“Aisling?” Lorcan asked quietly, holding the map in his hands and staring at her. “Are you certain you want to do this?”

No, a void inside her screamed. She wanted to go home, to return to Bran’s side, to forget this foolish adventure that might very well end in her death or possession. She wanted to go back to the way things were. Flawed and strange they certainly were, but they had a life. And a life was better than nothing at all.

She blew out a breath, stood, and nodded. “Yes, I’m ready.”

“The questing beast was right,” he said and pointed at the map. “The edge that was missing is there now. She’s just over the rise.”

“And she’s waiting for me.”

“No. I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to make certain she has no idea where we are.”

Aisling shook her head in denial. She could feel it on the wind, the way her hairs raised on her arms, like someone was constantly watching her. Carman was here. More than that, she knew exactly where Aisling was and what she was planning on doing.

No one could sneak up on a woman who was a witch queen. Just as they could not sneak up on Aisling.

A surge of power jolted through the rope around her wrist. It was familiar energy, one she had not expected to feel during this journey.

Fingering the edge, she smiled and whispered a prayer to her grandmother. The ancients had found Bran, so it seemed. Whatever magic they could give her, she hoped it would be enough once she walked over the rise and found whatever Carman had waiting for her.

Lorcan stood and let the map drop to the ground. A cool breeze picked it up, flipping it over and over until the magic disappeared from the page and it was nothing more than an aged piece of vellum once more.

“Something feels wrong,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t. It just feels like you hadn’t planned this far, and now you don’t know what to do or what to expect.” She stepped forward, placed a hand on his cheek, and smiled up at him even though she felt fear freezing her heart. “We cannot control what is going to happen, Lorcan. Not to us, not to the world. We can spin the wheel of fate and watch it turn.”

“I don’t want to risk your life,” he said quietly. His gaze drifted away from hers, staring down at the ground with her hand still on his face. “I thought this would be easier in the end. That I would feel more confident, but…”

“I know,” she whispered. “This is something I have to do.”

“We could disappear, you know. Go back to the human realm where she can’t find you, start our life all over again. We’ve done it before. We could do it again.”

Aisling pondered the thought for a moment. It would be so easy to leave, to let this world fall back into the hands of Carman and simply exist with the curse. Was being a swan really all that bad?

Then she remembered the faces of the sluagh, their hopeful gaze and the way they reached out to touch the edge of her skirts every time she passed. They loved her, and more than that, they depended on her. She couldn’t leave them.

“No,” she said. “We can’t. We’ve moved so far past that.”

“I don’t know how much I can help you now.” He swallowed hard and pulled away from her. “I’m no soldier, but I will try.”

She tried to imagine Lorcan fighting with anyone, but could only think of the times he had as a cat. They’d gone rather splendidly well. The element of surprised helped him far more than he gave himself credit for.

Aisling had never asked him how many lives he had left, although she doubted it was really that many. Nine lives. That’s all a witch had, and she wasn’t willing to risk anymore of his. Not for her. Not for a witch who would undoubtedly try to kill him.

“You won’t have to try at all,” she replied. “This is the first time I don’t need you by my side.”

“If you think for one second I’m letting you go in there alone—”

“That’s not your choice.” She lifted her hands and cast a quick spell that locked his legs. Lorcan let out a shout of anger before she tightened her grip on his mouth as well.

Aisling caught him as he listed to the side and gently guided him to the ground. He glared at her with wide eyes, but there was nothing he could do now. She’d used a witch’s prison, perhaps a cruel fate. Any other witch could unlock him. Bran would have to find one, and would, if things didn’t go as she planned.

She patted his shoulder. “You’re going to be fine. And I’m going to be fine. Trust me.”

The anger that burned in his glare suggested that he didn’t. Aisling stood up and shook her head, then turned and made her way over the rise.

She didn’t want him to see the tear dripping down her cheek. She had to have more control than this. Right now wasn’t the time to let her emotions get the better of her.

Still, her mind seemed hyper focused on all the good things that had happened to her. How much she loved Bran, how all her people had supported her, that even Lorcan would give up another life just to see her happy and safe.

Did she deserve them? Sometimes, she thought she didn’t. Other times, like now, she thought that perhaps all the good things she’d done in her life were coming back to her. She wanted to help people, had never given up on them, even when they threw rocks and sticks to harm her. Now?

Now she had people who loved her and would never, ever want to see her hurt. That was a blessing, and she’d lived a good life to find them.

