Page 19 of Fae Exile

There was no time to devise a plan, to consider pros, cons, or possibilities, not even to wonder if my idea were the result of the poison already influencing my thoughts.

The land’s magic had let me down more times than it had come through for me, and I didn’t even know if the Sorumbra was part of the mirror world, or a space between it so savage that no rules applied.

I knew nothing other than it was the only chance, however remote, I had of saving us.

Sweat, tears, and monster insides dripping down my face, I sank to the ground and found the land beneath the squishy, writhing mess, swallowing my disgust and ignoring the fresh blood scenting the air—that was from one of us—and spoke to the earth:

“I am daughter to Odelia ... uh, shit.” I’d forgotten her full name and title. “I’m ... daughter to Odelia, who is daughter to King Erasmus and the true, rightful queen of these fae lands.” I had no idea whether or not that was true.

“The blood of the elves from the Golden Forest in Faerie was passed down through my mother to me, which makesme, andnotQueen Talisa Zafira Tatiana of Embermere, the rightful, uh...” Shit, what the hell did that maybe make me? Or was I wasting my last breaths to speak that horrid queen’s name instead of telling the people here that I probably loved them?

“Carrier of the royal magic, lassie,” Roan rumbled from beneath a pile of sucking, slurping beasts.

“True wielder of the magic of the mirror world,” Finnian supplied, before gasping in pain.

I didn’t seek any of them out, blinking drowsily as I pushed all my remaining focus into stringing words together. “I’m the carrier of the ... royal ... magic. True wielder ... of the ... um, power of the ... mirror place ... world.”

Against my will, my eyelids drew shut. Without my sight to rely on, the sounds accentuated, and that insidious hissing-chittering infiltrated every other one of my senses. A slurping suction, then a ripping and tearing. A licking.

Oh by sunshine, oh dragonfire.

Every part of me wanted to scream, to vent my outrage and disgust.

My tongue was thick and unwieldy as I flicked it around my mouth, searching for the muscle memory of how to work it.

“Command it.” Pru’s voice arrived from somewhere very far away. “Mistress,” it snapped. “Now you must command it.”

“Icommandyouuuuu,” I mumbled as if I’d just lost to Xeno in a drinking contest, “to protec’ me n’ my friendsssssss.”

My head jerked downward. I was falling.

But before I could land face first, I slurred, “And Finnian n’ horses tooooo.”

Next thing I knew, my cheek was pressed against something slimy that shuddered ... and light brightened behind my closed eyes.

8.JUST A QUAKE AWAY FROM FREEDOM OR DEATH

~ RUSH ~

With my sword outstretched, I was mid-spin when the floor of the throne room dipped then rocked.

Hundreds of aristos gasped or cried out while I searched desperately for the best course of action, looking first to the queen. Her eyes were on Ivar and Braque when the serpent-filled floor tipped again, and so I pretended I’d intended to carry out her command all along.

I stepped directly in front of her as guards scurried behind, uncertain how to protect their monarch from a threat coming up through the foundations, and held a hand out, my sword now pointed toward the crowd as if in her defense.

The columns, walls, and floor shook once more, hard enough that Yorgen’s and Idra’s four children, on their knees with guards at their backs, struggled to remain upright. The wall of windows trembled perilously, and plaster rained down from above while several enormous crystal chandeliers—a new set to replace the one that had shattered the day I’d stabbed Elowyn—swayed and tinkled cheerily overhead.

I felt the next shake in my bones an instant before it arrived. It was worse than the previous, a dip deep enough to cause my stomach to lurch.

A crack ripped through the thick glass floor beneath our feet, spreading out like the vines of hoarfrost. The snakes captured underneath writhed with renewed vigor as if they sensed they were another quake away from either freedom or death.

Screams accentuated the chaos as a gentler, but longer, rumble shook the floor.

A roar, so muted that it was barely there, echoed from somewhere far, far away.

For us to hear it at all, it had to have been a bellow to end them all.

What the dragonfire is going on?Could this have been a response to my silent plea? Surely not...

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