Page 36

CHAPTER XXXV

AISLING

Aisling woke with a blade at her throat. Yet, the sword bore no wielder. It floated before the sorceress, the tip scratching where her throat bobbed.

Alone, half of Aisling’s face was clasped with an iron mask, burning her lips when she tried to scream. Iron fists clasped her hands, chained to the wooden walls surrounding her. She rocked from side to side, desperately trying to light herself on fire. Racat squirmed within, choking on its own flames, struggling to inhale and exhale the draiocht .

No longer was Aisling soaked, nor dressed in her night slip from Castle Yillen. Now she wore a homely, wool dress, patterned with Tilrish tartans at the waist and hem. It sparked with her magic, burning holes through the craftsmanship but failing to devour it in flames entirely.

The door at the far end of the room creaked open. Two eyes twinkled from the dark slit of the threshold, hesitating before entering. Normally, Aisling could’ve smelled or sensed whosoever watched her from the entryway, but no longer. The iron mask prevented her from experiencing or feeling anything other than its stench.

Slowly, once Aisling had settled, someone opened the door fully. From the shadows, a woman tiptoed into the room, chest rising and falling with unnatural fear. She considered Aisling for several minutes before revealing her face in the torchlight, at last, unveiling herself.

Clodagh, Aisling’s mother and queen of Tilren, stood before her.

Aisling froze. Her heart hammered inside her chest, painfully shoving at her ribs. She could scarcely breathe. Could scarcely believe this wasn’t some cruel deception, mirage, illusion on behalf of the Lady or Danu.

“Aisling,” she said. Aisling’s heart tightened painfully. Her mother’s voice cut bluntly through her—the rounded, common accent of Tilrish mortals made terrible by the sickly-sweet inflection of her mother’s tongue. Brutally familiar.

Aisling didn’t blink, blood-shot eyes glossing over with tears.

“Daughter,” Clodagh said, this time a little more confidently. “I hope you don’t mind, I wished to see you dressed in Tilrish garments one last time.” Clodagh gestured at Aisling’s woolen dress. “I wanted you to be buried this way as well. This is how you’ll be remembered, daughter.”

Aisling couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t move until Clodagh took a step toward her.

Aisling shuffled backward awkwardly, hissing beneath her iron mask. The chains clanked as she moved, pressing herself against the walls.

The phantom sword at her throat moved as she did, its tip never leaving her throat.

“Resist no further, daughter. The end is nigh,” Clodagh said.

Aisling’s insides exploded with fire, scalding her from the inside out. Smoke spilled from her ears and her tear ducts, clouding the room with her rage.

Clodagh gasped, shuffling backward. She met Aisling’s eyes for only a moment, and what she saw, Aisling knew not. Only that her mother gave a foul scream, and scratched at the door in panic to flee as quickly as possible.

Two men burst into the room. The first quickly grabbed Clodagh while the second immediately focused on Aisling.

Starn and Annind. Two of Aisling’s brothers.

Their dark, hawk-like eyes drank in the sight of their sister. But there was something else there now. A strange, dark fire brewing in their eyes and seeping from their lips like a dragún . This was the same unnatural magic Aisling had seen at Imbolc .

As if prompted, the phantom blade at her throat pushed against her flesh, summoning a stream of blood that trickled down the sorceress’s throat.

“What have you done to mother?!” Starn asked Aisling, his expression warped with a combination of both fury and fear.

Aisling jerked at the chains, pulling them till the nails in the walls groaned.

“Enough!” Starn yelled, the bridge of his nose as red as his ears. His eyes flared red—that unnatural magic glowing angrily. The phantom sword pressed harder. Aisling whimpered, closing her eyes the minute the blade punctured her flesh and wrenched a muffled cry from her blistered lips. And still, Starn did not relent. He continued toying with her, exploring how far he could push the blade until she died of either pain or gargling on her own blood.

“Is this how you treat your sister after so long?” another voice piped from the entryway. Aisling hadn’t heard them enter, but the moment she opened her eyes, she wished she never had.

Nemed, Fergus, and Iarbonel stood at the door, watching Aisling beneath hooded, empty eyes: her father and two other brothers. Their eyes shone cruelly, possessed by new spells that smelled of the Lady.

“It’s not my sister,” Starn spat, releasing the floating blade from his command. “It is a beast that’s crawled inside my sister’s skin and laid waste to mortal fleets. Innocent lives, gone at the cost of her ravenous, spoilt temper.”

“Patience. You’ll have your opportunity soon enough, Starn.” Nemed smiled, the horizontal scar across his face made more gruesome by the dancing shadows cast by the torchlight. He appeared much older than the day Aisling had last seen him. Like a stone, weathered and worn by the unforgiving winds of time. It was a satisfying sight to behold from the perspective of Aisling’s newfound immortality.

