Page 35 of Fae Exile

I snorted nervously. “Sure. That doesn’t mean becoming queen of Embermere is my destiny. Do you hear how crazy that sounds?”

“Destinies often seem ‘crazy’ until they begin fulfilling themselves. Then...”

“Then, what?”

Finnian turned. His face was masked by deep shadows, but I could still make out the way his caramel eyes shone with his intensity.

“Then, they become inevitable.”

I glanced from him, to Roan, Pru, then Reed. “You all can’t be serious?”

“I didn’t understand why we all came on this journey with you, lass,” Roan said, “not till right now. You’re our future queen, and we your?—”

“Friends,” I interjected before he could say something that piled on even more pressure I wasn’t ready for.

“That too.”

“Just say it, Elowyn,” Finnian said. “Reed’s right. The umbracs won’t hold much longer.”

So, despite my apprehension and the nerves and tangible fear tingling through the entirety of my body, I told the land, if it was even listening, “I’ll do whatever’s in my power to fulfillmy ... destiny.” I choked on the word a bit. “Whatever it might be. If that means replacing the imposter queen and ruling in her place, then I’ll do it. But if I’m to do any of that, I need you on my side. I need to survive, me and my friends, my allies. I need to be able to, uh, channel your power to accomplish whatever it is I’m meant to do.”

I looked toward the others. The men glanced over their shoulders at me while they tended to their duties, and Pru beamed at me. “I’ll use whatever power you give me only for the light.”

I stared hard at the writhing, chittering monsters who’d devour us in instants if we gave them the chance. “And I’ll only kill when absolutely necessary, I promise. Only to protect myself and those in need of my protection.”

Nothing happened, and I shrugged, still waiting. “Did I do it wrong or something? Did I need the potion or the crystal?”

“Doubtful, lassie, but maybe,” Roan said.

Reed stabbed an encroaching umbrac with his flame. The beast squealed, setting the surrounding umbracs to hissing. Next, he cried out, “We fight as one in the light. We fall divided in the darkness.”

Finnian, Roan, and Pru chorused the chant, so I did as well.

Then the hissing faded into that constant chittering.

First, my skin warmed more, and then its glow shone brightly enough to push back the umbracs. They were sliding down their piles and next slinking away in a slimy mass. They only retreated perhaps twenty feet before they once more climbed atop each other to watch us and wait.

But so long as my glow held, twenty feet was enough to get us—and Xeno—through the rest of the night.

14.AN EXTENDED COURTSHIP WITH DEATH

~ RUSH ~

Many floors above where my brothers and I stood, the sun must be shining down on the Royal Palace of Embermere. But here? In the belching, bloated guts of the palace, beyond the fae dungeon where the queen never intended us to go? The darkness was a weight pressing down on my body, as if I were deep beneath the lake at my estate in Amarantos, my air rapidly running out. Darkness might be all there was. Hope was extinguished with the ease of blowing out a candle.

Hiroshi, Ryder, West, and I grouped together, each of us still touching the wall we’d only just traversed. For me at least, it was a calming reassurance that I could leave this place whenever I wanted. All I had to do was walk back through the barrier—assuming Ryder could reverse whatever he’d done to get us through it in the first place.

It was even dimmer on this side than in the prison, but none of us would dare rely on a lumoon to illuminate our surroundings. We’d already been blessed with the fortune of dragons to have made it this far undetected.

We stood on some kind of stone walkway carved from the bedrock of the palace itself. As far as I could see, it kept going in a straight line before I could discern its end. Over its edges,to either side, all there seemed to be was darkness and more darkness. I would have to walk out onto the footpath and peer over the sides to be sure.

“You know how I was saying my balls wanted to run in the opposite direction?” West whispered. “Well now I’m worried they might go on ahead and leave without me if I don’t get them out of here fast. This place feels fuckingawful.”

“It really does,” Ryder said. “How does she even do it?Whydoes she even do it? Who’d want to feel this? To be responsible forthis?” His lips curled in disgust.

It was the same reaction I had whenever I contemplated the queen and all she’d done to destroy the world that was meant for all of us, not just her and her depraved wishes. The mirror world could have been a blessing, like what Faerie had been, which history reported had in fact been a fucking delight. But instead she prided herself on making Embermere a curse.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But if we hadn’t already been decided on our plan before, I’d be ready to go all-in now.”

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