Page 4 of The Fallen Kingdom

The Queen. A memory stirs inside me, but it’s gone the moment the fae edge closer to my tree. They move through the woods like ghosts, every step so controlled that not a single sound gives them away.

But they don’t know I’m only a few feet from them. I can tell by the cautious way they hold themselves, eyes searching the distance. They don’t sense me pressed against the tree as if I were a part of it.

I look around me for a weapon, pausing when I notice the foliage at my feet. I think of what happened at the loch, the way my blood mixed with power to turn wood into metal. I can make my own blade.

A smile curves my lips as I pluck a branch from the ground to slice open the skin of my arm. I hold back a flinch at the cut. My power flows down my wrist in a subtle pulse the fae soldiers won’t notice. The anticipation of battle keeps me focused, intent. Unafraid. There’s no time for fear.

A thin line of melted metal forms around the branch, warping and flattening to form a fine edge. Then it lengthens into a point sharp enough to break easily through skin. The blade is beautiful, perfectly suited to me, with its own internal, fiery glow. An object of power. Made from my blood. Created to kill fae.

I move with the sword in my grip, slipping forward in agile, silent steps across the ground. I don’t need to remember my past to know that I’ve done this many times before. My body recalls it for me. The way my knees bend to keep my motions swift. The way my toes touch the soil and take my weight. The way I stall my breath to exhale as quietly as the air around us.

So the faery at the back of the trio never even realizes I’m there—until the moment I hook an arm around him, press my palm to his lips, and slide my blade across his throat.

He dies before he can make a sound.

His energy fills me. My blood sings in response, a hymn of death that only I can hear. The other two fae pause, as if sensing something, but they don’t turn. They’re confident he’s behind them, ready to defend their backs. Ready to protect them.

That is their mistake.

The one at the front motions with two fingers to move forward.Perfect.

I gently set the faery’s body on the ground and loop around a tree, pressing my back to it as I approach the second.

I was wrong about having hunted like this before. It’s efficient and brutal and familiar—but different. My power hums. It muffles my steps. It makes my joints move as fluidly as water across rocks. There’s a wildness that I’m sure I’ve never felt before, as if I’m aware of the entire forest, and every move my enemy is about to make.

I slip behind him like a shadow. One palm to his lips, just like the other. A joyful, savage whisper in his ear that scares some part of me from the life I’ve forgotten:Got you.

My arm snakes around the faery as if to embrace him, and then I plunge the sharp end of the blade through his ribs and into his heart. His muffled scream presses to my palm. I jerk my head up to see if the last one noticed.

Our eyes lock.

He watches with horror as I pull the sword out of his companion and drop his body to the ground. His blood drips from my blade, atap, tap, tapagainst the dirt.

As the second dead faery’s energy fills me, I smile. In that moment, I know I look like death.

His expression changes to one of recognition. He manages a single word: “You.”

Minutes ago, that would have made me pause. It would have been enough to break through my haze of confusion. But I’m too far gone now. My power is finally calm, sated, singing the wordsfinish it finish it finish itin a blood-pounding roar in my ears. After all, he’s not running.

That is his second mistake.

My fingers grip the hilt of the blade. I flick my wrist and the blade flies through the air. It strikes the faery through the neck. His legs curl beneath him, the way a stag’s would after being shot on a hunt.

We are all the stag.

Who had told me that? I wince at the sudden pang of vulnerability those words bring.Stop it. Nothing matters but the feel of his power through my veins. Mine now. He needed to die. He would have killed me.

Curling my lip, I stride over and yank the blade out of him.

My head comes up as I sense another source of power. This one is less substantial; it doesn’t have as much weight to it, or the same deep, insatiable hunger. It’s more like rays of sunshine that break through the haze of my own power and call to something vulnerable inside me.

Something human. The idea makes me want to cry with joy.

I turn, the blade hanging limply in my grasp. There he is: a small glow in the thicket of trees. A halo of light that would fit neatly in the palm of my hand.

He whispers a name, no more than a breath of a sound. As if saying it hurts.

“Aileana.”

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