Page 45 of The Savage Queen

They were each clad in hunting leathers and armor, each appraising Aisling in turn. Gilrel spinning her small blade between her paws, itching to be unleashed. Galad and Filverel tight-lipped behind their king, expressions resolved for bloodletting. And Peitho, hair dripping like the rays of a liquid sun, tossed the strands from her face, freeing her vision but also exposing the right side of her face.

She whose beauty was poetry personified, every nuance pieced together thoughtfully; now, her face was the host of great scars. Burn trails.

Aisling’s stomach dipped. She’d almost forgotten. Aisling had nearly burned Peitho alive in her efforts to save Dagfin after their union had gone awry.

A snow-soft laugh sounded behind Aisling as Fionn stepped forward, seemingly maintaining his calm, if it weren’t for the ice crawling up the sides of the hall and jutting into icicles like thorns.

“Well done, brother.” Fionn clapped, the only sound in an otherwise silent room. “What wicked heroism.”

Brother.

Aisling’s heart stuttered. The air in the room suddenly thinner than it’d been before. But the moment and the word were quickly gone. A piece of the recent past as Lir approached.

“Heroism?” Lir padded closer, nimbly spinning one of his axes between his fingers. “Is that what you call what I’m here to do? To rip your heart from your chest and stake it before Oighir?”

Fionn laughed again, but this time it wasn’t as convincing.

“By Sidhe law, you’ve entered on diplomatic authority but if you don’t leave now, you’ll wish you had.”

Oighir, indeed, listened intently. Every guest staring at both Fionn and Lir, approaching an inevitable collision. The bestial guards moving through the crowds, eager to make themselves known before Lir tried anything on their lord. This in addition to nine or so foxes, Aisling counted, crouched in the upper arcade, prepared to let their reeds fly.

“My court will not hesitate to descend upon you.”

“Do you make a habit of offering your people to the wolves in place of yourself?”

“Oighir and I are one. Of all Sidhe, you should understand that, Lir. Or did you inherit our mother’s flippancy for her own kind?”

Our mother.

Aisling’s stomach lurched.

But it was Lir’s expression that sparkled with bloodthirst. His fangs, at last, visible at the edge of his feral grin. Galad, Gilrel,and Filverel twitched behind him, expressions hungry to satiate their tempers.

The guards reached the lip of Sidhe and beastly spectators, awaiting their sovereign’s command. Fionn need only give them the word and the whole ballroom would descend into chaos.

Aisling glanced at Dagfin, her brothers, and Killian standing to her right. They each found her stare and held it, perhaps waiting for the precise moment to flee Oighir while all were still distracted.

“Then fight for them in their stead,” Lir said, pausing but a few paces from where Aisling still stood frozen, captured by Fionn’s ice. Her stomach knotting and the cord between she and her fae king, pulling.

“Are you challenging me to a duel,Damh Bán?” Fionn scoffed, stepping directly behind Aisling till there was scarcely more than ice between them. And at the gesture, a muscle flashed across Lir’s jaw.

Fionn swept Aisling’s hair to the side, leaving her neck exposed. Aisling held her breath.

“You see,mo Lúra?” He bent lower, whispering in her ear and chilling her flesh with frost. “He considers you a possession, a trophy, a treasure to be won, collected, and hoarded. Not the partner, not theequalyou and I bear the potential to be.”

Lir squeezed the haft of his axes, near crushing them beneath the strength of his grip.

“If you’re afraid, Fionn, just say so.”

Fionn straightened, frustration lining the curve of his mouth. He feared Lir; that much was clear. But there was also undiluted envy blistering the black of his irises till it bled across the entirety of his posture.

Fionn raised his hand above his head.

“Reacht,” he said in Rún.

At the word, his blade unsheathed itself from his throne atop the dais and shot into his hand. A translucent, glass-like blade, taller than himself.

“Now, now, brother, you’re in my court. Perhaps in Annwyn, sovereigns would duel to the death but in Oighir, we prefer something far more entertaining.”

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