Stones shifted underneath her feet, and she pulled herself up and over the small hill. At the peak, she stared down into the valley below where a monster lay in wait.

A mausoleum stood before her, supported by smooth pillars and made out of an obsidian so dark it seemed to absorb the light. It wasn’t a prison, as she had suspected.

This was a tomb.

She slid down into the valley, shocked at how large the building was. Everything else in Underhill was smaller, simple, and showed the cracks of time. Not a speck of dirt or dust marred the outside of Carman’s tomb.

The signs of travel stained her linen pants and plain white shirt stolen from Lorcan’s pack. When she stepped onto the ebony stairwell leading into the square monolith, her footprints remained in chalky, white earth. She refused to feel shame for her appearance. She had worked hard to get here, and if that required a little dirt to do so, then she would wear it with pride.

She reached the top of the stairs and looked upon the door, three men high. No carvings adorned its surface, no words to confirm this was the final resting place of Carman. Instead, it was as smooth and dark as the rest of the building. As if the door wasn’t there at all.

Aisling lifted her hand and placed it on the cold surface, fear slithering up her arm and digging claws into her heart. This was it. She could still turn back. She could still leave and find her old life.

She pushed hard, and the door opened without a sound.

For a moment, it seemed as though she stared into an abyss. There was nothing in the darkness beyond. Nothing but the absence of light with something deep inside that stared back at her.

A grating echo of stone against stone rocked through the mausoleum, and a small square appeared on the ceiling. A beam of moonlight speared down and filtered through the impossibly high room. It landed on the shoulders of three stone giants, each frozen in time. One held a bow, one a spear, and the other lifted a sword above its head, unable to bring it down on the enemy.

The light moved past them and finally settled on a figure crumpled at the feet of the stone giants. Two chains held her arms stretched out taut at her sides, her back to Aisling. Her head dangled limp, staring at the ground.

Aisling’s eyes gradually adjusted. She remained where she was, taking in all the details that she could find. No one spoke, although she was certain they knew she was there.

This was the great Carman, the witch who had nearly destroyed all of Ireland, and she remained here, hidden in Underhill, while all others thought she was dead.

She wore a white gown, and that started Aisling. Why white? Why something that spoke of innocence when she might have worn something dark instead?

All the paintings Aisling had seen of Carman placed her in dark fabric. She was something that came out of the night, a creature no one saw until it was too late. But here, they allowed her to remain in something virginal, even at the feet of her sons.

When Aisling stepped forward, the sound reverberated through the hall. No torches lit her way. No goblins or familiars appeared to guide her to their mistress. Even the witch queen herself remained silent as Aisling made the long walk down the hall.

Darkness crept into her vision. It seemed that even the shadows moved with a mind of their own here. They weren’t like the sluagh. They didn’t reach out for her, or seem to be individual creatures at all.

Aisling stretched out a hand to let one touch her. An electric feeling danced along her fingertips and then the shadow disappeared, leaving behind nothing more than a smudge of ash. Magic. Pure magic that swirled in the shadows like a wind.

So that was how they had imprisoned her. It wasn’t just chains; it wasn’t a curse. They had placed her in a tomb filled with magic to bind her.

She paused ten paces behind Carman, somehow not able to move forward.

What did one say to a witch queen? How could she ever say the right words that expressed how horrifying this fate was but also demand Carman remove the curse she had started?

Before Aisling could speak, Carman herself slowly lifted her head. “So, you have finally come.”

The witch had gumption, but Aisling had known she would be arrogant. Weren’t they all?. “I take it you were expecting me?”

“I’ve been watching you since you stepped foot in Underhill. I could feel you, and I’ve been calling you to my side ever since.”

Gods, she didn’t want to hear that. She didn’t want to know that Carman had found her so easily. There were suddenly a thousand questions rocketing through her mind, all questions she shouldn’t be focusing on. She should order the witch to remove the curse immediately.

But she couldn’t.

Carman’s voice sounded so familiar, like the whistle of a lark and the quiet burble of a creek. Even more than that, it somehow sounded exactly like the voice of her mother.

Magic was at work here, and even Aisling couldn’t part through the web that tangled her mind. Carman had ensnared her already. She could tell. She couldn’t do anything to pull herself away from the stickiness of the witch’s control.

“Come around me, child,” Carman said. “There is a stone step in front of me. The Tuatha de Danann used to visit more often than now. Sit and let us speak.”

Aisling’s feet moved of their own accord. They carried her the remaining paces, her body sat down on the obsidian block, and she stared into the eyes of the first witch queen.

