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CHAPTER V

AISLING

Beyond Annwyn’s gorge and past the oak tree meadows, grew a grove of willows. After Imbolc , Spring had arrived and the swaying branches flowered, dappling the blue pond beneath them in a confection of petals. The edges of the pond foamed and bubbled with lavender and indigo soaps. The water sprites that lived here were generous, always eager to share their lotions, their clay, and their perfumes with Aisling and Peitho when they’d come to bathe.

Gilrel stood watch just outside the veil of weeping leaves, blade at the ready.

“Turn over every stone until the Goblet is found,” Peitho said, running her fingers through Aisling’s wet tresses, careful to avoid the butterflies that crowned her.

“How will I know where to begin looking? I imagine the Other is vast—near limitless. Is it even possible to find that which was hidden by the gods themselves?” Aisling asked, Anduril’s metal growing hot at her hips at any taste of her draiocht waking with anticipation. Aisling hadn’t yet received an opportunity to test the belt’s effectiveness. It neither hummed nor rang. It neither glowed nor shone when Aisling summoned her draiocht . It was silent as if waiting for something. A fact which bred unease in Aisling.

“Most legendary objects enjoy discovery,” Peitho said, eyes flicking to Anduril at Aisling’s waist before swiftly turning away. “Half their power is born of its master’s attention and desire to wield. If you seek the Goblet, so, too, will it seek you.”

Aisling swallowed looking down at her nakedness—she was dressed in nothing but pond waters and Anduril, shimmering in the sprites’ soap bubbles.

“And how should the gods find me worthy then? Will they measure my worth by the hunt or the discovery of the Goblet alone?” Aisling asked.

“It’s up to the discretion of the gods,” Peitho said, her work effortless and graceful. “According to the Lore, Niamh was gifted the Goblet. But as for the gods’ favor?—”

“She found the Goblet once herself?” Aisling asked.

“Not quite. The gods lent Niamh the Goblet temporarily. She was allowed a single sip before the brother gods tucked the Goblet away once more, beyond even Niamh’s knowledge. My mother and father have little first-hand recollection. But the tales passed down from Lugh are remarkable,” Peitho said. “It’s said Niamh went in pursuit of the Goblet even after the gods had snatched it back and buried it in oblivion. It was in this search for the Goblet that Niamh first learned to bewitch her sword, Sarwen. The only reason she returned to her castle alive. No ordinary creature traverses the Other’s darkest corners without facing its wilderness nor the lesser gods it hides.

Aisling shifted.

“In that case, gods bless this belt,” Aisling said, aware she was no fighter nor swordswoman, and without Anduril, Aisling stood less of a chance of earning the gods’ favor.

Peitho, however, didn’t mirror Aisling’s relief. Instead, her cornelian eyes narrowed, and her lips pursed.

“You should remove that belt from time to time,” Peitho said, brows furrowing as she turned from Aisling.

“I want to familiarize myself with it and allow it to familiarize itself with me,” Aisling said, speaking her thoughts aloud for the first time.

Peitho’s expression flashed with horror before recovering once more. She smiled, but it never reached her eyes.

“Be careful with enchanted armor, weaponry, and tonics, Aisling. They aren’t to be used recklessly.”

“I treasure Anduril,” Aisling protested.

“That’s what concerns me,” Peitho said.

“Is this because Oighir stole Anduril from Niltaor?” Aisling asked, cutting straight to the point.

Peitho stuttered, taken aback but swiftly collecting herself.

“Aye, the history of Anduril is complex and far from agreed upon in legend,” Peitho confessed.

Anduril grew hotter, almost scalding Aisling’s hips whenever its name was spoken aloud.

“Tell it to me,” Aisling said, lifting her chin so the sprites could scrub down the length of her neck, her clavicle, and her shoulders while the butterflies pinned her dripping curls.

Peitho exhaled, muttering something in the divine language Aisling couldn’t quite understand.

