Page 25 of Fae Exile

Though I didn’t hear the usual lament in West’s voice every time he danced around the topic of romantic relations, my heart panged just the same. West had loved my sister with a devotion and intensity that suggested there could never be another match for him. Now that Ramana was dead, I didn’t know if he’d ever find someone to share his life with in that way again. She’d been gone more than two years now. West had started making efforts here and there to joke, to pretend he could eventually love someone else, but I wasn’t sure he believed it, or for whose benefit he was making these efforts.

Perhaps he was just sick of mourning her, of feeling the hollow cavern in his gut he knew would never again be filled in the right way—of knowing he’d failed her when she’d needed him to save her, and now he’d never hear her laughter ring out again, see her brilliant smile brighten even the shittiest of days.

It wasIwho had failed her, of course. My sisters weremyresponsibility, not West’s, not anybody else’s. From the start, our parents had made it clear I was meant to be their protector.

“You know we’ve gotta figure out what’s making the place shake,” Ryder told West. “It might be everywhere. Hell, the whole damn mirror world might be rattling. But knowingher, she’s probably done something to cause it. No way is she innocent if shit’s going down.”

Even though the tunnels were one of the few places within the palace where Elowyn had never spotted the queen’s disembodied body parts that served as spies, whenever any of uswere within the court, we were careful. Out of habit, the queenwas alwaysshe.

“There’s something furious and roaring down here,” Ryder went on. “No one pisses someone else off like she does. Whatever she’s done, we’ll find signs of it. She hardly ever leaves the palace.”

“Besides,” Hiroshi piped up from the very back of the line, “we may not get a better chance to check out the fae dungeon. With her and her two kiss-asses busy, we’ve gotta make the most of the chance.”

“I know, I know,” West said as we walked rapidly toward the hidden staircase that opened several more paces ahead. “It’s just that my every instinct is telling me to getoutsidethe crumbling walls, not farther down into the pit under them.” He huffed. “But what’s new? Court life’s all about denying my instincts.”

“No shit,” Ryder said. “My skin’s still crawling from seeing her crook her finger at Rush like she owns him. You can be a pain in my ass sometimes, West, but you’re still my hero for coming up with that plan.”

“You’re my hero too,” I said in West’s direction, “but I’m not sure that’s not part of the reason we’re in this position now. I...” Whathad Ieven done, exactly? “Never mind. I don’t know what I did, or if I did anything at all.”

Slowing where the wall opened into a door, I pushed it ajar and started down the stairs to the fae dungeon, the one place within the palace where none of us wanted to end up—where fae went and never returned, and if they did make it out alive, they were no longer the same person or creature they’d once been.

The queen was a master at breaking her subjects, body, mind, and will.

My friends—my brothers—and I circled carefully down the spiral staircase, all senses alert. From the back, Hiroshi’s whisper reached me.

“Tell us, Rush. Whatever it is, tell us before we get there.”

I stopped, looking up to face them. “I would, but ... I think all this stuff with Elowyn’s messed with my head. It’s nothing. I made it all up. Just coincidence, is all.”

Ryder crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “Well now ya really gotta tell us. There’s no such thing as coincidence and you bloody well know it. Maybe not anywhere, but especially not here, not where she manipulates every single, little, fucking thing.”

Sighing, I rubbed the back of my neck. My fingers caught on some crystal fragments and, one by one, I yanked them out, casting them to the corners of the steps. “I...” I huffed. “Fuck. I’m just gonna spit it out.”

“Please,” West said. “I’m not joking about wanting to get out of the palace as soon as possible. This place makes my balls want to run in the opposite direction. Now that it’s rumbling, even more so.” Frowning, he shook his head.

“When doesn’t it?” Ryder asked on a grunt, then pointed at me. “Go.”

“So ... I obviously didn’t want to kill those kids, but when she was gonna make me do it, I didn’t know what to do, didn’t see a way out of it that wouldn’t expose everything we’ve all been working so hard for. Our goal’s more important than just a few of us.”

Within the stone stairwell that stretched high above us and faded below into the dungeon, the three of them nodded, mouths pressed into grim lines.

“I couldn’t find a way out of doing it, but how could I live with myself after doing it? Already, I can barely make it through a day with ... well, with what I did to El.”

“So what did you do?” Hiroshi urged.

I shrugged, rubbing at my sore shoulder some more. “Not really sure if it worked or how it might’ve, but I tried to do whatEl did. Or what she said she did anyhow. I just ... asked for help, asked for another way, that’s all, with my thoughts.”

“Who’d you ask?” Hiroshi said.

“I’m not sure. I didn’t specify. I wasn’t in a picky mood right then. She was gonna make me kill them, and I’m certain not even their parents had done anything to deserve that.”

“I’m thinking she may’ve killed Saturn,” West breathed in less than a whisper.

Hiroshi’s lavender head bobbed up and down, as Ryder, scowling, said, “Same.”

“Hard not to think that now,” I agreed. “Before I absolutely didn’t. With how she’d always treated him? No way. Now? I totally can see it.”

“Yeah,” Ryder snorted. “She’d treat him like he was sent down from the Etherlands just to be her special prince.”

---