Page 120 of The Savage Queen

“You know good and well that if I can’t have it, I want it all the more,” Fionn said, unsheathing a new weapon from his back with the one hand still intact. A spear.

“Take it as a commandment from your sovereign then. High lord of all Sidhe and the rightful heir to Racat.” Lir smiledan easy grin, relishing Fionn’s reaction. “Come now, brother, where’s your decorum? You’re intended to bow.”

The forest around them, growing from the inside of Ina’s chamber, continued to break through Fionn’s ice, delivering Lir’s axes into his waiting palms. Lir twirled them between his fingers as he approached.

“You think I’d ever bow to you?! Only should my body rot beneath the earth would you ever catch my crown below yours!” Fionn’s face warped with anger, wrist dripping at his side.

Lir stilled his axes, readying himself for combat.

“So be it.”

Lir was a violent star, the arc of his axe a gleaming blur of metal as it swung for his elder brother.

Fionn parried the strike, raising his spear vertically. The clang of their weapons rung throughout the chamber, echoing off the icy walls and vibrating through Lir’s trees.

“You should’ve stayed in Oighir, brother.” Lir shoved Fionn a few paces back, spinning his right axe as he prepared for his next attack. Fionn was a talented fighter, having been trained by Ina herself the moment he’d bore the capacity to lift a sword in preparation for the Wild Hunt. Nevertheless, her lessons were short-lived, coming to an abrupt halt after her untimely death. Leaving Fionn’s talents, alone in bitter winter, to rust. Not even the mortals of Fjallnorr dared venture into the snow ridden feywilds of Fionn’s permafrost. A surety of death to all those who didn’t worship the Sidhe.

Fionn’s movements were, thus, slower and less agile than Lir remembered. His severed hand and the loss of blood, doing him no favors. His only saving grace against Lir, whatever the Lady had lent him.

“And let you condemn both Seelie and Unseelie on account of your ignorance?!”

Lir scoffed. “You always were so self-righteous.”

“This is no game, Lir. Both the Lady and Danu have foreseen the destruction you’ll yield should you truly bind with Aisling. Destined to reap the same mistakes as our mother.”

Like veins, needle thin cracks crawled up the statue of Ina at the center of the chamber.

“And do you also believe the Sidhe will lose this war to the mortals? That the Sidhe will be forced behind the veil while humanity plagues the Earth?” Lir deigned to dwell on Danu’s vision for long. It hardly mattered. Whatever the empress of the dryads believed was written in the stars could be slashed and bloodied till it no longer spoke the same truth. Stars could be changed, and fate bent to his will. For every vision, every prophecy, every omen by either the Lady or Danu was wrought with ulterior motives. With lies and deception and trickery.

“I believe you aren’t the Sidhe to change such prophecies,” Fionn said, thrusting the edge of his blade at Lir’s abdomen. Lir feinted left, leaping back, and slicing through the shoulder Fionn had left exposed, patient to wield more damage at the right moment.

“Your mind has grown muddled,” Fionn continued. “You’ve lost sight of both Seelie and Unseelie and everything Other. This isn’t what Ina would’ve wanted.”

Lir blocked Fionn’s lunge, shoving the edge of his spear to the floor with the lip of his axe. Circling him like a wolf skulking around its prey.

“Damn Ina!” Lir shouted, expression bridling with heat as the image of her spirit and Bres’s flashed across his mind’s eye without his consent. “Ina deserved everything. Committed a sin she deserved to answer for. And if you ask me”––Lir swiped at Fionn, drawing blood from across his cheek bone––“the godsshould’ve damned her then and there. Ended her life as well as the legacy of Iod. Instead, they punished the rest of the Sidhe for her crimes alone, breeding the mortals that would burn our villages, our forests, torture our own. All in the name of my father, who died regardless.”

Fionn winced. “And yet you race to repeat her sins.”

“I race tocorrectthem,” Lir seethed.

Fionn’s ice rose from the ground like giant thorns, immediately shattered by Lir’s axes. “Mine and Aisling’s binding will be successful, will bring the mortals to their knees, and undo anything and everything our mother committed.”

Fionn laughed, the room clicking as his frost creeped over every surface. He swung his spear, ice exploding from the tip and trapping Lir’s boots against the ground. The surrounding roots bursting through Fionn’s shackles, in time for Lir to raise his axes and shield himself against Fionn’s swing. The spear shimmered, its metal bleeding verglas and binding everything it touched with the cold. The statue of Ina weeping crystals from the edges of her stony eyes.

Lir shoved Fionn off, artfully striking twice in the same breath, summoning blood from both Fionn’s arms and legs.

Fionn braced the pain, leaning on his back leg before lunging forward with his great sword, the room speared through with monoliths of ice.

Lir weaved through the madness, lost in the labyrinth while Fionn hid amidst the discord. Leaving Lir to pray a faithless prayer that Aisling had fled when she’d bore the opportunity to escape.

“She will be your undoing, brother,” Fionn called through the freeze. “The Lady has foreseen it.”

Lir moved swiftly, silently navigating till he found his unassuming brother once more. Biding his time.

“I prefer the visions the Lady has seen of my victories, of my sovereignship, of my?—”

“Kin?” Fionn interjected, voice echoing through the labyrinth of ice he’d summoned. “Do you care for Aisling at all? Or has this all been some correction of the past? A way for you to undo our mother’s crimes, perhaps, but to also erase whatever grief Narisea and your child’s death cursed you with?”

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