“As with most magicked objects, Anduril was once ordinary,” Peitho began. “Anduril was a lover’s gift given to a trooping Sidhe of the wintertide court from the armor of Lugh. During the Wild Hunt, the lover returned the belt to Lugh hoping the token would breed good fortune for Lugh and Niltaor as a whole. At the time, Niltaor was a kingdom of gold—unconquerable. Until…” Peitho’s voice trailed off, her fingers toying with the suds falling down the angles of her tattooed arms.

“Until,” Aisling encouraged her.

“Until a dragún , Muirdris, was within reach and Lugh was driven mad by its proximity—its spear-tipped tail always just outside his grasp. Lugh grew obsessed with victory, with war, with the hunt, stopping at nothing to at last capture the dragún for himself and for Niltaor. And so, when he believed he could trap Muirdris within the confines of Niltaor’s walls as it feasted on his baited soldiers, he called upon the sun for every morsel of its blazing power in honor of the South.”

“Did it work?” Aisling asked.

Peitho nodded her head. “Aye. The skies turned black while Lugh drained the sun of its light. But its power went not to Lugh but rather Anduril, slung across his armor and reflecting the very light he sought for himself from the polished faces of the belt’s metal.”

“And so, Anduril became enchanted,” Aisling concluded.

“This is what the Sidhe refer to as scull draiocht . Magic that takes not from the breath but from the soul.”

Aisling repeated the name silently to herself.

“Some say Anduril wields the power of the southern sun,” Peitho continued. “Others claim it trapped Lugh’s spirit for eternity. The latter being why his lover claimed Anduril after his subsequent death, stealing and hoarding it in the North so they might be with Lugh in some capacity.”

Aisling turned to face Peitho.

“Lugh perished?” she asked.

Peitho exhaled. “No creature, man or Sidhe, is forged to carry such power. It is the pursuit of such might that has led to the fall of various men and Sidhe alike. And it’s the reason Niltaor is nothing more than rubble now—a ghost of its previous glory.”

Anduril pulsed with heat and for the first time since Aisling had clipped the belt to her waist, the Blood Cord hummed again.

“Have caution with Anduril,” Peitho warned again. “Creatures that cannot speak are masters of secrecy—others’ and their own.”

At this, Anduril winked, gleaming more brightly the longer Aisling considered it. Anduril would do what none other could: make a warrior of the sorceress. And so, secrets or not, Aisling couldn’t bring herself to remove it—even for a short while.

* * *

The Lady kissed Aisling’s cheek when she slipped into her bed chamber. Aisling slept before dinner, draped across pelts and quilts and lost to the world of dreams. So the Lady dug her nails into Aisling’s mind and scratched.

An iron blade speared a great tree. A river of blood spilled from the open wound as the tree swayed back and forth, screaming in agony and eager to lift its roots from the earth so it might run.

The tree managed to turn itself upright, daring a glance over its shoulder before it dove into the hollows of the greenwood once more. Its ancient eyes glimmered with fear.

Incorporeal, Aisling watched like a lesser god from above, stuck somewhere in between reality and the land of dreams, recognizing the beast immediately.

Leshy.

It made one, two steps before the blade flew once more. Soil was upturned, stones, leaves and debris showering the mortal as the tree walked on thick roots like writhing snakes. Needle-thin, the sword shot through the smoke-dense air, seemingly wielded by an invisible knight. But Aisling recognized both the sword and its master before either were near enough for the sorceress to see closely.

Starn followed his enchanted sword—one gifted by the Lady. A group of mortal knights followed shortly behind, heeding her eldest brother’s orders with impressive obedience. Eyes red with flame that spread wildly through the forest like hunting dogs. They climbed atop the writhing tree, poking the beast with their iron weapons, chains, and torches. A shadow of dark magic pressing down on the forest.

Their every movement was uncanny. Eyes bright with strange flame and teeth stained with soot. There was magic at work here. Something dark. Something wrong. Something stolen. Scull draiocht .

“Keep it alive!” Starn shouted to his men. “It cannot give us what we want if it’s dead.”

The tree flung itself to the side and the mortal men atop, including Starn, flew like ants across the forest. They groaned as they collapsed against the earth—some caught in trees.

