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CHAPTER I

AISLING

Where Aisling once believed Lir to be a nightmare, tonight he donned the trappings of a dream. He rode Flaithri, the largest white stag in all Annwyn, both of them dripping with Connemara beads, braided blackthorns, and emerald clovers. His antlered crown mirrored Flaithri’s own; a tangled diadem of polished ivory, glistering in the firelight of Imbolc . But just as a dream unspooled at the edge of potential midnight horrors, so, too, did the Sidhe king of the greenwood.

Lir raised a goblet of mortal blood to the sea of trooping fae and feral beasts. The crowd roared, their jeers vibrating through the wildflowers beneath Aisling’s bare feet. Bears soaked the earth with their frothing pints of mead, goblins shoved one another in jest, and toads croaked through the clouds of smoke, puffing from their pipes like old chimneys.

Lir drank, his throat bobbing as a scarlet stream escaped his lips and slid down the muscled curve of his neck. And when he smiled, it was a grin stained with warm death. The death of those whose blood still, in some way, ran through Aisling’s veins.

“ Drink !” Lir shouted in Rún. “ Drink and indulge for this season’s Imbolc will not only presage the dawning of springtide but the dawning of a new age .” Lir’s eyes flicked to Aisling.

Aisling stood beneath Huriel, a colossal ash tree whose branches cradled the clearing where they reveled, bejeweled with troll-mined gems, cedar cup mushrooms, snowy owl feathers, and lush garlands of sugarberries. Galad hovered protectively at Aisling’s side and would likely have kept his hands gripped to his blade if it weren’t for Gilrel’s reassuring presence—the pine marten as quick with her sword as she was with her tongue.

Galad translated for Aisling. Some words and expressions Aisling already understood, but Galad’s guidance connected those phrases she wasn’t yet familiar with. Aisling was committed to becoming fluent, and with every flame conjured by the draiocht , she found the divine language effortlessly slipped into her mind. It was as if she’d always known it. Like an old road home, Aisling simply needed to remember the way back.

“ Alone, both Seelie and Unseelie have fallen at the knee to the mischief of mortal man. But should we forge-born unite, mortal men will find their blood pooling atop the earth, lapped by the fanged mouths of our forests. Together, Seelie and Unseelie will bind this plane and the Other — the Forge, our own. All thanks to my —” Lir hesitated before grinning like a wolf. “ Our new queen .”

Annwyn erupted into cheers. Triumphantly, the fireflies danced in great spells of light; the drums mirrored every racing heartbeat; Huriel swayed in rapture, and every honeysuckle trumpeted in honor of both Lir and Aisling’s glory. Together. Together, they were invincible. Stronger than iron and more potent than magic.

Peitho lifted a goblet of her own and her sleeves of embroidered cornelian glittered. She the sun and Filverel the moon in all white robes, smiling to himself as he leaned against one of Huriel’s great roots.

“To Aisling!” Peitho said, and the creatures of Annwyn repeated the words, raising their chalices, their pipes, their glasses, and their petrified pixie bubbles.

Aisling bowed her head, a lump growing in her throat. She wasn’t certain where to look, so she found Lir’s gaze across the glen.

The sage of Lir’s eyes flashed with want, exploring Aisling lazily as though they’d just shared thoughts. As though they were alone beneath Huriel, the world fizzling into silence. His regard alone, an enchantment few bore the strength to resist: to not fall in the worship of his blazing, bright darkness.

And as Aisling fantasized Lir’s hands would slide up her pearl-white gown, flowers bloomed there instead. Vines of ellwyn bubbled at the hem of her dress. An almost translucent slip, sparkling with morning dew on a northern field. Her shoulders were cloaked by a cape of giant luna moth wings that powdered the air when Aisling swayed to the music and dusted the ellwyn that climbed her skirts.

Torturously slow and at Lir’s will, the flowers grazed her bodice, caressed her neck, before cupping her jaw, and, at last, tangled themselves in both her hair and her antlered crown: a counterpart to Lir’s own. She, dressed in spring itself and the rebirth of not only Lir’s rule over Annwyn, but Lir and Aisling’s sovereignty over everything.

“ And to Lir ,” Filverel added. “ May their reign be eternal .”

At the advisor’s words, the crowd parted, forging a path for Lir to approach Aisling. The winds grew restless the nearer he and Flaithri moved, every tree dancing in the howling winds of Imbolc .

