Page 15 of Fae Exile

“U-us, Your Majesty?” another of the sisters asked.

“You!” she snapped. “Your parents’ crime is so heinous, so vicious, that their bloodline cannot be allowed to taint the mirror world.”

As their faces were all pointed toward the queen, I couldn’t make out their expressions, but I imagined their dread was the same as that which swept the queen’s audience, only magnified a thousandfold.

The sister who’d tried to escape cried openly, dropping her face into her hands.

“Guard,” the queen snarled, and the one who held her clasped her arms behind her back and yanked on her hair to keep her head pointed at the queen.

On my other side, I grazed Hiroshi’s hand with my own and leaned my head ever so subtly toward him. My mouth already poised to perform whispered ventriloquism, he beat me to it by saying, “We can’t let her do this.”

It was my thought exactly. Only … how could we stop her? If we stood up to her now, all the years of sacrifices, killing Elowyn in a twisted attempt to save her, all that would be for nothing. The kingdom would remain under her control, its darkness growing stronger and more awful, until nothing good at all would be left of Embermere, and the rest of the mirror world would soon also crumble.

It was the same quandary Finnian had found himself in when the queen had accused Sandor. Was the life of one—more or less—innocent man worth that of so many thousands who’d be saved if our plot against the queen was successful?

Regardless, I squeezed Hiroshi’s hand in quiet agreement. No matter what—no matter that Elowyn, Ramana, and hundreds of others had already died for the cause—we couldn’t stand by and watch her murder four innocents. Already, it seemed likely she’d murdered their parents fully aware they weren’t guilty of the crime she pinned on them.

Knowing Hiroshi, he’d signaled his and my readiness to West and Ryder down the line. Whatever we were about to do, we’d do it together.

But how could we spare the four condemned and also the kingdom and its endless future of descendants?

“Drake Rush Vega of Amarantos,” the queen’s cold, hideously seductive voice called out, slicing into my gut like a dagger. “As the one likely to be the next crowned prince, I cede to you the remaining honor of avenging the death of your predecessor.”

The woman next to me obviously realized who I was, as she snatched her hand out of mine. My feet, however, seemed fused to the floorboards beneath my boots.

Hiroshi flicked the back of my hand sharply, and then my legs were moving, squeezing between the noblemen and women who parted to make way for me, shifting a little farther than necessary, as if unwilling to even be spotted standing next to me.

“To the essences of Yorgen and Idra and all their descendants, may your memories erase from existence, and may your essences bypass the Etherlands and burn in the Igneuslands for all eternity.”

Before I’d decided what to do, I discovered myself bowing to the queen. More guards pushed the four to be executed to their knees and held them in place. Two of the three young women wept; the third glared venomously at the queen. The man stared blindly at the vacant heads of their dead parents.

“Draw your sword, Rush.” Her command vibrated with what sounded like righteous retribution but couldn’t be.

Without a single idea of what I might do—when the only person I wanted to kill right then was her—of how I might find the kind of loophole I had with Elowyn, I drew my blade.

Its soft ring echoed through my ears as my heart raced.

By dragonfire, what the fuck am I supposed to do?

I needed the kind of miracle Elowyn had called on in the arena when the dragon head posing as a footstool had zoomed to her aid.

But since living at the queen’s court, I’d stopped believing in miracles.

“As you die,” the queen was telling the devastated descendants, “know it’s your traitorous parents’ cowardly actions that have delivered your death. I am merely the hand of justice.”

My heart was beating so fast I was growing lightheaded and clammy, and still I had no plan. My grip was sweaty around the hilt of my sword.

“You may begin, Rush,” the queen announced, having the gall to sound magnanimous, as if she were truly bestowing some grand fucking honor on me.

All I could picture myself doing was spinning to plunge my blade straight into that gaping, plunging neckline.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she snapped.

Help, I plead to nothing and no one in particular.This can’t be happening.

I’d already lost a sister and mortally wounded my mate. I’d done everything this horrid woman had ever demanded of me. I couldn’t live with any more regrets.

I spun.

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