Page 55 of Their Queen

Taking a deep breath, I looked at Brannoc. “If I start acting funny, knock me out. I’m going to touch the book now, but I want to make sure I don’t hurt anyone because of it.”

He nodded. “Of course.” I met Rhowyn’s eyes briefly across the room, and she nodded as well, agreeing that this was the best route.

I hovered my hand over the cover, closing my eyes and opening my senses to feel for anything. Nothing jumped out at me. I could feel the power within the cold slate pages, so old that it wasn’t even on paper. Instead, the inscriptions were carved into the slate and painted white against the dark pages. This wasn’t like our magic. It was deeper and so much more than just the elements and seasons.

Taking another deep breath, I opened the book to reveal the first page. More inscriptions, these smaller and also painted white. The markings were similar to Brannoc and Cyerra’s tattoos, and I knew it was a language that predated ours. Looking at the two of them, I asked, “Can you make out what it says?”

“No. I recognize one or two markings, but I don’t know what they mean,” Cyerra admitted.

Brannoc shrugged. “I’ve never known what mine mean,” he admitted nonchalantly as if it wasn’t a big deal.

Cyerra gasped. “Never?” Her wide eyes were clouded with sadness again.

“You forget, I wasn’t brought up in the Enclave, and my mother passed before I came into my powers.” His words contained only a hint of the anger I knew was there. It wasn’t Cyerra’s fault, but he had every right to be upset about the lost heritage. His even remained black instead of the soft blue ones that Cyerra and the other Ravens had. Maybe, one day, we would be able to rectify that, but now was not the time.

Cyerra placed a hand on Brannoc’s arm. “I’m sorry that happened. I don’t agree with Mother’s decision to keep everyone out and forbidding Ravens to leave.” She turned to Rhowyn as she spoke her next words. “My hope is that one day soon, we’ll be able to come and go from the Enclave freely, without fear that we’ll be hunted for what we are.” She smiled softly at the hope there before speaking to Brannoc again. “And after all of this, I promise I’ll show you what your markings mean and to bring you into our ways as you should have been taught all along.”

He nodded, his eyes watering slightly. I don’t think she realized the magnitude of what she’d vowed to Brannoc, but it meant the world to him. He turned away from her after a moment. “Do you think Revna would know?” he asked while still studying the pages.

“It’s possible. I still have so much to learn about what my role of Chieftain will entail, but one of those is to be the keeper of our history and knowledge,” she admitted, brow furrowed as she pondered it.

Finally, Lennox returned with Jude. “What’s going on?” he asked frantically. I turned to glare at Lennox for not updating the priest on what happened. He simply shrugged in return, gladly passing that chore off onto me.

I explained what happened in the simplest of terms while also showing him what Rhowyn and I had discovered in Jonathan’s books. The others were hearing this development for the first time as well, before showing Jude the book and describing what had occurred with the orb. With each development, Jude’s eyes got wider until they were almost the size of dinner plates.

Looking down, he found a chair and sat. “That’s a lot to take in,” he admitted to us. We remained silent as we waited for him to process that information. Turning in his seat, he found Rhowyn’s eyes, where she waited silently and impatiently. “What did you need me for, child?”

At his gentle inquiry, she softened and approached him. “I need a way to contact Titania. She wanted this book, one we can’t use because we can’t decipher it. I plan to offer her a trade.” She crossed her arms and cocked out a hip, preparing herself for the outbursts that were sure to follow.

Jude stood and placed his hands on her shoulders, his eyes soft as he gazed at her with so much love and devotion. “I know it hurts to have your consort at the mercy of Titania. To have your father under her thumb, again, but we both know that handing that book over is not wise.” He paused, and when she didn’t say anything, he studied her face. Then he smiled. “But you don’t have any plans to hand it over, do you? Oh, child, I can see you’ve got something planned in that head of yours. What can I do to help?”

My jaw dropped. How had he known that? I was her consort, her rock. How was I not able to tell that she hadn’t actually been considering handing it over? Looking at the others, I saw their own sheepish guilt at having assumed the worst. Had we all really thought that she was so weak as to crumble after this? After facing everything, did we really have so little faith in her? Were we so blinded by our need to protect her? Was that need, that drive within us, keeping her from realizing her own powers?

My mind raced as it dawned on me now why Avalonia had urged her to leave us behind. This whole time, she hadn’t needed our protection. She needed to find her own strength, and we’d held her back from that by insisting we do all the heavy lifting. Granted, we gave her a soft place to land when she needed it, but she was powerful in her own right, and our desperate need to swaddle her and keep the evil from her door had only hindered her in the end.

Her eyes met mine as I came to terms with this truth. She smiled softly at me, nodding in affirmation. Now, it was my turn to be humbled, to be overwhelmed by all of this new information. My eyes met Brannoc’s, Baer’s, and finally, Lennox’s. Each of us was feeling the revelation in our own way, but we were finally seeing our Queen for what she had become while she’d been apart from us. She had come into her power, her role, her confidence, and we had all been blind to that development.

She smiled then, devious and wicked, as the corners of her mouth lifted. “Here’s what I was thinking.” Then she proceeded to blow my mind. I thought I was the tactician, trained for years for the role, but this crazy plan of hers just might work. Only proving the fact that her mind was sharper than we’d given her credit for.

I sat down in the chair I had vacated earlier, blowing out a breath as my mind thought through all the things that could go wrong with this plan, but I knew that it was our only real shot at getting them back on our own terms. We finally had something that Titania wanted badly enough that she was desperate. Her own vanity would prevent her from seeing it coming.

“Remind me never to cross you, my Queen,” I said, getting a glimpse of the cunning Rhowyn had access to but chose to never use. She could be devious and manipulative with the best of them, this plan proving the truth to that. To have that kind of power and to choose not to use it just reinforced why she was the best and only choice to face Titania.

She laughed. “So, what do you think? Will it work?” She looked at all of us hopefully.

“Shit, yeah. I think she’ll never see it coming,” Lennox admitted on an exhale, running a hand through his already disheveled hair.

Brannoc smiled maliciously at his mate, his eyes flashing with his desire for violence. “It’s deliciously masterful.” Hunger rose up to take the place of that violence, and I could smell his attraction to her in this moment.

Baer just walked up to her and kissed her deeply. “I’m in,” he said after he’d pulled back, earning a beaming smile from her.

“I’ll get started on putting everything into place,” I told her, rising from my seat and bowing to her.

“Good. I want to move on this as quickly as possible. The sooner we act, the less time she has to look for the loopholes. I’m going to shower and get Juniper to help me get ready. Brannoc, send the message out.”

We all split up to our assigned tasks, hope soaring in my chest. It wouldn’t be an easy feat, what Rhowyn had planned, but it was our only chance at ending this here and now. Together, we’d best the bitch, as Rhowyn liked to say, and we’d save Avalon. Laughing again at the audacity and insanity of the plan, I strode off to do as my Queen had commanded.

Chapter Thirty Nine: Rhowyn

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