Page 12 of The Savage Queen

Starn ran for the other crewmates, slamming his fists into their jaws so hard, they collapsed unconscious. The charm cleaved. His knuckles bruised and split by the third strike.

But any longer and theStarlingwould be without a crew. Without a ship. Without the means to race to Lofgren’s Rise.

Aisling swallowed, stripping her gloves from her hands. She closed her eyes, preparing to call thedraiocht.

And perhaps the murúch smelled her potent magic. Perhaps they felt it sparking in the air around them. All the same, they poked their heads from the water, from behind their stone statues, breaking their song to shriek at a decibel high enough to shatter their eardrums.

The Unseelie were stripped of all gowns, coat, or chemise, nude and in the image of lovely mortal females. Their lithe bodies were half mist, half material, as pale as bone and slick with the sea. Hair the material of windswept clouds, glittering in the fog like snowcaps and shimmering fae wings. Mouths agape and filled with teeth designed to scrape flesh from bone.

“Skalla!” they screeched. “Thief” in the fae language Rún.

Aisling fell to her knees, pressing her palms against her ears and bloodying her hair.

She whispered to herself, doing her best to focus on thedraiocht.

I wish to summon the fire.

“Enough, Aisling!” Starn shouted from across the deck, swiping another sailor’s legs and sending him smacking into the floorboards, preventing him from leaping to his death.

Aisling whipped her head in his direction, searching for a reason.

“There’s no other way!” she shouted back, face streaked in tears and warm crimson.

“Do not wield your magic, Aisling!” he commanded, freezing Aisling with the black ice of his eyes. And then it occurred to Aisling how much her brother loathed and was repulsed by her magic. To condemn thedraiochteven when it was their salvation.

Aisling looked around and saw only chaos.

TheStarling’s crew wailed for their lives, flailing amidst the rapids, having woken too late from the murúch’s enchantments. Hordes of murúch swarming both rock and sea. Dagfin pinned to the deck, screaming as Killian carved another rune into the center of his chest. And worst of all, theStarlingbarreling into the crags with no man, no soul at the helm to guide it onward.

“TheStarling, Starn! We will die if this isn’t ended!” Aisling yelled, straining to find her voice amidst the discord.

Starn ran toward her, knocking down crewmate after crewmate, each clamoring to die.

“Let me end it!” she shouted.

He glared at her for a moment too long. Loathing personified, a high prince orbited by the screams of the dying and the song of lust and hunger. Every second a second lost to eternity, forever gone and hurtling them toward death.

At last, he shook his head.

“No,” Starn spoke, and Aisling’s heart shriveled. “There are mortal men in the water still. Wield your magic and they die, Aisling!”

Aisling watched as sailor after sailor turned to stone, joining the civilization of skeletons buried in the ocean’s dark bed or crag statues already lost to the Ashild. Relics for the murúch to brandish for the centuries to come. But indeed, many men still splashed about the waters, fighting to climb aboard. Digging their nails into the wooden boards and peeling skin from the tips of their fingers. TheStarlingcareening toward the jagged crags like a dying star.

“Aisling!” Dagfin shouted, at last awakened, reality hitting as he covered the bloody rune Killian had carved into his chest. Slowly he staggered to his feet, wearily making his way to the helm. The murúch dragged the men clawing up the side of the ship back into the ocean’s frigid embrace, returning them to the sea. Some of those Unseelie were even determined to make it aboard theStarling, to claim the ship for their own. All of them destined to die lest Aisling intervene.

So, Aisling wrenched her eyes shut and bundled her fists.

“STOP, AISLING!” Starn roared, racing toward her with violent intent. He, on the precipice of sealing their death in the tales chronicled by ocean-gleaned stars.

Come, Aisling called to thedraiocht. Inhaling as it cackled and crawled from its ancient lair to greet her and explode from her palms.

There was quiet.

A steady inhale before the exhale.

Before the water exploded with violet fire.

CHAPTER VI

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