Page 127 of The Savage Queen

“She needs a healer—she needs away from here,” Dagfin said, the body of the neccakaid that’d pinned him left mutilated behind him.

“Her fae blood will combat the venom,” Lir said. Yet Dagfin couldn’t see past the pool of blood beneath her, soaking throughthe dress she wore. As children, Dagfin had mended more than his fair share of Aisling’s cuts, bruises, and even broken fingers or toes. But this…this was gore. This was violence. This ripped his heart from his chest. The sight of so much blood loss puddling beneath her, unbearable.

“I can take her to the druid’s village. If I run, I can make it. The neccakaid are distracted, I’ll slip past?—”

“There’s no way out,” Lir growled.

“I’ll make a way out!”

Lir made to scoop Aisling into his arms, but she resisted.

“I can walk.” The words slipped through her gritted teeth.

Lir ignored her. “Don’t make me fight you,ellwyn.”

He lifted Aisling, carrying her in his arms as he started through the threshold and toward Lofgren’s Rise, Galad, Peitho, Filverel, and Gilrel still battling the army of neccakaid below them. A grisly muddle of blades, of screaming, of hissing, of the plucking of webs, and the penetrating of flesh. The darkest crevices of the Other somehow alive and well in their realm. Unseelie nightmares protecting Lofgren’s Rise.

“You’ll kill her if you continue,” Dagfin growled, grabbing Lir’s arm to prevent him from traveling any further, his breath heavy from having little to no Ocras left. The flask at his hip emptied after the last corridor they’d traversed to reach here.

They stood in the doorway, on the precipice of emerging at the utmost peak of Lofgren’s Rise.

“No,” Aisling mumbled, speaking through the pain. Dagfin bristled with frustration.

“If you care for her at all, you won’t do this,” Dagfin pleaded. “Let me take her back.”

There was a flicker of reason in the fae king’s eyes. A measure of hesitation as he weighed an impossible choice. But Dagfin knew as well as any that the fae king had just as much motivation for reaching the peak of Lofgren’s Rise as Aisling did.

“Going forward, she’ll die,” Dagfin pressed.

“And she’ll die if you turn back now! You think the neccakaid won’t try to finish what they’ve begun? That you, surviving on the last doses of Ocras, could race her back to a druid village in time?” Lir said, jerking his arm out of Dagfin’s grip and shoving past the Roktan prince. “She’s safest with me. With magic that can do for her what you cannot.”

Dagfin absorbed the blow, electric storms pulsing inside.

TheFaerakdrew two daggers.

“Don’t make me do whatever it takes to stop you,” he said, blind with rage.

The fae king turned slowly, appraising Dagfin’s daggers in his hands.

“I can’t return now, Fin,” Aisling said, squirming out of the fae king’s grip till she settled on her own two feet. The gesture stiffened the fae king, his body sharp as she leaned against the threshold. “I’m so close.”

“I won’t let you die, Aisling,” Dagfin said, spinning his daggers between his fingers. All he needed was to take her away. To save her body and soul from the nightmare the fae king was delivering for her. He could spare her and end the fae king.

“Don’t do this, Fin,” she pleaded, eyes wet with unfallen tears.

But the bleeding wound from her shoulder tore something apart in Dagfin he couldn’t quite describe. Fionn’s collar around her throat once more…Dagfin couldn’t let this proceed any farther. More than being king, more than being a son, a brother, a friend, Dagfin felt he’d failed in his duty to protect her. It was the only duty he’d ever cared to honor. And so, he couldn’t—wouldn’t let this carry on any further.

“I love you, Ash,” he said, words spoken into eternity. For he’d eternally loved her and known it all his life. Had forsakenher, wronged her, not been enough for her that entire life and he could be now. Could be what she needed but didn’t want.

“Dagfin, this is a death wish,” she said.

“I can’t die,” he said. “I haven’t kissed you again.”

Again.

Lir shifted, posture morphing into something lethal. Something that struck fear into both realms and gods. The forest beyond tossed violently to the thunder that groaned up above, flashing in splinters of light.

Dagfin’s words alone were enough to provoke the fae king into a battle. Lir’s eyes were riddled with jealous hate, till Dagfin only saw blood rage in his sage orbs.

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