Page 108 of Stolen Crown

But I knew it was not all true.

Orla was here. She was unconscious but she lived.

I needed to be brave now. Courage was like a sheet of water falling off the edge of a waterfall. It would be cold, but it would protect me from the hellfire outside that was Lady Queill.

“No,” I said.

The images went away as quickly as they had come. I had done it. I had succeeded in resisting Queill’s mind magic.

I got up.

There were only a few paces between us.

I would stop her.

She couldn’t touch Orla.

Not when I was here to protect her.

“Hold her,” Lady Queill said calmly.

I looked over my shoulder to see four guards enter the corridor we were in. I made a move to get away to reach Orla before they could catch me, but the stone moved underneath me again, making me stagger.

Falling, I tried to reach the soldiers using my magic, but Lady Queill blocked me from them with a single thought sent our way.

She was in my mind. She knew everything I did, before I did them.

“You cannot stop this, princess,” she said, her lips cornering with a vicious smile. “It’s over. And I have other places to be.”

I screamed as the soldiers grabbed my arms and stopped me before I could attack Lady Queill.

Chapter 24: Feremir

As I rushed to the great hall, I was trying not to think.

The smells of food and sounds of talking reached me before I turned the last corner. But I wasn’t hungry.

I stepped into the great hall, my eyes searching the crowd.

I found her at the very end of the hall, with a plate of food in front of her that seemed long forgotten. Her face was buried in a book, and her eyes were so intensely locked on it that she didn’t notice me even as I was standing right beside her.

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