Page 36 of Fae Crown

Now that was a question for which I had a long list of guesses.

“Who would be so … so awful? Eliana’s head…” Octavia interrupted herself to tip up her glass, this sip longer than the previous in an attempt to dull her nerves.

I didn’t blame her. After the queen’s nightmarish “entertainment” with Rush, I’d believed myself toonumb, too shocked to be shaken by anything else. I thought,How could anything be worse than watching Rush give his body to the queen, and then for her to pass him off to Natania, Malina, Coretta, and Eliana?

Apparently, the bad was only going to keep getting worse around here. Eliana had sent the changeling to kill me, and for that reason alone I didn’t regret her death. When I remembered her greedy hands all over Rush’s naked body, him appearing miles away just to avoid feeling her touch, I regretted it even less.

But the snake, with just his fangs, had somehow gnawed her neck until her head hung on by little more than some grisly shards of bone and ropes of sinew. Blood had pooled on her bed, highlighting the contrast between it and her ashen skin. Her eyes and mouth had been wide with her surprise. She’d died that way.

Perhaps the snake had used magic to cause so much damage, I wasn’t sure.I kill things, he’d told me. And man, did he ever.

I couldn’t shake the knowledge that Eliana had intended her fate to be mine. At least there was poetic justice in her end—an immediate boomerang of her actions. I hadn’t felt safe at court to begin with, but now every little noise or movement from beyond my direct vision caused me to whirl around to face it.

Eliana hadn’t been the only one to die.

In the aftermath of her gruesome death, and the unease that came with no one but maybe me knowing who killed her, or how the killer could have caused all that damage without anyone realizing it in time tocatch him, it took another hour before the second corpse was discovered.

Still warm, the body of a visdrakess from Forzantos rested in her bed. The curtains remained drawn around it. Her face was peaceful, as if she’d passed contentedly in her slumber.

I hadn’t spoken with the woman. I did, however, remember the healthy rosy color of her cheeks. There was no way her death was natural.

“Poison.”

“What?” Octavia asked.

I chortled darkly. “I’m guessing the other woman was killed by poison.”

Octavia gulped. “There are many ways to kill a fae other than poison.”

I turned toward her as she drained her small glass. Immediately, a goblin materialized and shuffled toward her with a crystal decanter at the ready.

After filling her glass, he asked me, “Milady, would you like me to top yours off?” His voice was a deep familiar rasp that made me miss Pru with a painful pang.

I stared at him for a beat too long, singling out bits of Pru from his gray-tinged face, bulbous nose, and pupil-less eyes.

Eventually, I replied, “No, though I thank you for the offer.”

The remnants of whatever had been in that vial of Rush’s still lingered in my body, and I desperately desired the sharpness of my senses. Save fortoo few exceptions, I stood in a pit of poisonous vipers.

The goblin’s hairless brow quirked as he blinked those large eyes at me, once, twice. Then he regained his composure and bowed before shuffling backward to blend into our surroundings.

“Why did you do that?” Octavia asked.

I raised my glass and was taking a sip out of habit before remembering I should have asked the goblin to take my drink. “Do what?” I asked distractedly, my gaze once more traveling to Rush’s back. It was too rigid, dammit, like he was withholding his true self.

“Thank it.”

I faced her. “Why wouldn’t I thank him?”

“The goblins are servants.” She said it so matter-of-factly.

Octavia was one of the kindest fae I’d met since my arrival at the palace. If this was how even she viewed the creatures, then it was easier to understand the goblin’s shock at my gratitude.

Opening my mouth to explain what I felt like should be obvious, I found myself sipping instead. What was the point? Actions would speak louder than words. After I claimed the queen’s throne, I’d free more than the dragons. I’d free the goblins too. The fairy servants as well. The humans. Everyone suffering at her hands. It was a long list.

After all, I’d spent most of my life in Nightguard, and there I’d been a servant myself. I knew all too wellwhat it felt like to always have to put someone else’s will before my own.

And was servitude really all that different from being someone like Rush? A high-ranking member of the nobility, yes, but beholden to the queen’s every despicable whim just the same?

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