Carman was beautiful. Eyes so dark they appeared black, a heart-shaped mouth, and hair as white as snow. The long length touched the ground, smooth and straight as a waterfall.

The witch queen smiled at her. “You look so very much like my sister.”

“Pardon?” Aisling replied. “What do I have to do with your sister?”

“As much as you have to do with my curse. Magic has a price that witches don’t like to admit. One cannot simply have all the power in the universe and not expect it to snap back at us like a rope. You have the eyes of my sister, the face of my mother, and the knowledge of all my grandchildren.” Carman shifted, and the chains on her hands rattled. “I didn’t think you’d look quite so much like her.”

“Why?” The question burned Aisling’s tongue. “Why do I look like her?”

“Because you are her descendent. I took away everything from her, and to spite me, she passed down her magic and her line through generations that I could no longer control. I couldn’t kill her, you see. She was still my blood. And now, so are you.”

Aisling shook her head, hands twisting in her lap. “I’m not your blood.”

“You are. I couldn’t find your little familiar because that magic hid him from me, but you? I’ve always been able to find you, Aisling.”

“The Raven Queen’s curse?”

“Only applies when my sister gets too close to all that I will never let her have.”

“Why?” Aisling asked, the words blurting out of her mouth so powerfully she felt the chains of Carman’s magic loosening. “Why would you curse your sister? Why would you hurt someone who meant so much to you?”

“Did she really mean that much?” Carman’s eyes welled up with tears, and Aisling didn’t know if she could believe that Carman was affected at all.

How could a creature like this, who had doomed not only her sister but all in her sister’s line, care at all? Those were the actions of a person who did not care what happened in the future. Not someone who would feel regret or remorse.

“She was your sister, yet someone who meant enough to you to curse. She must have hurt you if you reacted in such a way, which means yes. She did mean that much.”

“You see much for a witch whom the world has forgotten,” Carman said, her voice deepening. “My sister meant something, yes. But so did the man she stole from me. So did the life she took that should have been mine.”

“And now you’re here,” Aisling replied. “Now you will spend the rest of your existence in chains because you could not bear to see another where you wished to be.”

“It must seem as though I’m a monster to you.”

Of course, it did, Aisling wanted to shout. No one was so petty, so disgusting that they would try to end the world just because a man spurned her. She opened her mouth to say just that when Carman let out a soft laugh and shook her head.

“No,” the witch queen said, “don’t say those words just yet. Would you not have done the same for your Raven King? Would you not destroy the world if someone tried to take him from you?”

She tried to lie, but the words stuck on her tongue and burned her throat. Aisling couldn’t even shake her head. The curse of faerie truthfulness prevented her from responding at all. Instead, she glared at Carman and hoped her eyes portrayed her anger.

“You see?” Carman asked. “We are not so different after all.”

“I would never do what you have done.”

“And yet you are here, risking everything just to see if you can break a curse that turns you into a swan during the day. There are many more things a queen could be doing, so many more you could help. Instead, you’ve decided to run away from them all for a selfish quest. Are you so certain you wouldn’t walk in my footsteps if our stories were the same?”

No, she wasn’t, and that made Aisling’s stomach twist in knots. Vomit rose in her throat, threatening to project from her lips across the room. She shook her head firmly. “Take away the curse, Carman.”

“Why should I? You’ve already made your mind up about me. You already want to condemn me as a beast, a monster, a creature who is worth no help at all.”

“I want to be free,” Aisling replied. “You’ve cursed your sister, and her life was forfeit. The curse ends with me.”

“No, the curse ends when I sit on the throne that was promised to me.”

“You will never sit on my throne.” Aisling’s words rang in the chamber, bouncing off dark walls and reflecting back upon them a thousand-fold. Over and over again, her voice proclaimed the same declaration.

And though it should have made Carman flinch or feel fear, the witch queen simply smiled.

“Why do you think I called you here, Aisling? Did you think it was because I wished to see my sister’s visage again? Or perhaps because I wanted to see just how powerful Badb’s progeny was?” Carman chuckled. “No, my dear. I called you here because we are the same person, and because you have no other choice but to do exactly as I say.”

“I will not.”

“You will, though you won’t like it.”

Aisling swallowed hard. The determined set of Carman’s jaw suggested the witch knew something that Aisling didn’t. That did not bode well.

She shifted on the stone only to feel dark magic tighten around her ankles and force her to stay still. “What is it that you want?”

