Page 92 of Fae Exile

“No, we certainly can’t. But we also can’t get them out now. That rescue will involve a lot of steps and skills we don’t have.”

She pushed up onto her elbow, gazing down at me. “Whatever it takes, we’ll do it.”

Gently, I guided her back down. “Yes, my love, we will. But we have to tackle the Nuptialis Probatio first. Now that the magic of the trials has locked us in, we can’t go anywhere, or the consequences will be ... dire.”

Her brows rose. “What’s that mean?”

“Just that the magic itself might kill us if it deems we’ve abandoned the trials without completing them.”

She scowled. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it fucking kill us? Everything in this horrible place wants to murder us.”

“Not everything. We do have allies.”

Her brows arched again. “Any strong enough to take her out?”

I let my eyes close.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, and I couldn’t help but feel like the greatest of all failures. After a lifetime of fighting and constantly trying to do right by the mirror world, how was it that I was still letting everyone down?

So she wouldn’t recognize my defeat, to the ceiling I said, “With her apparently drinking blood now, it’s even worse. I don’t know all that much about blood magic, just that it’s the darkest of the dark. But she has speed she didn’t have before. She’s faster than any of us now, and that might be just the beginning.”

She slumped onto her back. “As if we needed her to get worse.”

“I know.”

“And it’s not like the king’s gonna do a thing to stop her.”

“Nope.”

“Coward.”

He likely was a coward, but he was also a broken man. Decades spent with that woman would probably break anyone. “He wasn’t always that way.”

“He is when it matters most.”

“I think it’s always mattered.”

We lay side by side now in a silence that stretched out, until Elowyn interrupted it.

“So, the Nuptialis Probatio. What’s that gonna be like?”

“It’ll be the queen’s usual fanfare, no doubt, though it will be held at the palace, not the arena, so that’s good. A smaller audience. I’m sure she’s had the goblins and humans slaving through the night to have everything ready for today, especially with the level of disrepair. Other than that, though, I don’t know all that much. The last trials were held in the Golden Forest before King Spiro even created the mirror world.”

“But it’s some kind of pairing competition?”

“Yeah. Though given that she’s involved, I’m sure it won’t be that simple ... or that safe. But yeah, it’s to match up the champion of the Gladius Probatio with his female counterpart.”

I rolled to my side and smiled, though I wasn’t fully feeling it yet. “Of course, you, my ferocious love, upended those quaint plans of hers.”

She laughed as she too faced me, but it was still a somewhat hollow sound. “I aim to disrupt—at least where she’s concerned, I do.”

“One of the very many things I love about you.”

“Oh?” Her eyes lit up with a spark of mischief that I experienced like a breath of fresh air after being stuck in the prison that was this palace. “Tell me what else you love about me.”

Grumbling, I tugged her to me, and when I dragged kisses up and down the crook of her neck, she squealed and giggled. “That tickles.”

I only did it more. Her squeal was the best sound in all of Embermere.

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