“Unlock her muzzle,” Nemed ordered. “I wish to hear her voice.”

Aisling’s clann exchanged glances. Her family. Her kin. Her blood…Aisling stopped her thoughts short. The sorceress’s heart still pumped with both the blood of man and fae alike. Yet, no longer was the last remnants of human blood in her veins her clann’s to claim. It was her own. These humans before her were not the same that’d raised and been raised alongside her. Everything had changed. Aisling was indeed the beast her brother described.

Starn cursed beneath his breath, but never would Nemed’s eldest son disobey his father’s commands. Cautiously, Starn approached Aisling and unclipped the mask. The iron contraption fell to the rocking floorboards, clattering as Aisling gasped for air.

“Release me or I will slaughter everyone aboard this galleon,” Aisling threatened, her voice laced with the lilt of Sidhe accents and wild, feral magic. A ripple of her draiocht pushed through the chamber and beyond, sending shivers down each of their spines.

“Your threats are empty,” Annind said. “You’ll drown alongside us if you cast your magic while still shackled to our ship.”

Aisling laughed. “Your knowledge of the fae is unsurprisingly lacking, brother. I’d remain chained to this ship for an eternity if it meant watching your ashes become lost to oblivion. For while I cannot withstand your iron shackles, nor breathe beneath the waves forever, my magic is sufficient to, at the very least, watch you die.”

Clodagh broke down weeping, trembling in Annind’s arms.

“So eager for the end,” Nemed said, pressing his lips into a thin line. “Where has your ambition gone?”

“Like an arrow to its target,” Aisling bit, more the image of a chained wolf than ever before.

Clodagh’s eyes caught onto Aisling’s fangs, sending her squealing like a piglet in fear.

“Calm down, daughter,” Nemed said, accentuating the word “daughter” to further provoke her. “You won’t need to claw for your life just yet. You’ll help us first.”

Aisling reeled, unable to mask her surprise.

“I’d rather you cut the curse breaker from my chest than aid either you, the mortals, or the Lady who lent you a pathetic morsel of her magic.” Aisling glared at the phantom sword Starn wielded. A replica of the blade he’d used against her, Lir, and Dagfin at Lofgren’s Rise. And if that wasn’t enough, they’d clearly been aided by the Lady to steal her from the Other and bring her here.

“Yet, cutting the curse breaker from you will do just that––the triumph of the mortals, at long last, over the fae. And thanks to the wystria , it’s finally possible,” Nemed said.

Wystria .

Aisling turned the word over in her mind. This was the magic the Lady had lent them. This magic that tasted not of plums or syrups but of bile and acid.

“Yet, there’s more I desire,” Nemed continued. “You, daughter, will give us more than the curse breaker. You’ll give us the entire fae world to burn. So tell me, Aisling, where is the gateway to the Other? Where is Leshy?”

Aisling hesitated, appraising her father anew. She’d assumed they’d wanted her head on a pike, the curse breaker clawed from within her, and the fulfillment of dark prophecies. Yet, once more, she’d underestimated her father’s ambition. Nemed would always want more. He not only shared her violet eyes but her thirst for power as well. More so than any other creature she’d met, fae or human.

And what’s worse, the Lady was clearly involved in the mortals’ schemes, tying her threads and knotting them again and again, working to fulfill her own visions.

“You’re mad,” Aisling said. “There is no Other. Yet, I’m surprised you’ve fallen for such hearthside tales.”

“So, your mortal blood still runs thick in your veins,” Annind said. “How effortlessly you lie.”

“Show us the gateway,” Starn ordered, readying his phantom blade once more. His eyes burned a darker shade of red. Aisling could feel the magic of the wystria clawing into the room like a guest itself.

“Or what, brother? You’ll kill me?” Aisling smiled wolfishly, her expression glittering with promised violence. Her clann would cut her regardless and so, their leverage was vanishing before their eyes.

Starn’s brows lowered, his face contorting madly.

“There are worse outcomes than death,” he said, stepping so close Aisling could smell the iron, ash, and mortal sweat on his tartans.

“If you won’t lead us to the Other, then there are others who will,” Nemed said. Her father gestured for each of her sons to approach the doorway. Clodagh was the first to vanish past the threshold, then Iarbonel and Fergus seemingly mute with fear, anger, or confusion, Aisling wasn’t certain.

“Let’s test the fae’s loyalty to you. Let’s see who comes for you first,” Nemed said, closing the door behind him.

He was toying with her. Nemed enjoyed these cruel games—hopefully, to a fault. Someone would come for her and Nemed would regret it. And if they did not come for her, then they’d come for the Forge.

The ship shook with her screams, smoking between the cracks in the floorboards and staining the entire galleon with her cries.