisling was struck with the sensation she wasn’t meant to be there. That whatever remained of her mortal blood fought with every morsel of its will to flee in the opposite direction. Aisling glanced at Dagfin. TheFaerakrolled his shoulders, seemingly as affected as Aisling was.

Lir drifted to where Aisling walked, unsheathing his axes.

It was deathly quiet. Not a sound except for the howling of the gale as it purled through Iod’s corridors.

“Which direction do we travel first?” Peitho asked in Rún, her radiance a contrast to the pale landscape around her. As though she too, didn’t belong.

Iod was a labyrinth of rocky corridors, staircases that broke off, tunnels, caves, and artfully carved reliefs. Winter flowers and garlands of pine needles draped and clinging to every landing, every arch, every ornamental buttress as the city loomed around and above them.

“Lofgren’s Rise is the tallest peak in Iod,” Lir said, gesturing to the tip of the kingdom’s arch.

Aisling squinted, glaring up and into the nebulous sky where Lofgren’s Rise slept.

“Do you remember how to get there?” Filverel asked, staring up and into the distance.

“I spent little time here as a child,” Lir said, brow furrowing. Aisling wasn’t certain what feelings his mother’s kingdom aroused in him. Sadness, grief, anger. Only that it disturbed the fae king. His temper short and his mouth bent cruelly.

“Nor I,” Galad added. He, another subject of the greenwood, born with Iod ancestry.

“We’ll follow the trail of blood,” Filverel said. “And hope theFaerakis right.”

“Let’s get this over with.” Lir led their group down the valley.

They each held their breath, and none spoke. Their thoughts ricocheting off the emptiness of Iod as they wandered through.

Aisling could almost hear the laughter that once spun through these pebbled corridors, filling these shops. The smell of gingerbreads, hazelnut pastries, sugarplum jellies, and cranberry ciders. The sound of their sleigh bells, lutes, and trumpets, and the taste of theirdraiocht. Like frostbite and perilous highland trails. How the air would’ve been crowded with fluttering winged fae. Their mirth, their life, vanished. All gone, corrupted, and forsaken by Ina for hercaera. A foolish mistake that cost her everything. Standing in Iod now, the weight of such a mistake was made obvious.

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