Page 101 of The Savage Queen

She should suffer, thedraiochtwhispered. She manipulates. She deceives. But she does not hold power over us.

Aisling could ignite the whole of the forest around them as she’d done theStarling. Could burn every last beast and Unseelie that’d celebrated Lir’s torment. That prayed for her own.

Yet Dagfin’s voice echoed in her mind, “Fight to be good.”

She exchanged glances with the Roktan prince. He stood to her left, frustrated, furious, confused. Thrown into the center of fae conflict he bore no stake in other than Aisling’s role in it.

Perhaps there was a path to salvation that wasn’t as ruthless. A path Dagfin would recognize if placed in her position.

Danu laughed. “What do you say, little beast?”

The forest writhed, lashing at Aisling. Lir explained this to Aisling before. The forest didn’t concede to good or evil. It conceded to power. And it would concede to Aisling.

“Kneel,” Aisling said.

Aisling inhaled, trapping thedraiochtinside her chest. She’d done the same in Nemed’s tent before Dagfin and Peitho’s union, except this time, it was purposeful.

She unleashed thedraiocht, allowed it to grow, to swell, to explode from her lungs and rise, coaxed by her hunger. And this time, fire was not a serpent but a colossaldragún. A sinuous demon roaring into existence, crackling, morphing, shifting in licks of flame.

Racat.

The shape and spirit of herdraiochtcome to, at long last, unveil itself.

Danu’s pale eyes widened, her legions fleeing from whence they came, and her dryads, recoiling, pulling at their roots, unbinding themselves from the earth.

But before any could speak, before they could run far, Aisling allowed Racat to ravage Danu’s legions.

A beast of flame clawing between the trees, flaying every creature alive, the smell of their hides, their furs, their fear smoking the air, stoked by the dryad trees crackling with heat.

At last, thedragúnflew toward Danu, the empress, who recoiled, drawing back into her tree form and burying herself inside the cave hollowed behind the waterfall of ice from which she’d emerged.

Aisling compelled thedraiochtto find her. Slithering and disappearing inside the cave as the realm burned and Aisling memorized their howls for mercy. Writhing, bent over, kneeling on the ground.

CHAPTER XXXIII

LIR

The tears spilt between his lips were not his own.

They were hers. Even now, in slow death, the bond between them renewed his soul. Coaxing his eyes open despite his suffering.

“Something must be done,” Galad said.

“The poison has taken hold,” Filverel replied, barely a whisper. “It cannot kill him. Not fully. Only iron or fire will.”

Peitho gaped. “You can’t possibly mean?—”

“If it will end his misery,” Gilrel said, voice shaking as she staked her blade into the earth beside him and bowed her head, “then perhaps it is the only solution.”

Beside him lay his wings. Bloodied at the appendages. The absence of them left him cold. The last vestige of his mother. Grief, a fathomless hole inside his chest, cannibalizing him from the inside out.

“No.” Peitho shook her head. “How dare you all give up so easily? Surrender to Danu, her legions, and forsake your king?!”

“Surrender?” Filverel narrowed his eyes, “You believe this the easy path? The flippant choice that spares us?! If there was a way, I’d risk it no matter the cost to either myself or anyone else here for that matter.”

Lir desperately tried to scream, to move, to open his eyes and fight for his life. He’d endure an eternity of pain to live another day. He was forever, destined for more than a death by Danu’s trickery.

“She’s right,” Galad said, expressionless, still stunned, staring at Lir’s wings. “We can’t do this.”

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