“Again!” Starn shouted in a fit of coughs from the smoke. He staggered to his feet, bidding his blade dart for the tree once more. It swung its great body further into the forest, desperately trying to disappear. It moved quickly, awkwardly, roots and branches breaking as it shoved itself through the densest corridors of the greenwood.

Starn’s men pursued it, shouting at one another, but it was futile. Leshy moved quickly despite its injuries.

The tree left a trail of blood in its wake. Every droplet stank and steamed, but where it pooled on the forest floor from Starn’s violence, flowers, clovers, and fruit grew in its place. Vines bloomed from the blood and wrapped themselves around the limbs of prone mortals, eager to prevent more mortal destruction.

Still, Starn hunted Leshy, devoured by the forest as he sunk deeper into its depths in pursuit, his blade just ahead.

Aisling knew not what chaos her clann was brewing. Only that the Lady teased her with glimpses of their progress from time to time, eager to watch Aisling squirm.

* * *

For as long as Castle Annwyn remembered, sylphs haunted their passages. And the great hall was no exception. A sylph flew between branches tangled in the rafters and squeezed their berries between its fingertips. Juice dribbled down their fingers and into Aisling’s glass, the consistency of blood and the taste of seed-filled marmalades. The Seelie queen gulped until it stained her lips red. The sylphs above giggled, searching for another bottle to offer Aisling.

Galad and Gilrel sat on either side of her while Peitho and Filverel ate quietly further down the table. Two chairs left empty.

Their quiet was louder than usual considering the great hall wasn’t booming with music, the laughter of tipsy animals, nor the rustling of skirts and wings as the Sidhe danced till they were left breathless. Annwyn still mourned the tragedy of Imbolc —a celebration meant to herald life but that was now tainted with so much death. And what’s more, Lir requested this meeting be kept private, only inviting the members seated around the table. A request made after Aisling had learned that Lir visited Fionn in the dungeons.

Aisling nodded and the sylphs unstoppered the next bottle.

At long last, the entrance was pulled open by seven or so owls—ribbons in their beaks tied to the gold hoops embroidered along the doors’ edges.

Unceremoniously, Lir walked into the great hall.

The sylphs sucked in a collective breath, eyes of fog, glistening. And every clover, every bluethorn, every bat sleeping behind the beams and branches, perked up, buzzing with the presence of their sovereign.

“ Mo Damh Bán ,” Filverel said and the room pushed back their chairs to stand. All except Aisling who kept her eyes fixed on the Sidhe king, measuring his every gesture. She hadn’t seen him since they’d all spoken in the throne room the day following Imbolc . Lir was usually elusive, but when chaos unraveled—especially within his kingdom’s walls—he was a ghost vanishing from room to room, his attention demanded by everyone and everything.

Lir took his seat beside Aisling, a swarm of sylphs darting to be the first to fill his glass.

He glanced at Aisling. The moment their eyes met, Aisling’s heart ached. She realized she’d die of such pain if it meant waiting all her life to endure it again. Yet, something was different. Aisling could feel Anduril taking in the sight of the Sidhe king as well. The belt observed, watching and listening closely to the way Aisling’s heart raced in Lir’s presence.

“ Ellwyn .” Lir greeted Aisling, a playful smile brushing across his lips. Lips Aisling’s gaze lingered on a moment too long, for Lir’s smile grew wider, collapsing shortly thereafter when Anduril caught his attention, beaming from where it wrapped around Aisling’s waist.

Lir frowned but said nothing. Aisling felt Lir’s obsession with her as richly as she felt hers for him, and yet, Lir was still the nightmare legend spoken of around the hearth and creeping into the sweet dreams of children taught to fear the woodland and the wilds. He, the brutal, barbarian king of the Aos Sí––and no amount of lust, of want, of affection, of obsession could let Aisling forget it.

“Should we begin?” Filverel asked.

Lir leaned back in his seat, eyes flicking to the doors he’d just entered. The flowers released a collective “brr” as all attention centered on Fionn’s silhouette, Frigg a pace behind. Lir’s thorns were still tightly wrapped around Fionn’s wrists and Frigg’s muzzle.