“We will join together, you and I. A shared body but two, powerful minds that can rule Underhill the way it should be ruled. By strong women who will no longer allow anyone to tell us how the world should look.”

The breath rushed from Aisling’s lungs. “You want to possess me.”

“Yes.”

“Never,” she said, shaking her head vigorously. “I would never let you violate my mind and my body in such a way.”

“You don’t really have a choice, Aisling.”

“Of course, I do. This is my body and my people. You are locked up in chains, or have you not looked around you recently? This is your world. And you will never, ever get out.”

Carman cocked an eyebrow, and Aisling knew there was far more to the witch than she understood. “The questing beast told you I was connected to the land, didn’t he? That’s what his purpose is in that maze. If someone is searching for me, they always end up in his labyrinth. He waits for someone just like you so that he can tell a little story and decide whether or not he wants you to meet me.”

When Aisling didn’t respond, Carman smiled.

“You see, Aisling, there’s so much more to this story than you know. I am connected to Underhill; I am Underhill. And if you don’t allow me to possess you and take back my throne, then this land will continue to die. More and more of the sluagh will fall to madness, and you will have to kill them over and over again until your little mind snaps in half like a twig underneath my heel. You’d be smart to just let me rule them.”

Aisling couldn’t imagine what Carman would do to this land. Already, she drained it of power and tried her best to destroy the world just for a petty hatred that was centuries old. What would she do with a throne and with all the power that the name of queen could provide?

She shook her head again. “No, I’m not willing to risk what the future might hold with you as the queen. The land might rot away into ruin, but at least the people who are here will still be happy and alive. I cannot promise them that if you are ruling this body. I know damned well that you will push me aside. It won’t be me. I won’t have any say over what we do or how we do it.”

That future was far worse than what they were currently suffering. Aisling would gladly sit on this stone staring at her great great aunt without ever returning home if that meant that her people would live. She would do it for the rest of her life.

She had promised the sluagh they would be accepted and loved. In no timeline would she ever give up so easily just because a witch queen threatened her.

Aisling gritted her teeth, muscles bouncing on her jaw, and stared back at the witch who looked at her with a calculating expression.

Carman was thinking. Aisling could see the gears turning in the witch queen’s mind, and of course there would be another barrage of information that was meant to tear her down.

“Shall we speak of your lover then? I stole the first Raven King away. Do you think I wouldn’t do it to him as well? I haven’t cursed him yet, you know. I loved the first far too much to hurt him even more than I already did, and then those who came after him were already beasts. But yours?” Carman smiled. “Yours is kind, he has a good heart, and one that is easily swayed.”

“He doesn’t. He’s the most loyal man I have ever met.”

“That’s because you’re a witch and naturally people despise you, distrust you, think that you are little more than a shadow in the night sent to steal their soul. But he’s a man, darling, and easily swayed. Even now, he journeys with your sister because she thinks she wants to save him.

“What do you think, little witch?” Carman let out a laugh that was both evil and sad. “What if I turn your sister’s heart just a little bit, back to where it was so many years ago when she first caught your Raven King’s eye? Perhaps that’s the difference in our story. Your sister met him first, and he fell in lust then. Maybe that was where I went wrong all those years ago. Regardless, if I turned back the wheel of time just a little bit, your sister would fall in love with him again.

“Do you think she would sway him? Do you think he would turn his gaze from you the moment she allowed him the time of day?”

Aisling swallowed the beginning of panic. “No.”

“You seem to think that, but I’m not sure if your tongue just curled in on itself. Perhaps you don’t entirely believe that he is so loyal to you? Men are not loyal, my dear. They see something they want and they take it. That is our history and our path to walk. If you don’t believe me, just look at all the other women who have fallen in love with the wrong person who tore their heart out of their chest.”

The fire in Carman’s eyes made Aisling’s burn as well. She knew what she meant, but it wasn’t a disbelief or blind eye that she turned toward Bran. “You misunderstand me, witch queen. I say ‘no’ even if you turn him from me. You may take my lover and my sister from my side but I will always walk with the sluagh, the dearg due, the dullahan, the beasts that have been disgraced by their families. I have survived loss before, and I will survive it again. Take everything from me. Do it. I will still stand by those who others think are nothing because I, too, have been called nothing, and they will never suffer as I did again.”

Once more, her words rang true and clear in the mausoleum. Carmen thrust her hands toward Aisling in a moment of pure rage, her chains rattling like air in dying lungs. Aisling had never seen anything like it before.

