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CHAPTER XVII

LIR

The Sidhe king of the greenwood could inspire life at the beck of his slightest whim. And yet, it was the blood he shed, his violence, and his appetite for brutality that preceded him. A fact which Lir enjoyed, his draiocht purring at the terror glossing the eyes of those who beheld him. The bitter smell of their dread, sweet to the taste.

Lir wicked his wet hair from his eyes and stepped into L? Brear . Still blood-splattered from the questing beast, Lir was a grisly contrast to the lustrous opulence of Niamh’s gathering. The sound of his boots on the glass floors, echoing into oblivion. His carnage-stained axes winked where they sat crossed at his back.

“ Dark lord of the forest, mo Damh Bán .” Slowly, Niamh took her seat on her throne once more, a maiden draped in piles of dewy spiderwebs and the glow of lightning bolts. Her powder-blue hair dripped onto her shoulders.

Niamh smiled knowingly, inspiring something tempestuous in Lir’s gut.

“How wonderful of you to join us,” Niamh said. “Albeit so late and ill-dressed.” Her narrow eyes looked him up and down as though disgusted by his heathendom. Lir’s shade of violence, more barbaric than her own.

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Lir said, unable to help the wolfish grin that swept across his face. “Although I’ll admit, my intentions, for once, are less focused on the wine and more so on the fate of our worlds.”

“How dramatic,” she simpered.

Lir laughed under his breath. “Aye, the end of the Sidhe’s existence would be. Which is why I’m here to prevent it.”

Gradually, Niamh’s arrogance faded with each of Lir’s words, her irritation rising. The surrounding Sidhe and forge-born beasts whipped their heads between the Seelie queen and Lir.

“You’d have me believe in your kingship if it wasn’t you who broke the Sidhe’s alliance with the mortals and caused this mess in the first place,” Niamh said, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her chin up. The first transparent blow.

The crowd erupted into frenzied chatter, stirring like birds taking flight from a juniper.

Bemused, Lir walked further into the room, aware of the guests who staggered back in a panic, eager to clear his path.

“Do I sense compassion for the mortal race?” Lir asked, the corners of his lips curling further. “Or perhaps you’d rather place your trust in those who will make myths of us yet. It is by blood we will win this war. Not mercy.”

Every Sidhe and forge-born beast fell quiet, the potency of Lir’s words sobering the celebration, the reality of their approaching doom as tangible as the first leaf turned come autumn. Death’s approach, a surety.

Niamh’s complexion grew flushed and mottled, eyes widening until the whites were visible and her nails dug into the arms of her throne.

“You disguise your lust well, mo Damh Bán ,” she bit, “for every choice you’ve made since the day you accepted an offering from the mortals has been with your caera in mind and not our people. A caera whose consummation with you will not only bring the mortals to their end, but the whole of the world as we know it.” Niamh beamed, but it was cold and void of emotion, eerie to behold. “Do not think that I, the gods’ favored child, does not know of the prophecies spun between the threads of fate. You, mo Damh Bán , are not the savior of the Sidhe. You are their unmaking.”

L? Brear froze, panic bubbling in each and all’s expressions. L? Brear , Imbolc , any and all Sidhe celebrations were designed to inspire hope, community, and strength. And yet, war had rotted even this. Had diseased its way into even the fae folk’s frivolity, their savagery, their wonder.

“I do not stand with the Sidhe king of the greenwood,” a voice called from among the throng. The voice was distorted; a melding of two spirits into one. Nevertheless, Lir already knew who one half of the voice belonged to.

Aisling .

Lir’s heart leaped.

His flesh caught fire.

The words of vitriol he’d intended for Niamh caught in his throat. Eyes glazing over with his need to be close to her. An unholy flower, plucked from the earth by rain’s right hand. She was devastating to behold. Cloaked by spring’s showers, she shimmered beneath the light of Niamh’s flashing chandeliers. Eyes as violet as cauldron potions and lips as red as stolen hearts. Lir was paralyzed by her beauty. By the way she tilted her head like a beast of prey, considering him. By the way she swallowed her fear and armored herself with a resolve Lir had scarcely witnessed in battle-worn knights. And when she met his eyes, her magic was enough to bring the Sidhe king to his knees.