Peitho huffed, crossing her arms. The rest felt similarly—perhaps having hoped that Lir had killed Fionn regardless of Aisling’s wishes—but none said a word as the son of Winter took his seat around the table. Silver eyes searching for Aisling’s and locking into place once they had.

“Now you can begin,” Fionn said as Frigg paced behind his chair. “Unless you’d like to remove these first.” Fionn raised his hands, gesturing toward the thorny shackles.

Filverel, instead, exhaled, exchanging glances with Peitho before, reluctantly, continuing. “Tonight, at the stroke of midnight, is Niamh’s own version of Imbolc : L? Brear .”

“The Isle of Rain’s welcoming of the storm season,” Gilrel explained to Aisling, stabbing her potatoes with her wooden fork.

“I’ve sent a message to Niamh and received a response just this morning,” Filverel said, reaching into his tunic’s breast pocket. The advisor pulled out a folded piece of parchment, its resplendent seal already cracked in half.

Aisling leaned forward in her chair, eyes locked on the letter.

“Word from the Other?” Aisling asked. Indeed, Niamh, the Seelie queen of the Isle of Rain, lived in the Forge’s realm.

“It isn’t often we communicate, considering all interaction with the Other is dealt in invitations,” Filverel explained. “But once a year, each Sidhe sovereign is invited to the Other for Niamh’s celebration. One of the only times of the year one can step into the gods’ plane and not be carried away by the Other’s death galleon. The second is Samhain , of course.”

“And the celebrations are always marvelous,” Peitho said. “The gowns, the music, Castle Yillen…” Peitho trailed off, eyes sparkling with memories.

Aisling perked up.

“So, why has Aisling received more than one invitation from Ina previously?” Gilrel asked. Ina, Lir and Fionn’s mother—the Seelie queen of the mountains and the reason for the existence of mortals.

“An answer I assume sits with Niamh,” Lir said, taking a sip from his goblet. Filverel and Galad nodded their heads in agreement.

Aisling’s brow furrowed. “What happened to those Sidhe who chose to return without invitation?”

“Those who snuck into the Other uninvited?” Gilrel clarified.

“They were fed to demons this plane knows not of,” Frigg growled. “Monsters your nightmares couldn’t fathom, but that roam the Other hungry for fleshling souls, sucking on bones and slobbering over rotting corpses.”

Aisling’s stomach knotted.

“He’s toying with you, mo Lúra ,” Fionn said, hissing something beneath his breath to Frigg.

“So, there are no monsters?”

“No, there are,” Fionn confessed and the pit in Aisling’s stomach deepened. “But no one knows what happens to those Sidhe who venture uninvited. Only that they never return. Most believe they’re either slaughtered by the gods themselves, boiled in the Forge, or, in my opinion, stuck between worlds.”

Stuck.

Aisling shuddered. “Then for what reason would Ina summon me to the Other in the past?”

Glances darted back and forth across the table, perhaps searching for the answers none bore. Indeed, Ina had invited Aisling on several occasions—the first being a few weeks after she’d first arrived in Annwyn: a garden snake had led her down Ina’s wing and revealed the previous Seelie queen’s fountain and portal to the Other.

“Ina was clever enough to hide Racat and thus, the curse breaker, in the den of the thief himself: Nemed, his utmost desire buried deep inside his daughter’s heart,” Galad said. “He who leads the race Ina created by accident from the bones of her very people.”

Both Lir and Fionn bristled.

“Surely she never anticipated he nor his son would be willing to carve such victories from the chest of their only daughter and sister,” Peitho rationalized.

“No,” Gilrel said, “she didn’t. Aisling is Ina’s gift from the gods by nature. She wouldn’t have ever subjected her to such a fate.”

It felt likely enough and yet, the uncertainty all felt toward Ina’s intentions vegetated in the room—stank until every nose wrinkled with the anxiety of the unknown. The inevitable fear of what they were willingly stepping into.

Lir cleared his throat.