“Approach, mo Lúra ,” Galad whispered from behind. Aisling and Gilrel exchanged glances before she took a step forward. Magic hung thickly in the air, rising as the distance between Aisling and Lir closed.

Before a great felled oak, Lir leaped off Flaithri and reached Aisling. Aisling inhaled sharply, holding her breath as he pulled her close and held her waist. Every press of his fingertips scalding her flesh and shuddering through Imbolc , Annwyn, and all the North. And by the darkening of Lir’s gaze, Aisling knew he felt the draiocht roaring, howling, screaming on the inside too.

Without a word, Lir lifted Aisling onto Flaithri side-saddle.

All Annwyn watched her, their chatter hushing into silence.

“Burn, ellwyn ,” Lir said, his hand lingering on her thigh before sliding away. Aisling, despite herself, shivered, left watching as Lir reached for one of his twin axes and raised it before him.

“ Seliac niv lenelle santi lelluna, te mes crai sen shetek duachte my frei lewen ,” Lir shouted.

Despite bitter winter and its formidable blade, even death’s knee will bend to the bloom . A phrase the Sidhe expressed to one another often enough that Aisling had become familiar with its translation.

Lir slammed the axe into the felled oak, vines bursting from the blade upon impact. Aisling’s nose burned with his magic, his draiocht moaning against her own, the forest tossing madly as the felled oak grew back to life and bloomed as if anew; a creature to rival Huriel’s great size and age; Castle Annwyn, grumbling at the weight of Lir’s spells in the distance.

Once the oak stood as a giant before them, straight and proud, Aisling closed her eyes and inhaled like she and Lir had practiced in preparation for this occasion.

I summon the fire , she said to the draiocht .

Racat, the dragún who embodied her magic, laughed beneath his breath inside her, wasting not a moment to burst upward and from Aisling.

The oak’s leaves grew not green but violet and licked with flame. Both Lir’s and Aisling’s magic of life and death, intertwining, braiding, knotting until all the north and beyond held its breath at their splendor. An oak of wood and flame, blazing in the heart of Annwyn.

It was unheard of. The draiocht and fire were irreconcilable. As antithetical as day and night, mixed by the spoon of Lir and Aisling’s power. So, in addition to Annwyn’s splendor, there was horror. Fear bleeding across Imbolc like blood on linen. A myth few would believe, born before them.

Annwyn roared more loudly, the realm itself juddering with the force of their excitement. But even so, Aisling still heard Lir’s voice rise above the others.

“ Ash !” Lir shouted.

Aisling found Lir’s eyes amidst the elation. But Lir, without warning, reacted with wicked speed, and Aisling watched their celebrations shift into shock—into panic––before Aisling felt hot sap seeping into the fabric of her gown, just above the heart.

Blood.

She hadn’t felt the arrow pierce just below her collar, nor the sizzling and popping of her blood against the iron arrowhead. The shock had protected her against the initial waves of pain. Her ears ringing so loudly she could scarcely hear the chaos. Aisling touched the arrow sticking from her chest, eyes drifting from the reed to Lir before her. He stared at Aisling’s wound, but his left hand clutched his opposite bleeding shoulder. He was hurt. A wound to match Aisling’s own. Except, the iron arrow responsible for the wound in Lir’s shoulder was gone. Gone, having cut through the fae king and into Aisling.

Iron had teeth. Or, at least, it felt that way ever since Aisling’s mortal blood had thinned to a whisper. Even its stench, its rust, its texture bit into Aisling’s flesh and needled its way into the marrow of her bones.

Aisling lay in Lir’s arms, pulling the arrow from her chest as chaos blazed around them. Lir hissed something beneath his breath, bloody poppies sprouting madly at her wound where the fae king’s attention struggled to think of anything else, ignoring his own violent injury.

Aisling cared little for her pain, horrified by the devastation that surrounded them. Iron arrows showered Imbolc as well as both Seelie and Unseelie screams. The scraping of swords being released from their scabbards was a symphony of promised death––from either the Seelie or mortals, Aisling was unsure.

Galad, Gilrel, Peitho, and Filverel twisted with their blades, slicing and cutting shadows. Shadows that grew and warped, growing larger as they surrounded Imbolc and the frenzy of forge-born creatures. Their stags lay lifeless at the edge of the wood, Sidhe were staked through with iron spears, and the Sidhe animals that raised their weapons lay horns, hooves, and paws down, vacant eyes void of their Forge blood.

