Page 74 of The Savage Queen

She summoned her flames and exhaled. Painful at first, her bones thawed, then her muscles, and lastly, her flesh. Thedraiochtbreeding new life into her body after months asleep.

LIR

“The forest tastes her,” the trees whispered in his ears. “The forest couldn’t forget the texture of her magic even after we’ve wilted and grown gnarled with age.”

Lir stood before Aisling, watching as her fires dissolved into plumes of smoke and then nothing. The smell of her intoxicating as he weighed the density of the air between them.

Lir gripped his hands into fists, white knuckled.

“Have you already forgotten everything I taught you?” he asked, despising himself for the humor in his tone. His fury struggling to break the surface. For now.

“When there is no air, no space for life, you must forge it yourself.”

Indeed, Lir had taught Aisling how to breathe beneath the water while venturing through the feywilds. A lesson that proved useful when Danu had thrust her forward in time.

Lir summoned thedraiocht, his own, a thrashing wolf snapping inside, eager to be let loose.

Vines grew from the earth, breaking through the frozen dirt and sprouting through the rocks, wrapping Aisling in their embrace. The feel of her against his magic raised the hair on his body. But it was short-lived.

Aisling burst into flame once more, scorching his vines and dissolving them to ash. She conjured a den of snakes licked by violet fire and they snapped at Lir, slithering nearer.

“Wasn’t it I who advised we muzzle her?” Filverel seethed between his fangs as he, Galad, Peitho, and Gilrel, stepped forward to intervene.

“Stay back,” Lir ordered and reluctantly they did, expressions taut.

“You will not shackle me,” Aisling said, gesturing to the vines shriveled to ash around her feet. Currents of ink-black hair sticking to her back, her arms, her neck despite herdraiocht. Her gown blessedly clinging to the shape of her.

Lir laughed.

“Trust it’s for our safety and not your own,ellwyn.”

He raised the vines again with the intent to bind her till she calmed. The first taste of a fully summoneddraiochtafter months without was a euphoric one. The magic of Fionn’s mirrors distorting her perspective. Enough to drive the mind mad till it was fully slaked, and the magic indulged.

Aisling growled, the tension in her muscles mirrored in her flames as they grew, lashing at Lir in a whip of fire.

The Sidhe king moved lithely to the side, avoiding her strike the same moment the earth rose from beneath the ice, folding over Aisling’s flames and snuffing all her might. The tree branches craned in her direction, reaching to apprehend her to no avail. She burned again, glorious and bright scalding Lir’s trees as they recoiled in a collective hiss.

“I have to admit, I only half believed you when you promised to run from me after you broke free of Oighir,” Lir said, padding toward her. “You’re more ruthless than even I believed.”

Aisling tilted her head to the side.

“You wouldn’t like me quite as much if I weren’t.”

Lir grinned. “I like you no matter what form you take. We’re made for one another. That’s why you chose to align with me, to refuse an unbinding, and aid me in the tests.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You were an opportunity. Nothing more,” she said, casting a bolt of flame at his head. But despite the sharp edge of her words, the soft glimmer in her eyes was wholly unconvincing.

As quick as any could blink, Lir drew one of his axes, blocking the bolt and sending it hurtling for the waterfall as he continued forward.

“So, you used me.”

“Does that wound you?” Aisling mocked, conjuring another bolt and then another. Lir deflected them both, defeating the distance between them. His axe, dividing her from him.

“On the contrary,ellwyn, you’re becoming irresistible.”

Aisling burned more brightly, conjuring what remnants of her strength she could muster. Pulsing with fire toward the Sidhe king.

Lir focused, commanding an oak to grow between them. It shot from the earth, turning over soil, rocks, and ice and shoving Aisling back several steps.

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