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CHAPTER XV

AISLING

Niamh and Aisling slipped through Castle Yillen like spirits, the blue rabbits following closely behind. They wandered past the kitchens spilling over with sweet plumes of freshly baked cakes and breads. They passed the chapels, glittering with candlelight reflecting off the stained glass and blessed by the dense ghosts of incense waging holy battles by the rafters.

“A haven for prayer,” Niamh explained as Aisling’s gaze lingered.

“Do sleeping gods hear prayers?” Aisling asked, wondering if Niamh would take offense to her inquiry. As far as Aisling understood, the twin gods had forsaken both the mortal plane and the Otherworld, choosing to sleep in place of reigning from their primordial thrones. This was why the twelve Sidhe sovereigns ruled—their power, now, divided and insufficient to prevent the prophecies all-seers witnessed.

Niamh, however, smiled. “Time will tell.”

They continued their passage through Castle Yillen until Niamh approached the steepled doors. Aisling smelled the alder tree the doors were carved from. Still, its heart thumped, pumping sap through the veins of its gnarled surface. But it was the face around it, born from the same tree, that unsettled Aisling most of all.

The alder bent and twisted, taking the form of a colossal king. The doors were his gaping mouth. The king’s hair was long and braided, beaded with leaves and blackberries that bled along the ridges of its roots. His beard was thick and cloaked with moss, spilling around the doorway like snakes.

Aisling’s ears popped with a change in pressure. A sensation similar to being in the presence of magic for the first time: an invisible enchantment made old, timeworn, and immortal by the pressure of eternity.

“Breka,” Niamh said, staring up at the colossus herself. “The eldest of the god brothers.”

Breka. Anduril vibrated as if trembling. As if disquieted in the presence of a god’s likeness. Aisling had never heard the gods’ names spoken before. The Lore—the library of collective history—was referred to as the Forbidden Lore in the mortal world. And so, Aisling had scarcely sipped from its well of knowledge.

Niamh raised her arm and as if summoned awake, the doors opened of their own accord.

“ L? Brear is on the other side of this room,” Niamh said as she stepped forward. “We must pass through.”

Aisling peered into a darkness like oblivion. But the moment they crossed the threshold, every rain droplet froze in mid-air like suspended crystals, sparkling with luminous light.

Aisling inhaled.

Tomes, novels, bibles, and the entire Forbidden Lore were stacked on shelves, forgotten on desks, or pressed against the sky-high rafters. The ceiling was made of stained glass, flashing colorfully each time the lightning outside craved attention.

Poetry scrolls, ballads, and fireside tales floated of their own accord, aimlessly flipping through their own pages as they whispered the stories they yearned to tell. The room was a hushed chorus of murmuring, of humming, of words unread and beautiful.

Detailed and ornate statues of winged Sidhe knights lined the walls alongside gargoyles, dragons, and owls. Each furious, blades in hand, fangs bared, and talons eager to strike.

Niamh chose the center thoroughfare, entering the labyrinth. Aisling followed a pace behind, careful not to knock into the flying, self-reading books.

It was a dark corner where the end of the Forbidden Lore section rested; the collective history of their making written into a series of great opuses charmingly tokened as “forbidden” thanks to the mortals’ censorship of the past they shared with the fae.

But it wasn’t the books or the shelves or the statues that alarmed Aisling.

It was the singing books, eager for Aisling to appreciate their voices.

“Ignore them,” Niamh said as she continued forward. “Lest they never leave you alone.”

Aisling nodded her head, but she couldn’t resist the rich hues of their leather bindings, the smell of their dusty pages, or how they flapped their covers like a bird’s wings. The sorceress tucked her hair behind her ears, listening a little closer to their words.

They sang songs, chanting titles in their choruses like “Niamh’s Storm Cloud,” “The Book of Sarwen,” “Legendary Objects of Other,” “Chorus of the Gods,” and more. Aisling listened more intently, hoping to hear a melody written about the Goblet of Lore.

Seven storm seasons come but never go.

Come child, I hear the wild horns blow.

Aisling paused, intrigued by the melody of this book. Niamh however, looked straight ahead, uncaring or unaware of Aisling’s growing interest despite her warnings.

Psalms of Rain , was inscribed on the front of the book in a humble, cerulean binding.

“A collection of nursery rhymes,” Niamh said without turning. Aisling shuddered, wondering if Niamh had eyes on the back of her head. “A useless tome.”

Aisling plucked the book from where it flew regardless. Niamh didn’t react, approaching the door at the opposing end of the library where they’d exit.

Aisling hurriedly opened the book and flipped through its pages.

“Spring’s Herald”, “Teardrops of Tempest”, and “The Architect of Yillen” were among the various songs the book sang if Aisling hesitated on a page for more than a breath. And perhaps it was “The Architect of Yillen’s” haunting melody that encouraged her to wait a breath longer than the rest.

Seven storm seasons come but never go.

Come child, I hear the wild horns blow.

A western faerie weeps, broken by a lonely heart,

Cursed to the Other, destined to live apart.

Listen to the rain, child

But don’t be beguiled

For a faerie will drown you in her tears

Or she’ll steal you away for years

Just so that she might not be so lonely.

‘If only, if only,’

The gods watched in horror

As the Other stormed for her.

‘A gift will bring you joy, faerie,’

The gods said so she might, at long last, be merry.

‘Gift me a friend only,’

The faerie said, ‘so that I might not be so lonely.’

So the gods, with tearful eyes, gave her a Goblet

Ruby, red, scarlet.

Cast in the Great Forge of Creation

A magic that fed on the limits of the imagination.

‘Be wise,’

The gods advised.