“What does the letter say?”

The room’s attention returned to the parchment in Filverel’s hand.

The advisor unrolled the letter and pinned it to the table with an ivory knife.

When the days lengthen and the wildlings crawl from their slumber,

Woke by warm breezes, by berries, by nuts—your hunger,

They’ll come with the rain.

When the ice melts and the forest thaws, crying out in pain,

The clouds will gather and break,

And the seedlings will be slaked.

So I pray,

That you’ll come with the rain.

-Niamh-

Another invitation.

This time, one for everyone who’d read Niamh’s quill strokes.

The table exhaled, eyes darting back and forth across the parchment as though it hid more than a mere invitation. As though whatever trickery––real or not––would be exposed by glaring at the letter long enough.

“What does one wear to L? Brear on such short notice?” Peitho said, the first to break concentration.

“Whatever you choose. We’ll need to gather in Ina’s wing when the last star joins the night sky,” Filverel said.

“That’s not long from now.” Peitho stood from her seat, inspecting the cornelian embroidered gown she already wore—a garment far too humble for a celebration, especially by Peitho’s standards.

“That’s too soon,” Galad said. “We haven’t prepared. Haven’t planned?—”

“We ask for Niamh’s compliance,” Gilrel said. “It isn’t so complicated; so long as Niamh allows us the opportunity to earn the gods’ favor and, in turn, her Goblet of Lore, then our task—for the moment—is complete. At that point, we need only wait for whatever hoops she wishes us to jump through.”

“You drawl as though it’s simple,” Fionn said, setting his shackled wrists onto the edge of the table. “Niamh, now, is most likely curious as to our motives considering Lir’s and Aisling’s choices going forward will affect all the Sidhe whether they reside in the Other or in the mortal plane. That’s why she’s invited us. We cannot overestimate her affection for us. Especially as word of Imbolc ’s tragedy has no doubt already reached the Isle of Rain and other Sidhe might fear Lir’s and Aisling’s power.”

“It matters not. She’ll stand to help against the mortals,” Galad said.

Aisling looked down at her hands in her lap and then at Anduril, glowing softly as if listening intently. Lir’s eyes flicked to the belt, turning to slits as he considered it. And in response, Anduril seemingly growled at the fae king and his oppressive attention.

“Regardless,” the son of Winter continued. “Aisling and Lir shouldn’t be near one another at all unless absolutely necessary.”

Now Lir did move, grinning from ear to ear wolfishly. But it was absent of its playful nuance, filled to the bone with a cruelty that sent the sylphs above cowering.

“How convenient,” the dark lord said. “But I won’t be separated from Aisling.”

“Just until we obtain the gods’ favor and the Goblet,” Galad said, gesturing toward Niamh’s invitation.

“You agree with him?” Lir asked Galad, a glint of betrayal sweeping across his features before fading behind his facade once more.

Galad pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Your draiocht , together, is unpredictable, uncontrollable. Every touch between the two of you encourages whatever power your union bears. Until we better understand it, isn’t it wise to abstain from provoking it? Or at the very least, allowing it to mature when the fate of our worlds depends upon it?”

Lir cursed beneath his breath, seeming to dare a look at Aisling.

Anduril grew hot, warming Aisling’s flesh beneath her gown with an intensity she couldn’t understand.

Whatever Aisling and Lir’s union was, the mere mention of it sent Racat writhing inside her. Her draiocht , alive and humming to the potential of Lir’s whenever she was beside him. And touching him…every day the sensations, the magnitude of their connection grew, and a part of Aisling wondered if she could withstand it. Similar thoughts, Aisling imagined, ran through Lir’s mind as well.

And yet, there was something more. Something she desperately tried to untangle in her mind whenever the Sidhe king appeared in her thoughts. Anduril hummed more loudly, growing heavier at her hips.

“Very well,” Lir said to everyone’s surprise. Lir stood from the table and started toward the door. The room, the forest, the sylphs all staring after him and the night beyond, twinkling from the corridor’s balcony. A single star short from joining the moon’s procession; the time to leave was nigh.