“ Whilst our ambitions are aligned ,” Aisling continued, “ our coupling is no longer .” Anduril glistened smugly from Aisling’s hips, beaming brightly each time Niamh’s lightning webbed across the sky.

Lir bit the inside of his bottom lip, tasting blood.

At Aisling’s words, L? Brear released a collective gasp, voices rising until they were no longer whispers. Every Sidhe and forge-born beast among them shouting amongst one another, polarized by the news.

Lir, however, hardly heard them booming. Aisling stood at the center of his world, the rest a blur.

Anduril , Lir repeated to himself. It’s not real .

But the sight of Anduril clasping Aisling’s waist inspired something feral in Lir he didn’t know how to contain. Wasn’t even certain if he wanted to.

“And this,” Niamh concluded, tearing her eyes from Aisling’s to stare into Lir’s, “is why you are not welcome here.”

The attention of the room flew from Niamh to Lir like a dart. The Other held its breath. The draiocht thickening the air as history was being written. The threads of fate braiding, weaving, waiting on a confirmation from Lir to begin its work.

“Is this true?” Niamh asked Lir. “You’re no longer bonded to the sorceress?”

Lir clenched his hands into fists. Every muscle wrung taut.

Whatever you covet , Lir reminded himself again, will be my heart’s labor .

“It’s true,” the king of the greenwood said, avoiding Aisling’s eyes lest his anguish spill forth in violence. And still, he caught Anduril’s self-satisfied glint from the corner of his eye.

The Other released the breath it’d been holding, and the tension burst like a cloud before the squall.

Niamh, straight-backed and lips pursed, broke into sudden laughter. Ear-splitting, the sound broke the champagne flutes and chalices circling the punch fountain. The badgers and tortoises enjoying their drinks, leaped in surprise, staggering away from the broken glass.

“Then you aren’t welcome here,” Niamh said. “Return to Annwyn before the mortals invade your borders once more.”

Lir’s temper rose, but he stifled it quickly. He needed an excuse to stay in the Other. A reason—an obligation ––to protect Aisling that even Niamh couldn’t argue with. He needed an excuse to stay by Aisling’s side.

“Even so,” Lir continued, “I’ve come as an ally to the Lady Aisling.” The Sidhe king found Aisling’s eyes across the room and held them. Anduril’s cruel sheen glossed her expression, shielding the sorceress behind its magic, but the Sidhe king continued nonetheless, speaking to Aisling and Aisling alone.

The Sidhe king cut a path through the crowd. A wolf, he lithely took his place before the dais and knelt on the ground.

Lir bowed his head. Slowly, he unsheathed one of his twin axes and crossed it before his heart.

“I swear my fealty and my blade to the sorceress,” Lir said. The Sidhe king raised his head, fixing his eyes on Aisling. She sat still—a dark lake hidden by the forest. Lir held her stare regardless. At last, a spark of recognition flaring across her expression before returning to stone. “She will need a knight and a protector if she’s to spare the Sidhe. I can think of no better option than myself.”

“And what authority do either you or Aisling boast that’s capable of liberating the Sidhe from impending doom?” Niamh asked Lir, dabbing at her amused, tear-filled eyes with the edge of her sleeve.

Lir held his ground.

“I understand Aisling was introduced to the Sidhe as my bride, the mortal princess, the daughter of the fire hand; the bane of the Sidhe with a legacy of fae blood packed between the mortar of his iron keep,” Lir said. “I understand that her proclivity to the draiocht is strange and unprecedented, and that the nature of her fire is darkly poetic in its relationship to the Sidhe. I understand Aisling was introduced as the enemy. As a casualty.” The room stilled. “But that is not the sorceress that stands before you.”

The hairs on the nape of Lir’s neck stood on end. The universe leaning closer to better hear his spell.

“Ina chose Aisling as a hiding place, a home to shelter her gods-blessed gift. She is the keeper of Racat and the personification of magic. And as both sorceress and the reaper of men, Aisling wields the power to ensure Sidhe victory and to unwrite prophecy. Her only request from those she intends to fight for…” Lir said ––The whole of L? Brear waiting on his every breath––“Is a chance to earn the gods’ favor and obtain the Goblet of Lore. Of this she will agree.”

