Page 18 of The Savage Queen

“I’m full,” she lied.

In truth, she’d barely eaten in weeks. Hadn’t felt satisfied since she’d left the Sidhe. And by the expression on Dagfin’s face, Aisling knew he, at the very least, suspected her mortalfood aversion. But there was more written across his expression, his posture, his demeanor that gave Aisling reason for pause.

The dark rings beneath his eyes had vanished. He stood straighter. His movements were sharper. His eyes brighter.

Not only was this the first time Aisling had stepped on the main deck since the murúch, but it was also the first time she and Dagfin had spoken. Aisling was holed up in her quarters and Dagfin was healing from the runes Killian had engraved in his heart, busy dealing with Aisling’s aftermath. And even when he’d come to knock on her chamber doors, Aisling feigned sleep. She couldn’t confront Dagfin after what she’d done. Couldn’t allow him to see the darkness that’d grown inside her since she’d left Tilren’s walls. The darkness in all its glory. And more than anything, she was frightened of his judgment.

“Ash—” he began before Aisling interjected.

“I’m alright, Fin,” she said, meeting his eyes. The memory of his mouth on her own, the taste of him, setting murders of silver-eyed ravens loose in her belly. Made her pulse quicken alongside his own. She’d known Dagfin all her life but never in that capacity. There’d been a time she’d prepared herself for a life with Dagfin before she’d been traded to the fae, and she’d found she looked forward to it. To eventually consummate their marriage. But now that a single kiss had occurred, the energy between them had shifted.

“I meant to say, I don’t regret anything.”

Aisling’s heart stuttered, forcing herself not to dither.

“It was the murú—” Aisling started but now it was Dagfin’s turn to interrupt her.

“I know you don’t believe that,” he said, glaring deeper than just her eyes. “I despise myself not only for what the murúch did to my father’s crew but because it was they who encouraged you to do what I should’ve had the courage to do with my own free will. A moment stolen and compelled by the murúch instead.”

The wind cut across both their faces, howling against theStarling’s sails. The sheet of ice crawled atop the Ashild, splintering as their ship cut toward Fjallnorr. The crew shouted orders for the anchor to be loosened and dropped into the surrounding coast.

“We’re here,” Aisling blurted, cursing herself for it. The shift in topic, tightening Dagfin’s expression. “I should prepare my things.” Aisling turned to flee, for the last time, to her private cabin.

Dagfin caught her forearm, holding her in place. Not with his grip but with his breath, burning down her neck as he spoke.

“I regret how that kiss occurred and I’ll damn the murúch for it. Yet I’ll count every breath for the hope of another, praying to the godsforsaken Forge the first wasn’t the last.”

Aisling hesitated. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed their kiss. If a part of her hadn’t waited all her life for him to muster the courage to do it. Yet more than any other feeling brewing inside her chest was guilt. Guilt it’d occurred at all? Guilt the murúch had compelled it? Or guilt because of the fate-forged cord knotting between her and the fae king? Aisling wasn’t certain. Only that she loved Dagfin and always had. What shape that love took, she wasn’t certain nor did she wish to explore it. It was too tender, too fragile, too dangerous to meddle with lest she drop it and it shatter.

Silently, Aisling rejoiced the settling of her boots on Fjallnorr’s black sands. Shards of frozen obsidian glass were the threshold to the northernmost land in this plain or the next. She wore a thick, gray, wool dress, a leather belt settled loosely at her hips, gloves, Dagfin’s Roktan cloak, and a cape made of rabbits’ hides.A crown of ebony braids, like a circlet, twisted around her head before the rest of her tresses spilled down her furs.

Her brothers wore leathers like those they’d donned on hunting excursions with Nemed. Only now, iron graced their every belt loop while silver hides draped across their shoulders.

Dagfin and Killian dressed similarly, although their garments were more form-fitting, traced in weapons with their flasks of Ocras tightly belted to their chests. Minerals from the kingdom of Iod, Aisling now understood.

They each, alongside the few crew members brave enough to accompany them ashore, stared down the ice-ridden forest. A fortress of glass needles, snow, and shadows who shivered alongside them. Cold, quiet, and waiting.

They’d had the option of docking their ship on Fjallnorr’s ports closer to its capital Heill, but none thought it wise to announce their arrival to this country’s king; a man near as bloodthirsty and feral as the fae themselves. One who’d be just as hungry for a curse breaker hidden in his land. So instead, they’d sailed to a barren edge of the continent where nothing but wilderness grew.

The trees whispered to one another, appraising Aisling and her group. They knew her name, of course, growing more excited the longer they looked. Aisling didn’t mind. She’d starved for the forest, even one layered in frost. Lir’s heartbeat beating in the northern wind at the sight of it.

“Lofgren’s Rise is just past this forest.” Dagfin was the first to speak, his voice somehow lighter, richer than it’d been the past several months.

“Is there any way around it?” Iarbonel asked, shifting.

“The only path is through.” Killian flipped a quarrel between his fingers.

The crew exchanged terrified expressions and thick gulps, longingly glaring at theStarlingbobbing off the coast behindthem. Indeed, what lay between here and there was more than just winter and evergreens. It was the dens of Unseelie and the Sidhe themselves. It was only a matter of time before the journey forced them to forgo their man-made shelter in exchange for the wild.

“And what about the fae king?” Fergus glanced at Aisling without thinking.

Indeed, Aisling could feel Lir. The growl of his heart as he searched for her own.

“He’ll come for me,” Aisling said, starting to the tree line. “It cannot be avoided, and he cannot be outrun.”

The forest was loud.

The wolves howled, the wind whistled, and the carpet of leaves crunched beneath their boots. Every pine and birch snapped their spines, doubling over and laying their spindly limbs across the frozen earth.

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