Page 12 of A Kingdom of Destruction

Her body had been pinned to the wall behind the throne, her eyes plucked out, her mouth twisted in a silenced scream.

“We wondered when you might come out of hiding.” A rough male voice sounded from the left. “It took you quite some time to reach us, Princess Aven Elridge.”

Aven couldn’t look away from the impossible, horrifying sight of those corpses. Her siblings were dead. Something splintered in her chest, and the longer she stared, the harder it became to get air into her lungs.

They’d all been killed, every last one of them, in sickening ways while she’d been too busy planning her ambush. A low sob burned in her throat, constricting the muscles there, and she blinked. Blinked again like it might somehow make this nightmarish sight disappear.

They were gone. All of them.

Her fault.

5

The royal line, wiped out. Tears refused to come, caught somewhere behind her eyes. This was worse, so much worse, than the years of despair and the poverty of her people. So much worse than watching her soldiers fight and lose their lives, or watching her mother slowly waste away.

Outside this room, the battle raged in every direction possible, and Aven couldn’t bring herself to care. Her world was in shambles, and looking away… she wanted to, tried, and failed. Someone behind her gasped, the sound shifting to a moan of disbelief.

One of her men retched.

“Come now. Nothing to say about my present? I’ve already heard what your father has to say. Now I am intrigued to know your opinion,” the man continued.

Another clap of thunder sounded from outside, close enough and strong enough to rattle the stained-glass windows on the wall behind the thrones. Maeve’s corpse shifted with the movement but remained pinned.

Aven swallowed down her despair, her fear and rage and absolute, gut-wrenching sorrow, and turned to face the speaker. Everything scattered from her mind and disappeared as she faced the man looking at her expectantly.

Donal Celestree.

The Fae king himself held her father in front of him, King Fergus bound by magic and a fae dagger pressed against his temple. Blood splattered both of them, and yet the grisly tableau did not seem to faze either one.

She had never met him; none of her family had. The monarch was ancient, the stuff of legend, nearly as old as the Thousand-Year King. And his reputation was as cruel as the cut of his smile. Yet somehow even seeing him here paled in comparison to this carnage.

“You call this a present?” Aven forced herself to say. Her attention remained on Mourningvale’s king even when she wanted to glance back at her siblings. Glance behind her at Major Stone or the other soldiers and beg them to make this go away.

To wake her from this nightmare.

The magic binds keeping her father in place prevented any movement whatsoever. Rather than answer, King Donal lifted a hand and forced the mortal king down to his knees.

He stood taller than King Fergus by several inches, snow-white hair trailing down past his shoulders. A sharp patrician nose dominated a face of angles, and his eyes were narrow set, the blue of ice, and penetrating. The collar of his tunic rose up and nearly touched the end of his cleft chin.

The Fae King tilted his head and stared at Aven, searching her face for whatever emotion he must have hoped to see. “It almost pains me to see how easily you jumped right into the trap. Not only that, but your family offered so little resistance. I expected to encounter at least a shred of talent when it cametime to storm the castle gates.Literallyand figuratively.” He huffed out a small laugh of amusement. “As you see, Princess, this is the result. You and your father are the only two of your bloodline still standing.”

His fine clothes and amused expression were a mockery of everything Aven stood against. It hardly seemed real to remain in front of him and hear him speak in such conversational tones.

She trembled, and rather than letting him see the movement, threw back her shoulders and refused to take her eyes off her father’s face. “What do you want from us?” The words were hoarse and strangled and the best she was able to muster.

“Look around you, Princess,” the Fae King continued. “I’ve taken what I want. Your leader is on his knees. It’s a direct path to victory for my people. Now is the time for your cooperation.”

“Let him speak. I want to hear what happened from my father.” Inside her head was a never-ending scream that refused to abate. Her skin went clammy, and her stomach clenched and twisted sickeningly.

“Oh, his tongue is not bound the same as his limbs. He’s able to speak whenever he pleases. He chooses not to do so,” King Donal replied.

Aven stared at her father, shaking her head back and forth uncontrollably. “This is no route to cooperation. This isslaughter. Why would we work with you when you surely have no intention of telling the truth?”

“Let me assure you, Princess, my end goal is nothing less than cooperation. In fact, I have only a single proposition left, and I’ve given it to your beloved father just as I will give it to you now. His life for a truce.”

“No.” She took a step forward before she realized she moved and caught a glimpse of the way her father’s eyes flashed, froze. “Don’t hurt him.”

She couldn’t survive losing anyone else.

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