Page 19 of The Savage Queen

“Skalla,” they whispered, heaving arctic temperatures through their primordial lungs.

“What’s happening?” Fergus asked, eyes wide and darting left and right.

Everyone except for Aisling drew their weapons as the wolves stepped out of the shadows and bared their teeth, padding toward Starn and Dagfin at the front of their party. They snapped their wet chomps, licking their gums as their muzzles wrinkled ferociously.

“Skalla.”

“By the bloody Forge,” Starn cursed, swinging his longsword in threat. The wolves cared little for his blade, trudging nearer with increased need. At a certain point during their journey thus far, they’d been chased by a pack of wolves. Yet now, becausethey did not flee from the forest, the wolves approached their guests.

“Stay back!” Starn lunged for the nearest, almost severing its ear from its head, but the hound moved deftly to the side.

“Enough,” Aisling said, pushing through the crew and her brothers to get to the front. The forest fluttered, branches swaying, needles rustling at the sound of her voice.

Starn hesitated, daring a glance at his little sister approaching from behind. His nose scrunched in annoyance, watching Aisling with the same contempt he’d allotted her the past several weeks; as though she was the curse incarnate, having damned all mankind.

“Ash.” Dagfin caught her arm.

Iarbonel, Fergus, and Annind spectated from behind, eyes wide as young moons. Unfamiliar with this feral realm of sorcery.

“Move another step, Aisling, and you’ll regret it,” Starn bit. “Lest they bite off your arm and you delay our journey further.”

In response, the wolves barked at her eldest brother, saliva spraying across the quilts of snow beneath them.

Annind frowned. Brow arching as it always did when he was weighing two possibilities.

“Wait,” Annind said, glancing between Aisling and the forest. “Let her go.”

Starn paused in surprise, swiftly regaining his hateful posture. Annind’s hand on his arm, he watched as Aisling continued past him, perhaps wishing to choke her in iron rather than allow her another step forward.

The forest’s bones tightened the further into their woodland she walked. And as Aisling came into view, parting the folds of her brothers and the crew, the wolves focused, lifting their heads to sniff thedraiochtsnickering from Aisling’s abyss.

“Ash,” Dagfin called again but Aisling ignored him.

The wolves hushed their barking to mere guttural growling, appraising Aisling with all the lethality of the wood around them. Indeed, Aisling could smell their hunger, their fear, their fury, overridden by their desire to obey. To obey the forest? Lir? She wasn’t certain. Nevertheless, the moment Aisling neared, they bowed their heads, noses to the ice, making way for Aisling to pass. The forest exhaling her name.

“Incredible,” Annind said, breathless.

Fergus clutched his dagger. “What’s happening?!”

“They demanded their queen enter first,” Annind said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Queen?” Starn spat the word like fire on his tongue, eyeing Aisling sharply. “The natural world isn’t capable of rules, authority, or order. They live in anarchy.”

“Yes,” Annind said as they one by one followed Aisling into the forest. “Nevertheless, they understand dominance. And they understand power.”

Starn hissed something beneath his breath, both refusing to sheath his longsword as he passed and spitting at the wolves’ paws. They snapped at him in response, cursing his stench of ash and iron.

The forest groaned, memorizing each of their faces as they entered its agrestal bastion. For it would be centuries before any one of them was forgotten, a piece of them forever stolen by the woodland.

CHAPTER IX

AISLING

Aisling emerged from a puddle of rain on the forest floor, lifting herself from the earth and onto her two feet. Lir already stood waiting, leaning against the trunk of a willow. And as soon as she appeared, his eyes flashed a more vibrant shade of green.

“Are you just a dream?” Aisling asked, pulling apart the willow’s hanging branches, a veil of flowering leaves. “Or are you real?”

“This time or every time?”

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