Like an oak felled, Lir’s words hit the earth with a thunderous crash, the Sidhe flaring into hysteria like birds taking flight.

Aisling’s expression flashed with a flurry of emotion, her breath hissing between her teeth, the angrier Anduril shimmered. And still, her eyes stayed locked on Lir, studying him closely.

It was chaos.

Madness and confusion spreading and rising into the clouds above.

Niamh’s crystal eyes stared deeply at Aisling, flecked with—what looked like—betrayal.

Aisling exchanged glances with the Seelie queen of Rain, a silent conversation passing between them that Lir couldn’t decipher.

“Enough,” Niamh said at last, silencing the crowds.

“This is lunacy!” a fox yelled. “A mortal and the enemy’s daughter endeavoring to win the gods’ favor?!” The beast snorted in disbelief, shaking her head.

“It is the Forge’s will,” a Sidhe knight argued.

“Impossible!” another said between clenched teeth.

“Since when have the Sidhe been averse to change?” a bear asked with sincerity, the toads beside him nodding their heads in agreement.

“The not-so mortal queen has never asked for the Goblet nor the gods’ favor,” another Sidhe said.

Lir’s throat grew thick. In the wake of Imbolc , in the angst over Aisling, in his focus on their journey from the mortal plane to the Other, and in his desperation to find Aisling, he’d forgotten about this drawback to their schemes.

“Let her search for the Goblet then,” a winged Sidhe said, his crown of fruit wobbling atop his ebony curls. The majority of the crowd nodded their heads in agreement.

Aisling whipped her attention to their audience, but her gaze was inward, churning with thought.

“To pursue and find the Goblet for the gods’ favor…” The fox shook her lovely head, concern pinching her brows. “Such a task is a death sentence.”

“She’s no longer mortal,” Lir said, his voice more biting than he’d intended.

“And yet,” said the bear, “she is neither Sidhe.”

“Whosoever seeks the Goblet and the gods’ favor with their will, is eligible to hunt it,” said Lir. “It matters not our opinion, nor her race. So, it is written in the collective lore of our history and in the nature of our power.”

There was silence as every guest, as every bead of rain weighed Lir’s words. Lir hoped it wouldn’t come to this. He’d hoped that asking Niamh for the Goblet would be enough and that the gods’ favor would follow shortly thereafter. Perhaps he’d allowed himself this measure of denial; to blissfully ignore Aisling potentially risking her life in the pursuit of the Goblet to secure everything she desired. And yet, standing here now, Lir realized it was always an inevitability. Without thought, without hesitation, Lir would protect Aisling from the wild and from the dark. Any who wished her harm, sadness, terror, would be repaid tenfold by his hands and his alone. But Lir realized to his own dread, that he couldn’t save her from herself.

Anduril, dappled in rain, shone like a trove of gold.

Aisling rolled her shoulders back and balled her hands into fists at her sides.

“Through trial or test or task or quest,” the sorceress said, “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to earn the Goblet of Lore, the gods’ favor, as well as all of yours.”

Aisling’s gaze found Lir across the celebration. He tore his eyes from her, head falling so he stared at his bloody boots, wet with rain.

Niamh broke the silence, clapping loudly and slowly.

“How valiant, the both of you,” she said, but her tone was biting. “Very well then. If Aisling is to earn my crown and favor, then so, too, should her oath-given knight. Prove yourself, great king, by the tradition of the first knight, and battle your queen.”

“What?” Lir asked, eyes suddenly going wide.

“This is my kingdom, mo Damh Bán ,” Niamh said, cold as sleet, “and if you wish to maintain your welcome, you’ll follow my rules.” As if prompted, several of Niamh’s knights shifted where they stood along the edges of the festivities. Their hands and paws drifted to the hafts of their blades, eyes pinned to the Sidhe king.

A muscle flickered across Lir’s jaw, but he didn’t move.

“If you wish to stay and aid Aisling, then prove yourself her protector, her guide, her knight as you claim,” Niamh said, lips cutting into a grin.

Aisling’s and Lir’s eyes met. The room inhaled sharply and Anduril exploded with excitement, glowing at her hips like a blade dipped in the Forge.