Page 29 of The Savage Queen

The strings of her loom, awakened like serpents, darted at Aisling and Dagfin, tangling around their ankles and dragging them into oblivion. A fathomless abyss of white light, shimmering with eternal intention.

Aisling raised thedraiocht, but the strings weren’t made of linen. No, they were rather braided by mystical light. Immune to her fires. Cackling at Aisling’s and Dagfin’s efforts to snip their strings with theFaerak’s blades. Ripping the flesh of their joints raw as it pulled them under and into the Lady’s abyss of blinding light.

Until frost crawled down the cords, freezing each string solid, then bursting into thousands of jagged shards like stars. The Lady shrieked, a sound like glass cracking and echoing intoeternity. The world blurring as the Lady vanished and both Aisling and Dagfin were freed.

But Aisling and Dagfin didn’t find salvation.

Hands of ice rose from the snow. The hands clasped both their wrists and lifted them to their knees so that when they met his eyes, they already bowed to a fae king.

CHAPTER XII

AISLING

“A Sidhe queen should never be on her knees,” the fae king said, padding closer, hands of ice rising from the earth like the limbs of the dead and shoving Aisling onto her feet. His fae accent both familiar and heart-wrenching. “Lest her king demand it. And I don’t see Lir anywhere in sight.” He grinned.

Silver eyes sparkled the same hue as his waist-length hair, braided through and crowned by an obsidian circlet. Two curving horns sprouting from its metal. The same vicious and glaciated edge reflected in the hard angles of his armor.

A sled pulled by wolves sat behind him.

“They’ll write legends about you, you know?” he said, a pace away from Aisling—held captive by the hands of ice. Shackling her wrists, her ankles, and binding her to the earth. This close, Aisling could see his pointed ears bedizened with crystals. His fangs flashing when he spoke. “You’re remarkable.”

But before either Aisling or Dagfin could say a word, ice speared through the earth and toward them. Impaling their consciousness till the world fell black.

Lost in a pool of ink with neither an up nor down, Aisling swam in the dark. And if it weren’t for Lir’s absence, she would’ve found comfort in the dark. Warm, whole, and absolute.

Aisling woke in a room made of glass. No, not glass. Ice. An ornamental, four-poster bed cradling her as she slept, swathing her in great, snowy-white pelts that smelled of leather and bitter winter winds.

She jolted upright, noticing for the first time she wore a new gown. Aisling blanched, her stomach dropping, hoping the gown had been magicked onto her when she was unconscious.

A dress with sheets of secret-thin gossamer spun around her figure, spread over the bed and sweeping the frigid floors with their great length while silver bear claws held the most essential pieces together. A headdress made in the same fabric was pinned to her temples and billowed down her back.

The Roktan cloak Dagfin had gifted her, on the other hand, was draped across her bed, alongside her old woolen and tattered dress.

Aisling didn’t waste time. She leaped onto her feet and scoured the room. A chamber resplendent enough for a Seelie queen albeit bone-chillingly cold.

Arched mirrors speared for the barreled ceiling. Aisling was reflected a thousand times over. One of hundreds spinning like a top at the center of the room. Roaring bears, smiling badgers, and timid foxes carved around each mirror, polished in silver even as they bared their fangs.

Otherwise, the room was empty. No door, no windows, no Dagfin, no escape. A shred of panic increased the pace of her heart as she swiveled.

Aisling approached the nearest mirror, pressing her palm against its glass.

She was thinner, gaunter than she’d last seen. Her hair unbrushed and sprinkled with specks of ice like uncut jewels. But it was the largeness of her eyes and the elegant stroke of her every movement that unsettled her most of all. Even since theStarling, Aisling’s appearance had greatly changed. When she was fully human, Aisling was lovely. Now, she wasotherworldly. Fierce and powerful, branded by the feral insignia of the Forge.

Aisling’s eyes glazed with tears. Happy tears, for her reflection was one she’d craved. Her reflection was someone who mattered, someone capable, someone worthy, someone feared. A predator and not prey.

Overcome with emotion, with joy, violet fire flickered from her fingertips and blackened the mirror. The smell of burning flesh smoking the room.

Aisling shuddered, leaping back as frost overtook her brittle fire and ran up her fingers, her arms, clawing for her neck. A similar dulling sensation, gnawing at herdraiocht, to when she’d confronted the fear gorta or tried to burn the Lady’s threads.

Thedraiochtexploded larger, sucking the wind from Aisling’s lungs but melting whatever ice still threatened to sink into her bones.

Aisling glared at the mirror with renewed suspicion, hardly surprised when it rippled, and a white bear lumbered through.

“What is that smell?” he asked, referencing the stench of burning flesh and inhaling deeply. “It’s…delightful.”

Aisling balled her hands into fists, obscuring her burned palms from his sight.

Animals born in magic-concentrated land, such as Sidhe kingdoms, were as sentient and intelligent as the fae themselves. In fact, her chambermaid in Annwyn was a small and mighty pine marten Aisling hardly let herself recognize she missed.

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