The woman moved as though she hated Aisling. As though every fiber of her being couldn’t help but reach for a throat that she wanted to tear out with claws that suddenly grew from her fingertips.

Arms stretched taut, muscles straining, Carman still reached for her, but then sagged on a breath, as though she had given up entirely. Her head hung limp, swaying even as her body listed to the side.

And for the first time since entering the tomb, Aisling felt a small twinge of pity in her heart. This woman was once the most powerful witch to ever exist. The world bent a knee to her and her sons who could have destroyed everything if they wished, and they almost did.

Now, she was little more than a sad excuse for a woman, holding onto life by a thread of anger and hatred that she couldn’t let go. If Aisling hadn’t found Bran, if she hadn’t had Lorcan in her life to guide her, this was where she might have ended up, allowing hatred to overwhelm her, to swallow her whole. She was infinitely glad that the world had pitied her, had given her more than just a sister who betrayed her and sons who died in front of her eyes.

Aisling reached forward and touched a finger to Carman’s chin, lifting the witch queen’s head. “I am sorry, for what it’s worth. This life that you lived was not one that should have been. Now, I need you to lift my curse.”

Carman sagged, tilting her head into Aisling’s touch. “Don’t you feel them?”

“Who?”

“All the people we’re letting down? I didn’t do all this for my sister. That was never the plan. I was going to destroy the world regardless of my sister and the Raven King.” When she looked up, tears slid down her cheeks. “You and I walked the same path. The witch who was cast aside from her family, who grew up in the gutter and desired nothing more than to live the way everyone else did.”

Aisling shook her head. “You aren’t going to distract me with pity. I know this is not a life someone should have, but I don’t agree the only way to fix it is to destroy it.”

“You are so young. You haven’t even tried all the things that your magic can do. You haven’t looked into the future with tarot cards, let alone dove into the blackness that is your soul. I looked into our future and saw death.”

Her breath caught in her lungs. Aisling had heard other witches say the same thing. They dreamed in fire and felt the tightening of a noose long before they were ever caught by another person. She’d heard it before, understood the fear and the anger. But she knew what these visions were.

She smoothed her thumb over Carman’s cheek. “Death walks beside you, witch queen. Perhaps you should allow him to guide you far from this place.”

“It’s not death,” Carman replied with a sinister laugh. “I ripped open the veil of time. I reached forward to all the powerful witches and women who were, are, and will be. Every single one of them that died a horrific death at the hands of men who could never understand them. I promised them a queen who would lead them from the shadows and guide them into the light. And that queen, of course, was me.”

A shiver traveled down Aisling’s spine. Magic pressed her forward, closer to Carman, until her chin rested on the witch queen’s shoulder. “Unchain me, child, and together we will save not only your faeries but all the witches who need us.”

“No,” she said in a whimper, struggling against the magic that would not release her.

Carman pressed her lips against Aisling’s ear. “Then feel their pain.”

A rushing wave of sensation poured from the witch queen through Aisling’s senses. Anguish unlike anything she’d ever felt in her life threatened to overwhelm her. Her back arched, forcing her closer into Carman’s arms.

Where were the chains? But she only had a moment to even consider it before she was overwhelmed again. Hatred, pain, sadness, all emotions she’d felt before but somehow couldn’t recognize because they were infinitely more painful than she had ever felt in her short life.

Aisling couldn’t think. She could hardly breathe through the emotions that swallowed her own until she couldn’t tell where she started and they began.

“Feel them,” Carman’s voice whispered in her ear. “Feel the witches whom you are denying happiness, peace, and contentment. It is their lives you are destroying, not just those of the faeries.”

Aisling gritted her teeth and moaned through the pain. She refused to believe these words. They were just a story that Carman was telling her. Pain was easy to replicate. Emotions were simple to manipulate. She would not bow to the witch who wanted her to fall at her feet.

Lips pressed against her ear, words tumbled from a honeyed tongue, “Lilith, the first of us and the one who was killed by her own god for being too much of a woman. She died alone and in pain, and the darkness devoured her.”

Spikes of pain shot down her spine like someone had ripped wings from her back. Aisling flinched forward, shoulder blades flexing, trying to get away from the burning ache.

“Pandora, too beautiful and too curious for her own good. She opened a box full of secrets and knew them all as no woman was ever meant to know. They locked her away, but she can’t die. They gave her immortality so that she would forever know what it felt like to be alone.”

