Page 152 of The Forbidden Fae King

My legs turn shaky. “I did commit treason, didn’t I?”

“We can’t let you fall into shock yet. We need to leave the palace now. Get out of the city before your magic wears off and Finan calls his guards,” Diarmuid says.

The corridor forks and I drag him down one passageway abruptly.

“Where are you taking us? This leads away from the stables,” he protests.

“To the library. Ever since I returned from the fae world, my power has grown immensely. I spent months eating their food, drinking their water and breathing their air. Everything in their lands is imbued with magic. I think I can open the Appleshield portal to take us home. There is already some charge in it.”

“I should have known you would get us into huge fucken trouble within the first month of us arriving here.” Diarmuid shakes his head. “Though this is on Finan.”

I smile wickedly at my brother.

Freedom is so close I can taste it.

We travel through the library at a brisk place, the aisles flying past us. My heart drops as we pass that set of bookshelves leading to the fae texts, deliberately hidden in darkness. That vault beyond could have been invaluable for Aldrin’s aims, full of forbidden texts with the truth of the fae and the Great War. It is a lost opportunity that could change the world.

There isn’t even a single scholar down here.

The ring of portals glow faintly in the library's dimness. I pull Diarmuid by the arm to the gate that leads to Appleshield Castle. Its surface isn’t smooth like I thought, but has thousands of tiny, subtle facets like the face of a gemstone. The colors embedded in the milky moonstone glitter under the minimal light.

“Do you know how to open a portal, by any chance?” I ask sheepishly.

His jaw drops. “Hold on, didn’t you say you could do it? You led me here instead of the stables because you said you could open it.”

“I believe I have enough power to do it…”

Diarmuid shakes his head. “I’ve read about it in my studies. We need to channel our raw, unformed power into the moonstone. That is all.”

We place our hands on the cold stone, and a shiver runs down my spine. I close my eyes and focus on its textured surface, as I pull at the power coiling within my center, feeding it into the portal.

It flows in a trickle at first, unaccustomed as I am to wielding my magic unshaped. I open myself up gradually with great effort and streams of liquid fire and the coldest of ice courses out of me. It feels like water being forced through a crack in a dam, until the wall containing it is shattered and a roaring onslaught pours in freefall from me into the moonstone.

I am being burnt from the inside, scoured clean, but it doesn't hurt. A tugging sensation pulls at my essence through my hands, dragging out more of my power. It lasts for an eternity, this striving for my salvation, then ceases all at once.

Intense relief almost knocks me from my feet as I am greeted by the radiant glow of the activated portal. Swirling mists escape from within its arch, coiling around our feet as though it is eager to lead us back home.

I want to laugh and cry at the same time. It feels like I have run for hours.

“We did it?” Diarmuid pants. “We actually did it! Two people to open a portal.”

I grab him by the hand and pull him toward the open gate. “You can gloat about it when we are safely home.”

Diarmuid hesitates at the white nothingness within the mists and shoots me a frantic glance.

“It doesn’t hurt.” I squeeze his hand and tug him through.

I expect a blank landscape of stark white, with rolling mists thatextend as far as the eye can see, like when I traveled to the Otherworld, but I am wrong. The other portal is only a dozen steps away, and the gardens of Appleshield are visible through it. A tunnel of blindingly bright mists forms walls between the two portal openings.

The contrast gives a stark testament to how far away the fae world is to my own. Why we have to rely on the alignments of planets and tears in the fabric of space to reach it. A deep loneliness fills me at the distance between Aldrin and I. That I won’t be able to see his planet amongst the stars in my night sky.

We step out into the crisp night air of a mild summer night and I want to collapse into a heap. My whole body starts to shake now that I am in the safety of my own home. Emotions rolls wildly through me and my nerves are completely frayed.

The full gravity of what I have done tonight hasn’t hit me yet. The consequences of it. Not only the political fallout from calling off the wedding, but that I physically bound a prince and heir to the throne.

There is nothing I can do about it now.

I turn around, taking in the neglected garden. Tall weeds sprout on the gravel path and wild, overgrown rose bushes spill out of the garden beds. Behind us is the tall willow tree with fire-red blooms draping down its branches. This is the garden where I used to take Finan whenever I put his needs and his pleasure above mine. How ironic that it is my saviour when I needed to escape him.

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