Page 121 of The Savage Queen

Lir continued moving, afraid that should he stop, his mind might register Fionn’s words. The sound of Narisea’s name, a damnable curse, tossing Lir back in time. A time better left forgotten along with whatever love he’d ever felt.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Fionn pressed. “You’ll use Aisling for your own completion and then what?”

Lir shook his head, grinding his fangs against his teeth. Fionn’s voice growing louder and closer.

“Then her purpose will be fulfilled, ended by my axe.” Lir forced the words out, physically pained by the sentiment that’d once been common sense. Before he’d ever met Aisling. Before he’d been forced to realize she was his counterpart. For no matter how greatly the sun despises the night, the moon carries its torch till morning. Life to fire. Magic to iron. Green to violet.

“That’s odd,” Fionn said, his voice directly behind Lir. The fae king swiveled, coming face to face with his brother. Fionn jabbed his spear, avoided by Lir, yet not quickly enough. The tip of his spear scraped across Lir’s shoulder, summoning blood. “Because I seem to remember the Lady telling me a similar tale. One where both Aisling and you are coated in one another’s blood. An axe in her heart and a flaming dagger in yours.”

Lir cursed beneath his breath, parrying and striking with his axe. Fionn stepped lithely back, narrowly dodging the attack. Doing his best to mask the terror, the fear, the horror of Fionn’s words. That it was possible the Lady had foreseen a future where Aisling and Lir were one another’s end should they truly bind.Destined to destroy the realm then leave it, death gleaned by the other.

Lir shook his head. No. It was all a lie. A manipulation to breed doubt.

“What allegiance do you bear to the Lady?” Lir sneered, stalking toward his brother as the son of Winter backed away.

“Common goals. Common enemies. Ultimately, to spare both this realm and Aisling fromyou.”

Lir allowed his rage to build. Fanning the embers of his fury so hisdraiochtmight breathe more thickly.

“You’re right to spare the world but not from me. Aisling will wreak ruin in her wake if met with the full force of her power.”

“‘The full force of her power,’” Fionn corrected, “influencedby you. There is still time for her to choose the correct path. To be good.”

Lir laughed but it was humorless. “All these years trapped at the edge of the north has made you sound so…human.”

Fionn lifted his spear above his head, striking Lir with ice. The frost seeped into his bones, freezing him from the inside until Lir broke through the sheets in an explosion of translucent needles. His magic was powerful, emboldened by the Lady and still, not enough.

“You will die with a dagger in your heart,” Fionn repeated. “A blade wrapped in flames of violet. And she, an axe in her heart.”

Lir defeated the distance between himself and his brother, slashing with wicked ability. His axes grazed Fionn’s ears, his cheekbones, his throat as his brother desperately moved to avoid the onslaught.

“It has been foreseen. It has been written in the stars. And it cannot be outrun.”

Lir felt the madness overtake him. The frustration. The fury. The aching of his heart as the cord between him and Aisling jerked and flooded him with emotion.

Fionn caught Lir’s axe, freezing it with ice and twisting. Lir flipped and slammed against the crumbled floors, beneath the shadow of their mother’s statue. Ice creeped over Lir, imprisoning his wrists, hard as Forge-cast stone. Lir struggled against their grip, finding the Lady’s aid growing more formidable the longer Fionn battled.

Fionn raised his blade above his head, prepared to deal the final blow. And yet he hesitated.

Fionn ripped open Lir’s jacket, exposing the scars where his wings had once been sheltered away.

“So, it’s true,” Fionn said, eyes wide and glazed with tears. A shimmer of sadistic triumph in his opalescent eyes. “Danu ripped them from your back.”

Lir dug his nails into the debris beneath him, the black of his most shadowed depths chomping, clawing at the walls within to, at long last, slake their thirst. To sink their teeth into Fionn’s death.

“So it is: you never deserved our mother’s wings.” Fionn pressed his boot on Lir’s back. “Enjoy the Other, brother. I welcome your haunting so you might overhear yourcaera’s screams during hers and my true binding.”

Whatever humanity, starved and forgotten inside Lir, broke.

Burst into madness as he tore the ice from his wrists and the feywilds erupted from inside the castle, devouring all and everything in its wake. Thrusting Fionn off Lir and into chaos. A chamber of groaning alders and rowans, heaving, stretching, thrashing against the vaulted ceiling for escape. Crushing all and everything in its sight with the snap of their spindly, gruesome limbs and thorns.

Lir searched for Fionn, unable to find him or Greum through the growing thicket.

The fae king cursed beneath his breath, turning on his heel to throw himself through the following threshold. A threshold where he found Aisling’s violet eyes, wrought with emotion.

CHAPTER XXXIX

AISLING

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