Page 123 of The Savage Queen

“By the blood of the Forge, I vow to you the first cut of my heart, the first taste of my blood, and the last words from my lips.”

LIR

Wedding vows marked the passage into the following chamber.

A bedroom the spirits of his mother and father brushed through, slipping through to the staircase that wound further up Lofgren’s Rise, hand in hand. Wrought with rich quilts, flickering candles, a canopied bed draped with ivory pelts. The air thin and frigid.

Lir fought the urge to chase them. To dive into his parents’ shadows and let them see him, eye to eye. Their presence made possible, made visible by the thinning of the veil atSamhain.

Yet the sight of the room kept him still. Kept him glaring at a small, hand-crafted bassinet designed for a child. The screams of his late bairn echoing inside his mind, as though his and Narisea’s child squirmed inside this bed. Reached for him. Made him believe, even for a second, he still bore a heart.

Against his own volition, Lir approached the bassinet. His body moving of its own accord. Mercifully, it was empty. A bed Ina and Bres had prepared for Lir once he was born. And yet, he stood above it, forcing himself to endure the haunting of his most visceral loss.

“Lir,” Aisling said, tearing his reverie. She was still angry with him, the tone in her voice a ghost of what it’d been just outside the door she’d magicked open. Another invitation on behalf of his mother. As though Aisling were just as entitled to Iod as he was.

Lir ripped his eyes away, fearing Aisling had seen even an ember of what he felt. That he’d felt out of control, unable to prevent Narisea’s death, his son’s, Aisling’s. That he’d felt useless, helpless to find Aisling when he believed her dead at the bottom of the gorge then lost and running from him. Unable to protect her. Unable to instill obedience so no kingdom laid outside his hand. Be it Seelie or Unseelie. Unable to stop Danu from ripping the wings from his back.

He prayed daily that he might never be powerless again. Never lose control. Never watch everything he cared for slip through his fingertips, unable to do anything but witness his own tragedy unfold. The last breath of his child slip past its small lips. He’d burn the world if he must. Rule every morsel of it if it meant never being powerless again.

He cleared his throat, walking past Aisling to the staircase beyond.

“We have to keep moving,” he said.

“Lir, you don’t have to?—”

“I do,” he said, harsher than expected. “There are greater things at stake. We have to keep moving.”

“If that’s what you wish, then so be it,” she said. “But if this is an effort to conceal from me what happened in your past, trust I know it already.”

Lir did a double take. His heart thrashing inside his chest.

“I know you lost your firstcaerato childbirth and along with her, your child,” Aisling said, her voice gentle, soothing the flaring of Lir’s temper. But to hear the tale told aloud, at least part of it, pained Lir more than just the memory of it.

“Not to childbirth,” Lir said, the words spilling from his lips, coaxed by the spell of her. “Narisea was attacked by mortals hunting around Annwyn. They stalked through the trees in pursuit of legends, of myths, of tales spoken around flames, and found one. Narisea was humming by a river that bled intoAnnwyn’s gorge when she was surrounded by mortals. Ten or so Tilrish soldiers, chaining her with iron till she rendered helpless. Then…” Lir stopped short, closing his eyes as though he couldn’t finish the story. Nevertheless, Aisling was clever enough to piece it together. “So, she died in childbirth but not because of it. My child passing soon after despite our efforts.”

Lir clenched his jaw, cursing every word. Wishing it were nothing more than a story. Wishing it was all a lie.

Aisling stood still, her every breath thick as she processed Lir’s story. She was still angry with him, and yet, she’d listened. Heard what Lir had never spoken aloud before. Never dreamed of saying aloud lest the words be tortured and knifed from his throat. Yet here he was, freely giving it to her. She, the only creature in the world he enjoyed having power over him.

“We’ll find vengeance then,” Aisling said at last, meeting his eyes. Sinful, violet eyes flashing with dark magic that seeped beneath Lir’s flesh and crept up the nape of his neck. “We’ll make them rue the day they ever entered our Sidhe forest.”

A muscle flashed across Lir’s jaw, realizing fully in that moment, that Fionn, the Lady, and Danu were all right. Aisling would be his undoing. For no creature, no curse, no spell, made Lir feel more vulnerable and powerless than Aisling, and yet, he relished it.

AISLING

From atop the staircase, Lir and Aisling stepped into a giant, cylindrical room.

It spun to the top of Lofgren’s Rise where a moonstone staircase blazed the path upwards. A trail of blood climbing every step.

Aisling’s breath caught, a cloud of mist winding into the frozen highland air. Everything, all of it, was so close. The answers she’d craved, within arm’s reach.

Aisling started forward until Lir caught her arm.

“Wait,” he said, studying the dew-dappled webs draped across the chamber. As though the gods themselves had pulled dreams from their ears and cast them here, forgotten in sheets of shimmering ivory.

“This is—” Aisling began, swiftly cut off by another voice. Something small yet mighty.

“The neccakaid.”

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