Page 49 of Fae Exile

I didn’t.

It was more reckless than perhaps anything I’d ever done, and I damn well knew it.

But the dragon wouldn’t harm me. I didn’t understand how I was so certain, but I was. Enough to bet my life on it.

Perhaps it was simply because, after what I’d done to Elowyn, a part of me didn’t feel worthy of living any longer. Or maybe I didn’t want to. It was easier to leave and not experience the constant torment of seeing her beautiful face, twisted in her belief of my betrayal, play over and over in a loop in my mind.

I tuned out my friends’ alarm and focused only on the feeling of setting the stunning beasts free. My tattoos shone so brightly,sweeping across my bare hands and up my neck, that I could make out the dragon’s eyes.

Dark as the deepest depths of any lake, they were steady. Calm. Aware.

Pained.

Then the dragon again turned and, with a steady stream of fire, illuminated the captives. This time, their faces were pressed up against the bars, as if they too were aware the tides were shifting.

And they were. They had to be.

I’d accept nothing less. This couldn’t be how things were going to be.

A chorus of whines and whimpers that reminded me of little Saffron, out of sync and full of torment, wove toward us from the cages.

“We’ll remember,” I assured the dragons.

It was an easy promise to keep. The dozens of dragons would join my catalog of memories I’d rather forget but refused to. They were what kept me going. When I felt like giving up beneath the insurmountable odds of destroying a queen with the power of an entire fae land at her disposal, the reminders kept me moving in the right direction.

For Elowyn.

For Larissa.

For Ramana.

For every unlucky bastard born here instead of into the harmony of Faerie.

For every prisoner trapped here.

When the dragon’s fire again faded, I simply nodded, backed up without taking my eyes from the beast, then joined my brothers in sidestepping slain bodies and running up the seemingly eternal stairwell. As my thigh muscles burned, no evidence of pygmy ogres reached us. They were either allasleep in their quarters somewhere down one of the shoot-off passageways, or they were elsewhere in the palace, which, as far as I knew, they never left.

We sprinted across the plankway, the stone vibrating with our hurried steps, then waited for Ryder to hack Braque’s illusion. After several minutes, quiet but for our heavy breathing, we were through the wall. In under a minute, we updated Gadiel, who was as aware of the risks as we were and didn’t ask for us to delay, then raced up the spiraling staircase.

We didn’t stop running until we were alone in one of the many concealed interior tunnels of the palace.

West was the one to stop us. “Wait,” he said on a deep exhale, trying to slow his breath. “Gimme a minute.”

We lined up along a wall without another word until our breathing was back to normal. The only thing to reveal that we’d just run for our lives was the sweat soaking our bodies and clothing.

Unable to delay any longer, we chose to emerge not in the throne room where we’d first entered the tunnels, but in a distant hallway that lined residential quarters of the aristos, but none of ours.

We ran smoothing hands over our hair, tugged down our tunics, and wiped at the sweat coating our brows.

I exited first. After scanning the hall, I beckoned the others out. Together, we stalked with purpose and rounded the corner?—

Running smack into Millicent of Potesantos, who, incongruously, appeared to have possibly been waiting for us—though I couldn’t guess how she’d known we’d appear here when we ourselves hadn’t until minutes before.

Her face split with a grin so hungry, so wicked, it conjured the memory of her in feethle form, lapping up still warm blood at the queen’s feet.

“Well, well, well,” she drew out theatrically, and my pulse jumped in my neck. “What do we have here?”

Westtsked, then huffed. “Whatever other trite nonsense you might want to lob our way, don’t. We have more important things to do right now than deal with you.”

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