Page 139 of Crowned By the Fae King

He tossed his opals onto the couch. Peeled off his opal-cabochon gloves and tossed them over, too.

The bells fell silent—and agony struck.

I lunged off of the couch from the white pain, flinging myself up and collapsing to the floor. Pain shocked up my forearms and femurs. I choked on my own spit, the pain so incredible that I couldn't breathe, couldn't even think.

Choking, I was choking, collared like a dog—I ripped the opals from my neck, gasping for breath, eyes wide and unseeing.

—Quyen? Quyen! Where are you, love, where are you—?!

Don't come! I sent back, my heart breaking. Don't—

The ground underneath me ripped away.

It was like having the marrow torn from my bones. I had the brief sensation of my wings folding, falling like a shot bird, and then there was nothing, the living earth underneath me turning into a dead thing and taking everything inside of me with it. I dry-heaved, my whole body wrenching with it, fingers spasming uselessly against the ground.

Tear the wings off a dragonfly, I thought with distant horror. Tear the duchies off the Court, give them the chance to be reborn, let their royal lines step back into the light.

It should have killed me. Would have killed me, if I didn't have Cass' blood in my veins. I was as land-tied as he was. There wasn't a world for me without the Court of Mercy beneath my feet.

Tech started laughing, his eyes glowing silver, the goddamn Misted King.

Yllana struck with the vicious speed of a rattlesnake. Her bound hands tore the belt-knife from my hip, and she flung herself bodily at Tech.

I gasped for air, trying to get up, to stop it. I collapsed back down as they struck each other, crashing together in a head-on collision, both moving with vicious speed.

He buried his dagger to the hilt in her side.

She buried her dagger in the meat of his neck.

Blood wet his mouth and spurted from around the blade. He stared at her like he couldn't believe what was happening to him.

She bared her teeth. Pulled out the knife. Sank it back into him.

His knees buckled, that expression of utter shock turning into blankness.

Yllana fell with him, collapsing down with blood pouring out of her side and her hands still wrapped around the hilt of the one buried in his neck.

I crawled over, weeping, my vision tunneled. Some of the horrific pain eased, leaving me so weak I almost collapsed onto Yllana's body. My hand slipped on the blood-wet floor.

The Misted King had fallen, with no close blood relatives and no established heir. The Court of Mists, so young and untested, still remembered being ruled by the Court of Mercy, and it had reverted to that knowledge, and that King. Mists belonged to Cass again.

"Yllana, no," I sobbed out, trying to put pressure on her wound. "No, why would you— It would have been okay, we could have been okay, you didn't have to die—" This couldn't happen, this was all going so wrong—

She wheezed. Blood bubbled from her lips. Her hand wrapped around my wrist like a vise.

"He—loves you. Not me," she forced out, her eyes fixed on my face as blood filled her lungs. "Please—understand. They kill—mages. If they—can't. Control it. He—" Tears slipped out of her eyes, silver tracks that splashed against the red. "Too young," she rasped. "Couldn't—stop—himself. I tried—kept him… alive. Not well. But alive." Yllana coughed, the sound wet. Every breath left more pink foam on her mouth; came harder.

"Don't die," I begged. My own hot tears fell. "You can't die."

Yllana reached up and patted me on the cheek, leaving blood behind. "I love him. Loved them—both," she said, the words barely audible. "Yours now… daughter. Love him… for me."

Her lashes fluttered. The tiniest smile turned up her lips—and then her eyes went unfocused, and her hand fell, and the wet burble of her breath ceased forever.

Escape Route

"I'm sorry," I rasped out, not sure who I was apologizing to. To Yllana, who I'd never liked, and yet who'd willingly sacrificed herself to save me, because she loved Cass and he loved me? To Cass, who'd never get to hear his mother tell him that she knew she hadn't done well by him, but that she'd done her best to keep him safe? Maybe even to Pelleas, who hadn't wanted to see either of us die, or to Faery itself for the loss of someone who might have lived forever.

Gently, my hands shaking from the pain, I closed her eyes for the last time.

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