• The Aisling
    A Small Part

    She felt a sharp pain in her heart as an arrow pierced deep into her back through her silver robes. It was easy to tell who had stripped her of her life. All over the faeriereich nobles and princes and princesses had been disappearing. This time it was the eldest of king Skern’s daughters. Skyréana Kyla de na Neamh, in human tongue it means Skyréana Strong Woman of the Sky, had long black hair and sky blue eyes. She had always been envied by her younger sister, Earnatha Bae-an de na Muir. Earnatha Woman of the Sea had pale skin, pale hair and dark frightening eyes. She was not a beauty like her older sister and had always hated her for it.
    Skyréana had been in the fid-nemith studying her dicetla when she was ‘killed’. As she lay in a heap on the ground, blue blood staining her workbook and robes, a pale girl with hate in her eyes stood over her.
    “Earnatha, how could you?” Skyréana wheezed.
    “Oh, you know what I’ve always wanted,” Earnatha said through her teeth, her voice filled with deadly spite. “Don’t play around with that ‘how could you’ crap! I’ve always lived in your shadow, never noticed by anyone. I killed you because I knew that you would get the throne when father died. The others I killed for practice and so that no one could blame me once you were gone. Now I’ll ‘mourn’ your death and speed up father’s.”
    Skyréana clenched her teeth and curled tighter as her wings dissolved from her shoulders and her sister smile wickedly. After a moment Earnatha began to blur and fade from view.
    “Goodbye, Skyréana!” she practically spat the name out like a rotten fig. After that Skyréana felt herself fade and she thought, I know what it is like to die now, and it isn’t at all comfortable. Earnatha, I’ll come back and have my revenge some how. For myself and for all the others you have murdered!