Page 27 of The Savage Queen

Aisling hadn’t heard a whisper of the fire hand, nor a sign. Starn’s ambition and need for approval was the only suggestion Nemed was still alive after Lir’s ambush.

With two legs of iron, the great fire hand of the North could scarcely ride, much less venture through the wilderness in pursuit of myths and legends. Nevertheless, Aisling had seen the potent longing in his eyes when he’d beheld Aisling’s flames for the first time. The emotion in his voice when he spoke of stealing back what he believed was rightfully humankind’s.

All this time, Aisling was glancing over her shoulder afraid of her competitors, while one of her greatest adversaries slept around the same fire. Drank from the same flasks. Rode at their side. Killian brought along to protect this rival, forged with the same blood that once flowed freely through Aisling’s veins.

“Did he tell you?” Aisling asked, holding her breath.

Dagfin looked straight ahead, eyes pinned to the approaching creek babbling to the stones.

“No,” Dagfin said. “But he didn’t have to.”

Against her own volition, Aisling’s heart ached, punctured inside her chest and bled out slowly. She cursed herself for it. For having hoped for anything else. Forwantingto believe Starn had come along for her. The memory of a doll he’d whittled for her ninth birthday, flashing across her mind’s eye. A memory that felt stolen. Taken from a girl that no longer existed and planted inside Aisling’s mind.

So, Aisling shoved away the sadness, replacing it with something else. Something grim, cold, and unforgiving. Thedraiochtpurring at the taste of it.

“And you?” Aisling asked. “What was your plan?”

Dagfin reacted viscerally, whipping his head in her direction. Anger, frustration, and guilt making crooked the curve of his mouth. A mouth Aisling could still feel pressing against her own near as tangibly as she’d felt it aboard theStarling. The memory, dipping her stomach.

“To be by your side like I should’ve always been. Perhaps then, you would’ve never wedhim.”

Aisling cringed at the venom in Dagfin’s last word. But she was never given a chance to respond.

The wintertide birds whistled for Aisling to turn around. She listened, peering between the branches, finding a figure nestled between the glass oaks. One who already studied them in return.

Aisling’s boots froze in place. Their mare panicked, yanking at the reins to be released.

She sat upon a throne––an old, gnarled, winterkill oak, bowing atop the snow. Its branches moving, slithering, forming, and reforming long after they’d molded a seat from its body. Fawning over she who sat upon it, absently glaring at the glittering loom before her.

The Lady.

“There is a lady who wastes away in a cave, century after century, weaving. Every thread a thread of fate. There are some who believe that once these threads are placed upon the spindle, woven and knotted together, there are none who can undo its tapestry.” Lir had spoken such words just moments before he’d betrayed the treaty between man and fae. Had vowed to claw that very tapestry apart till nothing but shreds remained, refusing to concede to Danu, the empress of the dryad’s, prophecies. To make certain the Sidhe vanquished mankind.

Every hair on Aisling’s body stood and stiffened the moment the Lady turned to face them both. Her horse eager to flee far from this place.

And although the Lady’s eyes were hidden by an enormous ivory spider pinned to the bridge of her nose, Aisling felt the weight of her gaze. Smelled the magic in the air: of the earth, of forgotten, forbidden spells, and frostbitten nights of yore. Her robes spilling around the loom as she worked, shimmering, arctic white, seemingly threaded with the silk of concentrated starlight. Trees stretching, craning, for the Lady to weave their branches into her blinding loom.

“You blunt my shears,” she said abruptly. A voice that spilled and flowed, guzzled by the ears of those who listened.

Dagfin shifted, one hand instinctively reaching for Aisling’s own, while the other wandered to his daggers.

“And you.” She tilted her head at Dagfin. “You knot my threads.”

“You’re the Lady.” Aisling exhaled, both afraid and in awe. Thedraiochtwithin her inclining its head to better taste her magic-sweet aura.

“I am,” she said, skin of polished obsidian stroked by the branches of loving trees. “I’ve come to warn you, Aisling.”

Aisling blinked, curiosity compelling her to take a single step forward. Dagfin held her hand tight, falling into step beside her.

“I braid your thread again and again, but it always frays, snaps, hardens against my shears. I cannot compel your thread, manipulate it, weave it, so I’ve come to speak with you instead. To prevent you from lacing the way I expect your thread will.”

Her fingers moved swiftly across the loom, strings of pure, radiant light.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not for you to understand, Aisling.”

“Then speak, Lady, and enough with your riddles,” Dagfin chimed, his posture shifting from prince toFaerak.

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