So the faerie built a home,

A castle, stone by stone

For she and her friend to live in the Other, only.

Just so that she might not be so lonely.

Be wise, child,

For the faerie’s wish was wild

‘Bring my friend to me in the Other.’

She wished and wished, one night after another.

Just so that she might not be so lonely.

If only, if only.

The Goblet brought the faerie her friend

And so came her friend, alive, alive until she met her end.

Death, the boat that crossed the waters

From the mortal plane and to the Other, in slaughter.

Just so that she might not be so lonely.

If only, if only.

Seven storm seasons come but never go.

Come child, I hear the wild horns blow.

A western faerie weeps, broken by a lonely heart,

Cursed to the Other, destined to live apart.

Listen to the rain, child

But don’t be beguiled

For she’ll drown you in her tears

Or she’ll steal you away for years

To her castle in the sky

Just so that she might not be so lonely.

If only, if only.

Niamh abruptly shut the book. The Seelie queen snatched it from Aisling and held the book close to her chest––the melody, silencing itself. Nevertheless, the echo of the song tormented them long after the last note had been sung.

Niamh’s eyes glared at Aisling.

“In the Other, curiosity might come at the cost of your life, sorceress,” Niamh chided, eyes narrowed into slits even as she started to turn on her heel.

“What was that?” Aisling asked. “That song.”

“I’ve already told you. A nursery rhyme,” Niamh bit back.

“The faerie,” Aisling continued, nevertheless. “The faerie?—”

Niamh spun on her heel and looked Aisling in the eye with a ferocity like gathering of storm clouds.

“Enough,” she said, and lightning webbed across the sky above Castle Yillen.

Aisling clenched her jaw, but she uttered not another word. The faerie was Niamh and what’s more, Niamh didn’t want Aisling to know.

Aisling bowed her head in feigned obedience, keeping the knowledge to herself.

Niamh smothered the book till it could no longer sing. The Seelie queen tossed the book to one of the blue rabbits escorting from behind. The rabbit held the tome gingerly before reshelving the book tightly between two other red tomes. The book seemed to protest the rabbit’s efforts, humming to be opened once more. But it mattered not if the rabbit reshelved the tome, burned it, ripped it apart, or tossed it into a lake. Aisling had already heard its song.

Niamh, indeed, staked claim to a kingdom in the west nestled in the mortal plane but never had she actually reigned from such towers. The book could’ve sung of any western faerie…but even as Aisling’s thoughts trailed off, she didn’t believe their reasoning.

Niamh built Castle Yillen with the Goblet of Lore. A gift from the gods to cease her sorrows that endlessly stormed over the Other. Alone, she wished for her friend to join her and join her she did. Yet, one cannot enter the Other even with an invitation lest it be Samhain or L? Brear , Aisling knew. Even with the Goblet of Lore.

Aisling bit her bottom lip as they left the library in silence.

In order to complete Niamh’s wish, the Goblet killed Niamh’s requested friend: the only way to deliver her friend to the Other, Aisling realized.

At the last blood moon, you’ll howl once more before you drift into the Other and join your brothers and sisters beyond the fog . Aisling repeated a tale the beasts in Annwyn recited often. A way to look forward to death and its quest.

A sinking feeling formed in the pit of Aisling’s stomach. The Other was vast, limitless: a world of spirits and magic. The cradle of creation itself. But there was a half of the Other that was sanctioned for the dead. The home of the afterlife where souls whose bodies no longer served them drifted into eternity. Beyond the fog on a ghostly galleon.

Aisling shuddered but not from the cold.

So, who was this “friend” the song spoke of? Aisling asked herself as Niamh quickened her pace. Eager to leave the library as swiftly as she was able.

The answers to Aisling’s questions eluded her. And yet, she knew the Goblet of Lore was more powerful than she realized. Aisling could create anything she dreamed of by the bidding of the Goblet.

Anduril lit gleefully, as though basking in warm showers of sunlight.

Perhaps the solution to ending the war with the mortals, and now Danu and the Lady, lies elsewhere , Aisling thought. Perhaps she was still spooked by the haunting melody or perhaps her intuition was telling her something. The tale felt wrong and so did her search for the Goblet.

“Arawn,” Niamh said, startling Aisling from her thoughts, “the second brother god.”

Aisling looked up, greeted by the giant face of Arawn. He was monstrous, weeping thick streams of dark syrup from his eyes. His branches grew richly with sharp pointed leaves and his expression was warped with madness. The first god was silent, was still, was ordered. But the second god was chaos and discord, prickling with thorns as sharp as teeth.

Aisling swallowed, relieving the pressure in her ears where the weight of the god’s likeness and draiocht pushed down on her head.

Magic enjoyed giving and it enjoyed taking. Only by the law of the draiocht did it ever give in return for something and only to those capable of dominating it. This was what all Sidhe children were taught when they first learned to fly, to breathe beneath the waves, to sing with the wind, or wield a weapon. And each was reminded of such laws on more than one occasion when casting spells or charms or jinxes felt too “easy”. It was a lesson they did well to remember even as they aged into oblivion. Even as Aisling glared up at one of the fathers of magic himself. Or so, Lir—Anduril tightened—the fae king had taught her. Hadn’t he? Aisling struggled to remember, doubt budding in her mind like weeds. More and more she felt like she couldn’t trust herself. Uncertainty, her constant companion.

Their attention wandered back toward the tome on the shelf, still humming between the crimson bindings of its silent neighbors.

But it was the blowing of horns on the other side of the doors that broke the spell of their silence. A muffled concert boomed from the chamber beyond the door.

L? Brear had begun.