Page 146 of Crowned By the Fae King

The vanguard of my army flew for the Buzzing Palace. They gave voice to every dram of my grief and pain, ravens cawing and hawks screeching and songbirds screaming. Talien's attention slipped. Air flooded my lungs again.

I started walking forward, and then jogging, and then running. My blood pounded under my skin. It felt like I could run forever. Mercy's power snarled underfoot, as hungry and angry as me.

The wolves passed me first, then the deer. A creature the size of a rhino thundered past, head down and heavy armor on its spine. I grabbed the fur of a warg and vaulted onto it, moving with her like one creature.

My hungry Queen, Cass said with admiration. As vicious as a warhound when the mood takes you.

Bears. Weasels. Many-limbed monsters that eeled across the ground. A wildcat the size of a horse. Foxes and boars and things with no names, all yoked to my will and my rage.

I screamed out my pain, and every voice of every beast and monster of Faery roared with me.

We ran and flew and slithered for the Buzzing Palace. Talien fought us every step of the way, his magic carving chasms in the stone and raising great thickets of sharp-thorned brambles, but we were wild things. Deer bounded over fissures twenty feet wide. Hares vanished into thorns and forged new paths, followed by their predators in an ancient dance.

Talien was a King, but I was a Queen, and my Court was far greater and far older than his. The beasts of the field and forest drove forward, and in the shadow of that vicious army, I sealed the gouges in the broken bedrock and sent the brambles to sleep. My army arrowed for the throne of the Court of Flies, leaving dust and trampled thorns in our wake.

It had been hundreds of years since the Court of Flies had first been conquered. Maybe once, the Buzzing Palace had been a place that could withstand a siege, but no longer. King Omahice hadn't allowed his conquered foes to build fortifications against him. Walls had been torn down. Moats had been filled in. All that defended the Buzzing Palace from the monsters of Faery was a single curtain wall, held by a skeleton crew of soldiers.

A wall can't defend against hawks and songbirds. A handful of soldiers can't stand against an army of predators. Men screamed and died on the fangs of wolves, the antlers of stags, the talons of nameless beasts. Birds crossed the wall, carrying Mercy in their wake.

My warg didn't pause as she charged for the great gates of the castle grounds. I bared my teeth and hooked my fingers into claws. With the same power I'd used to raise walls against a goddess, I tore down the curtain walls of the Buzzing Palace.

Stone shattered. Dust rose in great clouds, shining in the dawning light. My warg leaped through the chaos without hesitation, clearing the rubble in a single bound.

I saw the world from a thousand eyes. I was the wind under my wings and the stone beneath my feet. As one great beast, we hit the walls of the Buzzing Palace, a tidal wave of wrath.

Windows shattered. Doors smashed into smithereens. Glass sliced my flesh and shards tore at my mouths, but the blood was only the crimson of my war banners. I was Mercy, and Mercy's King was a healer. What was blood to me?

I need you.

Couldn't think it. Couldn't break. Needed to carry him with me, command the power in his blood, be Mercy's everything—

I need anchors. Reasons to come back—to stay.

You.

Cass' voice, the memory so raw and clear that tears started cutting across my face. My warg shouldered through the broken doors of the Buzzing Palace, a low snarl in her throat. We stalked through the halls, the palace itself struggling against my command, but it was young and Mercy was ancient, a Court that had subdued it before and would again.

I need someone who will drag me back, Cass said, his voice insistent, no matter how far I go or how lost I get.

Feet padded on tiled floors and hooves left snowy prints on carpets. Wings flickered through halls and chased screams.

I clung to Mercy with a will like claws. I dragged him with me, step by furious step, and he came willingly.

The throne of the Court of Flies was in a courtyard. Unlike the rest of the world, it was bare of snow, the hard-packed earth glittering with salt and the throne itself a stark shape cut from the bedrock. Talien sat there in a ring of bare dirt twenty feet wide, surrounded by the beasts of the Court of Mercy.

I snarled. My army growled and cawed and shrieked. Dust rose and walls fell and a King sat frozen in his throne.

Birds lined every wall; clung to doorframes. Rodents and vermin swarmed across the ground. Wolves stood side-by-side with their prey, eyes fixed on the man fending them off with his will.

I heard the muffled boom as a wall collapsed. Birds flew up, screeching victory, and circled in the sky.

Moving with grace, I slid off the back of my warg and drew my sword. "Talien Shamais," I said, the words falling into eerie silence of the courtyard. I stepped forward, past the unmoving ring of animals, and Mercy came with me.

He met my eyes with a flat gaze. I could see the fear – in his pinned-back ears, in the tightness of his shoulders, in the way his fingers dug against the stone of his throne – but none of it showed in his eyes. "Quyen Anh."

I started walking towards him, slow and sure. "You betrayed me," I said, the grief starting to win over the anger, looking at this man who had taken everything from me. "You betrayed my King. You betrayed my Court."

"I did," he said, his voice very calm. "Your Court was the death of mine, and the death of my family. It was thoughtful of you to have your soulmate remove the curse on my line, but," Talien said with a humorless laugh, "the chance to sire children hardly means the dead will breathe again."

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