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CHAPTER LII

LIR

The forest called the Sidhe king to its lip before devouring him whole. He sank into the labyrinth, his every sense more alive and eager to explore the Other—his intimacy with Aisling, strengthening his draiocht in a way he’d never felt before. Had never experienced. He hungered for those feelings, for her, for their destiny together. He’d woken without Aisling, wondering where she’d gone. He’d wanted to stay and hold her. Touch her. Hear her voice and look into her eyes. But he knew better than to indulge in the future when they sat on the eve of war. He knew better than to hope for more, for goodness, when the second boot would always drop and violence would ensue.

It was the trees that told Lir where his bride fled. That she, dressed in shadows, sunk into the forest and wove through its depths beneath the light of the last storm moon. And so, he’d follow.

Lir’s heart drummed inside him. He paced the forest floor unable to sleep when war was approaching, twisting the rings on each of his fingers. He felt afraid. Terrified. He tasted the end of everything and all that consumed his mind was Aisling. Where was she? How was she? Where would she be when it was all over? It was happening more quickly than Lir was prepared for. His greatest fears on the brink of being realized by mortal makings.

He sucked on the sap of alder pines to calm his nerves when he couldn’t find her and still, his heart beat like the drums before blood was shed. And what’s more, the grin had contaminated almost everything, spreading like wildfire from the forest and into the meadows. An infection that took but never gave, leaving death in its wake. He saw its influence for miles and tasted its contagion in the sap of every tree he passed.

“Over there!” The trees called to him.

Through the branches, Lir saw a ghost. No, not a ghost. Two maidens racing through the forest like spirits in the night. Like banshees.

Aisling and Niamh raced on white stags. They cut through the trees, the forest bending and twisting to make a path for them both.

Lir’s chest seized, his hand wandering toward his heart.

Aisling’s beauty was poetry; a verse that both wounded and healed, staking you through the heart with unfathomable, unmistakable, and horrible recognition. She, a forbidden whisper, a confession, a bearing of the darkest depths of the soul.

Lir wasn’t certain how long he stared at Aisling as she raced, only that it wasn’t enough. For as soon as she was out of sight, his heart sank and his boots flew in the direction she fled.