Sadness, an aching desire for love, burst through her chest and forced tears from her eyes. She wanted someone, anyone, to love her, if even for a few moments. Please, god, don’t let her be alone anymore.

“They called her witch but her name was Hecate, mother of the moon, goddess of magic, and she gave us all the power that we desired and they burned her. You’ve felt the flames before, and you know the pain she felt as she stood on that stake and watched all the people who professed to love her watch and laugh.”

Aisling felt the flames on her legs again, but this time there was no Unseelie to save her. The skin of her legs peeled back in the wake of pain so profound no words could ever describe it.

“Cleopatra and Helen, the most beautiful women to ever live. They weren’t even witches but simply knew what it meant to be powerful because they were beautiful. They made men bend a knee before them, and because of that, they were murdered with a knife between their breast. They stared up at the stars and begged for someone to save them, but no one wanted to.” Carman’s lips pressed against her ear again, leaving a kiss that scorched her to the bone. “They ravaged their bodies before they buried them because beautiful things were meant to be possessed and not exist without the bruises left by a man’s hand.”

Aisling shook her head, trying to shake free from the ancient sadness that came not only from her magic but also her sex. “Stop.”

“Morgana le Fay, Joan of Arc, Tiamat, Circe, Medusa, women over the ages who will be born, were born, lived and died, because you will not help them. We can rip through the fabric of time and spare them the pain, the harm, the destruction of their minds and bodies. You are denying them this life.”

“Enough!”

Aisling’s words shattered through the magic that Carman held her with and blasted through the mausoleum. Obsidian stone tiles rained down on them from the ceiling and cracked against the skull of one of her sons.

A deep groan rattled within the frozen giant. He shifted, breaking through the spell that held his hands still, but then paused when magic took hold once more.

Aisling stumbled back from the witch queen, tripped over the stone tablet behind her, and landed hard on her back. She stared up at the light filtering from the ceiling and tried to remember where she was.

She lifted a hand to the blackness, hoping that her eyes might focus on something closer, but she couldn’t distinguish her own body from the darkness. The eye on her palm blinked, then bled out until all she could see was more darkness, pain, and hurt.

Where had she gone? Her body was there, she could feel it, but it wasn’t. Not even the fingers she knew so well. Just a lingering shadow that sometimes moved when she looked at it.

The memories of the women in her bloodline and those that simply shared a soul with her called out from beyond. Some had already met their demise in the branches of the hanging tree, others knew they were headed there, while some hadn’t even breathed their first breath.

There were thousands of them. Women who would be hated no matter how much they tried to explain their worth. Women who would always be seen as nothing more than dangerous.

The soft sound of a sigh filled her ears, and Carman whispered, “How were you to know, child? Poets will sing for ages of women limp on the end of a spear. Our journey in life always ends in a river of tears we weep for each other, our children, those we love, and they say there is nothing we can do to stop the tidal wave. I say there is.”

“Eternal glory is not worth the price of blood,” Aisling said, her tongue thick and sticking to the roof of her mouth. “What will you do when we all burn at the pyre? When there is nothing left of us but ashen bones?”

“Then I will remind them there are always grandchildren of witches who burned. That magic passes not through blood but through a desire to see change. I see into your heart, Aisling, and know you understand. We are not just women; we are witches. We will pull ourselves on bellies through hardship, we will crawl through pain, and we will rise with rage and devour all those who stand in our way.”

Something in her mind broke. All the weight she carried on her shoulders as a woman, as a witch, pressed down upon her soul until she shattered into a million pieces at the feet of a witch queen who wanted to stop it all.

“What do you want me to do?” she whispered, shifting until she knelt before Carman.

Carman stared down at her and smiled softly. “We will destroy everyone who stands in our way. But there are many who are gods, who fear our power, what we can do. And there is only one way to kill a god.”

“How?”

“With another god. Strip the ichor from their veins, drink it, and let it slide down your throat until you are more than they could ever be.”

Sadness made her shoulders heavy. Her fingers felt fragile and weak as she reached out and touched the chains that held Carman prisoner. They fell from the witch queen, who reached out and took Aisling in her arms.

Carman pet her hair, smoothing the dark locks down her shoulders to her waist. “You’ve made the right choice, my child. Now finish it.”

Aisling looked down at the rope around her wrist and saw it for what it truly was. A witch’s ladder. A spell impossible to break other than by death itself.

She knotted two more loops, fingers shaking. “By knot of eight, I accept my fate. By knot of nine, what’s done is mine.”