“Mortals,” Aisling said between her teeth.

Lir pulled her possessively against himself.

“We need to leave,” Lir said, scooping Aisling into his arms as he stood.

“No,” Aisling said, her heart hammering. Or Lir’s, she wasn’t certain.

“ A trevus noralla in cept ,” Galad shouted to Lir, slicing through a mortal knight and spraying them all in his fleshling stench. The human collapsed next to Aisling, his armor chinking, the weight of him making a gruesome thud as he hit the earth. Aisling didn’t recognize him, but his trappings spoke for themselves. This mortal stranger, clad in Tilrish tartans: the scarlet wool that once belonged to Aisling’s mortal clann.

Smoke billowed from the corners of his mouth, an ember dimming between his teeth. As if his mouth were a furnace hungry for more coals.

Aisling smelled it before she spoke its name beneath her breath.

“ Draiocht .”

Aisling’s chest tightened, her heart hammering madly. She was weak from her injury, her complexion paling.

“Starn was behind this,” Aisling hissed, smelling the Lady’s influence. “And my father.” An indescribable anger simmered within her at the realization.

“Galad!” Lir shouted, capturing his knight’s attention. His voice was rougher, darker than it’d been before. “Escort Aisling to the castle.” Galad nodded his head, gently taking Aisling from Lir’s arms.

“No,” Aisling bit, struggling in Galad’s grip. “No, I must find them.”

Lir opened his mouth to speak but was cut short, swiveling on his heel and cutting through another mortal attacker. Their human screams piqued something in Aisling she couldn’t quite describe but longed to hear again. And again she did, Lir conjuring fledgling trees that sprouted and overturned the soil, the flowers, the moss-soft grass beneath their feet. His draiocht , teasing her own despite the blood that flooded from his arrow wound, doing its best to heal whilst Lir expended more draiocht .

To the Sidhe, magic was breath. They inhaled it, filling their lungs with the primordial sighs of the Forge, and without it, they couldn’t survive. Without the draiocht , they would suffocate. But too much of the draiocht and they’d grow breathless, gasping for more, insatiable, unable to catch their breath, and the weight of their power would be enough to crush their chests and cease their eternal hearts. The more powerful the magic, the greater the cost.

“Lir will deal with them,” Galad whispered in Aisling’s ear, holding her firmly in his grip.

“They’re mine to deal with,” Aisling growled, averting her eyes from the corpses of three Forge badgers and a hare piled atop one another, blood dripping from the corners of their gaping mouths.

This was an ambush. An onslaught. Devilry on behalf of humankind. On behalf of her father. And Aisling knew Starn was nearby. She could smell him. So close and most likely the wielder of the arrow that’d struck both her and Lir. It’d been too precise, too perfect not to have been aided by the Lady’s sorcery.

Aisling jerked free of Galad’s grasp.

“Ash!” the knight cried, but it was too late.

Aisling felt Racat’s excitement before her own, boiling in her gut and whistling through her teeth like steam from a cauldron.

Is this what you want ? Racat asked inside her mind, his voice echoing.

“Aye,” Aisling said aloud. And it was done.

The oak’s leaves of violet fire grew alongside Lir’s fledglings, his vines, his brambles of thorns and needles. Every lick of flame devouring the world that it touched, magnified by Lir’s power. So while the Lady was well versed in trickery, she’d told one truth: Lir’s and Aisling’s magic, side by side, was devastation incarnate.

Both mortals and forge-born creatures became swathed in her flames, in Lir’s magic. Their world was the crackling, raging flame of a candle whose wick was too long. Too persistent and too eager to burn.

More , Racat growled. More !

Lir shuffled backward, alarmed by the magnitude of their combined power. Aisling and Lir had performed brief spells together, played in the woods with flames and flowers between their lips and teeth, but never had they toyed with battle magic to this degree. And it was ruinous.

“Enough!” Aisling screamed at Racat to no avail. She’d let the dragún go too far. He was a garland of flame, wicking through Imbolc and destroying everything in his path, nearly including the Sidhe themselves.

“ Enough !” Aisling ordered Racat, falling to her knees, her entire body possessed by the fire.

It is never enough, dear friend , Racat replied.

Lir raced toward Aisling; Galad struggled through hordes of burning mortals; Gilrel screamed her name, but it was out of Aisling’s control. And now, Annwyn would burn.