Page 67 of The Savage Queen

Aisling lit like a broken star, violet, and pulsing. Shriveling Lir’s shackles of vines to ash at her feet. The collar at Aisling’s neck strangling her till it ringed her neck with red.

Lir stepped back, studying her expression. Her fires forcing a distance between them. A fleck of hurt flashing across Lir’s face and disappearing before Aisling knew if it was real or her imagination. His nostrils flaring at the bruising already forming around her throat thanks to Fionn’s collar.

“Win this last test for me,” Aisling said. “Free us from Oighir and then we’ll venture our separate ways to Lofgren’s Rise. And should we both survive? Only then would I consider a true binding for the benefit of emboldening my might alone.”

Lir smiled, but it was joyless and wicked. Weaving a bloody rose around her hand till she held it between her fingers.

“I have no intention of ever letting you go again,ellwyn.”

CHAPTER XXIII

DAGFIN

Dagfin wasn’t familiar with Aos Sí tribes in either size or gathering. Yet, it appeared as if all Oighir stood before Fionn’s castle holding their breath. Watching as Fionn and Lir stood on either side of a glass bridge connecting Oighir to its surrounding kingdom of ice before dissolving into the feywilds. A treacherous drop beneath, filled by a river of fog.

The final test had yet to be announced. This was the only challenge during which Lir was allowed to wield his magic. The finality to the son of Winter’s game.

“Whether or not the opportunity presents itself, we leave tonight,” Starn said. Killian, Iarbonel, Fergus, and a mostly recovered Annind nodded their heads in agreement. All save for Dagfin, too focused on Aisling standing at the front of Castle Oighir to form a coherent thought. Greum and Frigg paced behind Aisling. A great mirror looming over her: the threshold to Oighir’s keep, reflecting the spectacle.

She was statuesque, clad in a sage gown and wrapped in the Roktan cloak he’d gifted her aboard theStarling. How she’d managed to preserve it, he knew not. Only that it lit a fire in his heart where even the Ocras couldn’t.

“Ready, brother?” Fionn asked, as their audience fell silent with anticipation. “Let’s begin and correct an ages-old mistake.”

Lir’s posture turned lethal, yet to Dagfin’s surprise, the fae king drew his twin axes. Prepared to battle the son of Winter for the last test and the conclusion to Fionn’s games.

“Not so fast, brother.” Fionn quirked a knowing brow. Lir shifted, twirling his axe in his grip as he focused on his brother.

“Bring me Aisling,” Fionn said, and at his command, Greum and Frigg nudged Aisling toward the son of Winter. Aisling didn’t protest, the collar of ice glittering more brightly around her throat as though it anticipated the conclusion to the deal as much as those around it.

Now it was Dagfin’s turn to pause, a pit forming in his stomach at the sight of Aisling moving toward the bridge of glass and into the crossfire.

AISLING

Aisling held her chin high––even as she passed Lir, not daring a glance in his direction despite the way his eyes studied her, counting every step that led her away from him and to Fionn at the other end of the bridge.

Fionn offered a hand to Aisling. Forearms chiming with bracelets and cuffs as Aisling placed her hand in his own and he pulled her to his side.

Lir’s expression dimmed at her and Fionn’s proximity, his axes twirling more quickly, more sharply between his fingers.

“The third and final test is a joust,” Fionn announced. The audience rustled, whispering back and forth.

“And my opponent?” Lir asked.

Fionn stifled a chuckle, moving behind Aisling. She stiffened, skin crawling the moment his fingers grazed her shoulders and wet her gown with frost.

“Your only opponent is yourself. Your objective: to destroy my heart of ice with the tip of your joust.”

Lir nodded his head. “Simple enough.”

Fionn smirked. “I hope you consider this second portion just as simple.” Fionn waved a hand in front of Aisling, pressing a finger between Aisling’s breasts. Aisling inhaled sharply, biting down her protests as the crystal collar around her neck gripped, reacting to the flicker ofdraiochtheating alongside her anger, her outrage. Lir stepped forward, axes stilling. The veins in his forearms, in his neck, growing bolder as his eyes flicked between Fionn’s hand and the collar at her throat, weighing a decision.

“Hold your ground, brother,” Fionn scolded, jagged ice creeping around Aisling’s torso in his anger.

At the son of Winter’s touch, an ice-carved heart grew from Aisling’s chest, floating just in front of her true heart. If Aisling moved, it followed, hovering a breath before her yet magicked to her being all the same.

Dread seeped beneath Aisling’s bones, a new chill taking root. And by the expression on Lir’s face, horror gripped him as well, swiftly evolving into undiluted anger.

“You wish for me to kill her?” Lir growled, the rumble of his voice, inspiring newfound terror in every surrounding spectator.

---