Page 118 of The Savage Queen

Mercifully, both Ina and Bres waved at the ballroom of spirits, vanishing through the threshold on the other side of the room.

“We must keep moving,” Aisling said, her voice as soft as she was capable. She reached out and touched the back of his arm, bracing herself for his temper, his fangs, his flippant disregard for her feelings.

Instead, he found her eyes and Aisling was dumbstruck at the sight of them. His father’s orbs awash with grief. All of it, left for Aisling to behold.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

AISLING

Stepping into Iod’s corridor was like waking from a dream. One Aisling found she clung to, despising herself for the tumbling of her stomach each time she dared glance in the fae king’s direction after their dance. The silver-eyed ravens that usually let loose within her gut, maddened and riled by the celebrations ofSamhain.

Yet as they wandered further through Ina’s castle, the murals against the walls turned green with emeralds, depicting the forest. A viridescence that spread like swarms of beetles into the heart of the fae queen’s keep. As though her love for Lir’s father, Bres, had devoured her soul and bloodied her home with the gore of their binding.

Aisling approached a steepled door at the end of a dark, cobwebbed corridor, its fae light dim and wilted after a millennium. She sensed no witchery, no darkness on the other side. Heard nor tasted anything suspicious. So, Aisling pulled a ring lodged between the snarling teeth of a knocker in the image of Racat.

“Wait—” Lir piped but it was too late. The threshold slid open, releasing a cloud of age-old dust as it yawned awake.

Immediately, Lir moved in front of Aisling, shielding her from whatever might lie on the other side. The air this deep into the mountain was bone-chilling.

The room was cast in shadow. Still, Aisling could make sense of the darkness.

Two wispy figures laughed, raced, and opened the door on the other side.

Ina and Bres.

Lir’s bottom lip bled where his fang punctured it, aware their trail was marked by his mother and father’s ghostly footsteps. Ina and Bres, a pace ahead of both Aisling and Lir as they navigated to the top of Lofgren’s Rise.

The threshold behind them closed of its own accord. Creaking shut as the roses in the room flickered to life, illuminating a chamber cast in ice. Of the colossal statue of a maiden with two owl wings crowning either side of her head. Both eyes veiled by a supple cloak that spilled down her body and to her feet in great folds across the marble floors. Both palms extended before her and facing the mirrored ceilings, as though in eternal prayer. All bejeweled by the sparkling trove of winter’s keep.

Aisling now knew Ina’s appearance well enough to recognize her, even if etched in stone.

Yet Aisling’s attention was drawn to the ice. The frost coating every morsel of the room.

Realization dawned on Aisling; a curse hissed past her lips as the great body of a bear peeled forth from the shadows.

Greum rose on his hind legs, hurling himself at Aisling to pin her against the ground. Without hesitation, Aisling produced a bolt of fire, burning through the beast’s fur as it roared in pain. In the same heartbeat, a leaf-ridden root shot forth from the frozen trees surrounding them, wrapping around Greum’s mighty neck and slamming him into the floor.

Aisling spun on her heel, meeting Lir’s eyes as she made to run to him. His forest green eyes flashing with panic the moment something or someone wrapped their hand around Aisling’s wrist and held her in place.

Aisling turned, finding, to her horror, Fionn towering above her, exploring her with a gaze frosted by northern winds.

“I’ve missed you,mo Lúra,” he said in a voice made of velvet, pulling her closer by the wrist. Aisling summoned her flames again but this time, herdraiochtwas met not with fear, but amusement. Fionn blew on her fist full of fire, and like a match, it extinguished, smoking. Her magic, gasping for breath the moment he clasped a collar around her throat.

Not again, Aisling screamed inside her mind.

Dread iced each of Aisling’s bones as she desperately clawed at Fionn’s jewels to no avail. Aisling tried over and over again, grinding her teeth, but the more she scavenged her abyss for Racat, herdraiocht, she found it cold. Colder than it’d ever been inside Oighir. This collar somehow more powerful than the one that’d sealed Lir and Fionn’s deal in Oighir. The walls of her darkest corners glazed over with ice and made sharp with icicles like blades.

Please, she pleaded with herdraiocht.

I cannot, Racat groaned in frustration,this Sidhe lord wields powers beyond his making. This is the Lady’s doing.

“Don’t look so surprised,mo Lúra,” Fionn purred, leaning toward her. “Surely you knew I’d come for you.”

LIR

“Release her,” Lir growled from behind, his voice fillingthe chamber. The vines he’d wrapped around Greum’s neck, tightening like a noose even as the beast squirmed for breath.

“Are you threatening me, little brother?” Fionn laughed, and at its sound the room grew colder. Every mirror possessed by Fionn’s winter till they each splintered down the center. Verglas cutting across the marble floors and slithering around Lir’s vines, freezing and shattering his hold over Greum.

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