Page 82 of The Realm That Falls to Her

The General looks uncomfortable at the idea. “How is that possible?”

“I only saw a glimpse of your time in battle,” I say, trying to reassure her. “I think with objects that carry some magic from its owner, like your family’s weapons, the item becomes linked to them. The metal ‘remembers’ some of what it witnessed while channeling the owner’s magic. With my magic, I can then access that memory.”

I place the necklace in my palm and close my fingers around it, calling on my magic.

It happens quicker than I expect. One moment I’m standing in the chamber with the other fae, then I’m watching a whirligig of images flicker before my eyes, moving too fast for me to decipher. This cannot all be one vision; Jorna must be more authentic a seer than I thought.

I try to search for Evanthe, directing my magic to find the memory I particularly want to read. The problem is, I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, and there’s so much here—an endless stream of present stretching into the future. For a moment, I think I even see my own face staring back at me, but the image is whipped away, and other details elude me. Perhaps it’s a good thing. Being inside Jorna’s head is overwhelming. The thought makes me more sympathetic towards her. I know a little of what it’s like to have a connection to something so vast. For me, it’s ancient seams of metal buried deep in the earth. For her, it’s time.

At last, I spot a flash of Evanthe’s cruel green eyes and focus in on it. They stare back at me, unblinking, and I see there’s a reflection in the shine of her irises—a glimpse of what she’s looking at. As I squint to try to make it out, the vision expands, and I gasp.

Evanthe is stood on what looks like a pile of ash. The pale flakes are picked up by the harsh wind, but as they blow past my face, I see the fragments have shapes I recognize. They used to be leaves and petals, but the plants are so bleached that when I reach my finger out to touch them, they disintegrate into dust. I turn and look out across the plain Evanthe is surveying. Skeletal structures reach up towards a gray, empty sky—rows and rows of them, white as bone. The trees of the Emerald Forest, I realize with a start.

An animal winds its way between them, so emaciated that at first I don’t realize what it is. It’s when I see the cracked, crumbling horn that I realize it’s a unicorn. I can count its ribs, its skin stretched over jutting bone. It stumbles, and falls, not even whinnying as it goes down, and hits the ground with a quiet thud. Its side stills. Dead.

Evanthe smiles.

I jolt back to reality, dread settling in my stomach, as cold as the world I’ve just seen.

“She destroys it all. There’s nothing left,” I say, horror choking my voice. Nothing could survive in such a place. I hand the necklace back to Jorna like it burns to touch, and she meets my gaze, giving me a solemn nod. She knows what I saw. She’s come all this way to share it.

“That is what the Seelie Kingdom will become under her reign,” Jorna says. “I knew that if this was our fate under her rule, I had to do something to stop it.”

“She wants to punish the kingdom,” I explain, looking to the Sunshards; they should know this too. “She believes that if she purges it of everything the Seelie value—everything that’s beautiful, vibrant, and lush—she’ll rid it of its flaws too. The decadence and greed for power.”

“She blames these, and her gentle way of ruling in the past, for enabling the attack on her,” Ruskin finishes.

The Sunshards exchange a look.

“That explains some of what we saw at the Seelie Court, then,” says General Sunshard.

“What do you mean?”

“The ruler we saw at the palace was not the queen we remembered,” says Halima’s father. “Her approach to leadership—the fairness and diplomacy she was famed for during her first reign—are gone. She is more lenient with the High Fae, at least for now, but the treatment she’s allowing of the rest of Seelie shocked us.”

“You mean the servants?” I say with grim realization.

“Inside and outside the palace. Both the Low Fae and the humans. We are aware their status has never been equal to the High Fae, but there is an extreme level of disdain for them in the Seelie Court lately. Many of the High Fae have even taken to hunting their servants as in the old days, and all the while Queen Evanthe says nothing about it.”

“That’s what happens when you free Cebba’s friends and let them do whatever they want,” I say bitterly. “Her indulgence won’t last forever, though. She plans to destroy them too, in the end.”

“But not yet. She still needs the High Fae,” Ruskin points out. “She’ll happily let them do what they want until she has her High Queen power back. What difference does it make to her what damage they cause, if she’s going to burn it all to the ground anyway?” he says, his expression dark.

Halima’s father clears his throat.

“In truth, Your Majesty, we do not come without an agenda ourselves.”

Ruskin raises an eyebrow, and Jorna’s alarmed gaze darts back and forth between her traveling companions.

“Oh? And what is that?” Ruskin asks.

General Sunshard jumps in. “Your Majesty, we didn’t know whether we could trust you with information of plans to overthrow your mother.”

“You mean there are still some Seelie who want to rebel against her?” I ask, excited. “That’s good news.”

“Rebel is the right word,” says General Sunshard. “The servants of the castle, and their Low Fae peers beyond it, have formed a kind of resistance movement against Queen Evanthe and her followers. They seek to undermine her rule and sabotage those who support her. As you may know, my husband and I have some ties with the Low Fae community. We share blood with them.” General Sunshard lifts her chin here as if expecting some kind of challenge. I suppose she’s so used to having this fact received badly she’s automatically on the defense. But of course, Ruskin just nods.

“Yes, Halima made me aware of your heritage,” he says.

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