Page 66 of The Savage Queen

So, Aisling summoned it.

Burn, she commanded.

Thedraiochtrose, bursting upwards and into her lungs. Pain was the first taste and then euphoria. The coursing, the purling, the surge of magic through one’s bones as it crackled and brightened, spilling over and ready to be brandished like a blade.

A soft, radiant fire billowed around her hand. Small, just more than a match’s heat, but it was more than she’d beencapable of before either the fear gorta or since stepping foot in Oighir. Illuminating Lir’s hand, still poised before her own, in violet light. Hisdraiochttangling itself through her own, strengthening her fires by his mere proximity.

Aisling braced herself for the pain. For the agony of her flesh burning against her fires. But it never came. Her hands were whole. Unbloodied and unmarred by her own magic.

Aisling exhaled, in awe her skin no longer burned.

Still, Fionn’s collar around her throat squeezed, urging Aisling to stifle her magic lest it truly choke her. A reminder Aisling was still imprisoned by Fionn in Oighir lest Lir win his tests. And by the flaring of Lir’s expression, Aisling knew he saw the collar squeeze too. His temper swiftly quelled by Aisling’s relieved laugh that she’d been able to summon fire at all without blistering or burning. Because of him.

Aisling swallowed. The intimacy of theirdraiochthumming, vibrating, growing together, toe curling.

Fionn was wrong. It wasn’t Seelie, Unseelie, or even Forge territory that renewed Aisling’sdraiochtand made her strong. It was Lir. Together, their power mutually awakened, but when apart, their magic wilted. Fate cackled, spinning their thread and tightening the noose. Bound by the Forge to either create or destroy. Either way, magnificent together.

“Why is it like this?” Aisling asked, her voice uneven.

“I don’t know,” Lir said. “There are no legends nor myths that chronicle a similar pairing. I felt this…bond,” he said, brows knotting as though dissatisfied with that title, “the night of our union when you touched my axes for the first time. The feeling grew over our time together, then wreaked havoc on my soul when you disappeared.” He paused again before continuing. “When I thought you died and the bond severed…mydraiochtforever changed.”

He gazed down at her, sage eyes purpled by her fires.

Aisling shivered.

“Do you know what a true binding is?” Lir asked, every word slow, as though he were sifting through his mind for a coherent thought.

“The union of twocaeras,” Aisling replied breathlessly.

“No, not a binding. Atruebinding.”

Fionn had been the first to speak its name. But at the time, Aisling had assumed he’d been referencing a marriage, only possible between two souls chosen by the Forge to be tethered for eternity.

“Two souls can truly bind without beingcaeras. A way of knotting oneself with another and carving it into the Lady’s constellations. But for twocaerastotrulybind…” Lir exhaled against her neck, unable to find the words given the moment. The heat of his breath spine-chilling.

“At theSnaidhm,” he continued at last, “we were intended to be celebrating our true binding.”

Aisling paused. “A consummation.”

Lir met Aisling’s gaze.

Aisling’s eyes darted back and forth, processing the fae king’s words, desperately collecting the thoughts whirring inside her mind. Her cheeks flushed and hot, and her tongue thick inside her mouth.

“For whatever reason the gods intend, ourdraiochtis weak when apart and powerful together. And if we truly bind…unstoppable.”

“It isn’t the same for othercaera? When they truly bind?” Aisling asked.

“No,” he said. “A true binding would embolden our magic beyond what this realm or the next has ever witnessed. We’d be limitless, Aisling.”

Limitless.

Adrenaline drummed inside Aisling’s chest.

“Is this a confession of your love, barbarian lord?” Aisling asked, grasping at her venom but sounding flustered instead.

“Who said anything about love?” Lir said, and against Aisling’s own volition her heart splintered. She didn’t love Lir—no, she couldn’t love him. He was no longer her enemy by blood but by power. Both she and Lir racing for dominion whether it be at Lofgren’s Rise or elsewhere. But with these new words, with Lir’s proposal of a true binding, a fork in the road was written in the stars: to either truly bind with Lir or battle him for an eternity.

Aisling’s heart burned with hate for him, desperately, manically, bound to his. Because he left her in the dark, because he hunted her, because he risked everything Aisling wanted for his own motives, and now, had the nerve to try and align with her if it meant his own success. To use her. And still, her heart translated his flippancy for any affection between them as betrayal.

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