Page 94 of The Savage Queen

The trees tightened their grip, slithering around his legs, his torso, his arms, and even his throat. Threatening to bury him alive.

“Do you relish, or do you hesitate?”

Lir pushed the blade till it conjured a bead of Dagfin’s blood.

“You won’t kill me,” Dagfin said, despite the bone-white of Lir’s knuckles on the haft of the axe.

“I wouldn’t be so certain, princeling.”

“To kill me would be to lose Aisling.”

Lir’s expression narrowed. Dagfin had noticed that Aisling’s name on his tongue inspired unmatched rage in the fae king, so he said it often.

“You and I both know forgiveness isn’t among Aisling’s virtues,” Dagfin continued. “And despite whatever fated cord your gods claim knots between you, Aisling’s future isn’t guaranteed yours.”

Dagfin gambled his life with those words: this he knew. And yet, Lir didn’t flinch. Didn’t move nor scarcely breathe. The inhuman edge of his glare made more severe.

“I think of your death often, princeling. And one day it’ll be dealt richly by my axe, I swear it to the Forge.” His voice thrummed through the forest, weaving his vow into the roots of the earth. “Aisling’s future isn’t guaranteed mine, perhaps,” he forced out. “A part of her still clings to her past. And to you.”

“You believe me a burden.”

“I believe you a hero. A slave to your desires; among them, proving to your mortal clanns and tuaths that your purpose isn’t to rule atop a throne but in the shadows, vanquishing the demons that hunt your kind. Including myself.”

Dagfin despised that the fae king was, in part, correct. Had accurately measured even a fragment of theFaerak’s motivations. Yet, it was both the fear and the nausea the Roktan throne inspired that compelled Dagfin to reject it. For to sit upon it, to claim it, was to inherit the ghost of his sibling.

“A fact for which you envy,” the Roktan prince said instead. “If only for Aisling to admire you instead of despise you; you, the villain of her people.”

Lir grimaced, his scowl deepening.

“You misread me.”

“That’s why you chose to hunt the phuka, wasn’t it? To prove to Aisling you aren’t the demon she believes you to be.”

Lir ground his teeth, jaw flexing at his words. Seemingly wishing to speak but thinking better of it.

But by the hesitation, the thoughts visibly blooming behind the fae king’s glare, the Roktan prince knew his assumptions were wrong. He’d indeed misread the fae king.

To Lir, the phuka had nothing to do with Aisling, at least not directly. So, was it somehow possible the fae king bore sympathy for a mortal child?

Lir focused.

“The eve of prophecy is swiftly approaching, and Aisling will be forced to make a choice: to forge a future or revive the past. And that choice will be hers alone.”

Lir lifted his axe from Dagfin’s neck and uncurled from his crouch. The forest released him, groaning as though protesting their lord’s final verdict. Dagfin gathered to his feet. The Ocras healing the aching in his limbs, his muscles, and his bones.

“What makes you so confident?” Dagfin asked, crossing his arms as Lir returned to the phuka.

“You’re a hero, princeling. But a good heart is only ever appealing until you’re forced to make a choice between what’s right and her.”

This time, Dagfin didn’t interrupt Lir as he lifted his axe. As he severed the phuka’s head, the feywilds memorizing the sound of its flesh ripping and bones splitting, bound to repeat it to those who wandered too far within their keep.

CHAPTER XXXI

AISLING

Galad tore through the village with Aisling atop Sorcha, every Bludhaven hand reaching for both she and Lir’s knights. A sea of druids seeking to pull them beneath the surface.

“Skalla,” they chanted. A word wielded against Aisling since the moment it’d been spoken. Today, it lacked its usual poison.

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