Page 43 of Fae Crown

She glanced at Rush, then at the nineteen females who weren’t me. Her gaze slid across their rapt faces beneath their brightly colored, towering hair, skipping over me as if I weren’t even there.

“This is your opportunity to prove to me that you’re worthy of becoming heir to my crown, so don’t waste it. The rule of Embermere requires a vast array of skills and talents. This is your chance to show me yours. Show me what you’re made of. To rule is to have grit and perseverance and the sheer nerve to do what is required. Sometimes, you won’t like what youhave to do. But you’ll have to do it regardless. The well-being of the kingdom and its fae is all that matters.”

Again, she gazed upon her audience as if I weren’t there at all.

After a beatific nod that incongruously seemed at home on the same person who had no reservation about ordering heads separated from the bodies of her subjects, in a serene yet strong voice, she said, “May your ancestors cheer you on from the Etherlands, and may you draw first blood.”

“Draw first blood?” I muttered to myself as the others thanked her for her benevolence or some other dragonshit. What level of fuckery was I about to walk into? I yearned for my throwing knives as if they were missing limbs.

Apparently hearing me over the gratitude of the others, Octavia took another few steps away, positioning herself closer to the other competitors than to me. When my brow arched at her in question, she looked pointedly in the opposite direction.

What of our “promises” to each other? We’d made them only minutes before.

Now Rush and I were the only ones to stand apart from the others.

Alone.

At the mercy of a smiling psycho in a crown.

“Begin,” she called out.

Five doorways limned by a silver light materialized behind her, halfway between her throne and the backwall of the great salon. They floated a few inches from the floor.

A communal awed murmur swept the room, and I was astounded to discover myself contributing to it. In Nightguard, I’d never dreamed of this kind of magic.

Creeping, winding, silver vines demarcated the thresholds. Bright silver flowers that seemed a cross between roses and lilies bloomed along the vines, free of thorns. They seemed to shine from every part, as if light were illuminating them from all sides at once. It was so bright, I had to squint against the glare to discern the details.

The doorways the vines marked, however, were so dark that no light reached them, or if it did, the darkness swallowed it right up. The brightest bright beside the darkest dark, in stark juxtaposition to each other—what a fitting entrance to the queen’s first test. On the exterior, she appeared so beautiful, but her insides were as dark as the entrances beckoning us forward.

“Who is brave enough to go first?” Azariah asked in a deep rumble that reminded me of a bray when it was usually all too easy to forget he wasn’t a man.

For several long moments, no one answered. The doorways were strange and oddly mesmerizing. But the queen was still behind them. That depth of darkness seemed precisely the kind that could swallow up a person’s essence and never return it—not even to the Etherlands or Igneuslands.

When the queen leaned to one side of her throneandtsked, Natania hurried to say, “I will go, Your Majesty.”

The queen’s smile was once more delighted as she pointed it at her favorite princess hopeful. “Natania, why am I not surprised you’re the bravest among them?”

Even though I realized I was rising to the queen’s bait that I was reacting to the suggestion that Natania was better than me, that she was more deserving of Rush than I was, I couldn’t stop myself.

“I’ll go,” I said.

The queen’s smile remained, but it froze atop her blood-red lips, brittle and glaringly fake. “Wonderful,” she eked out.

Finally, she met my stare. I refused to look away from it, even as three more females volunteered.

That’s right, bitch. I’m not afraid of you. I willed my thoughts to scroll across my expression, and for her not to sense the lie among them.

I didn’t want to fear the queen, surely I didn’t. Zako’s voice surged through my memories, unbidden, to remind me,Fear is a lethal weakness. You must banish fear from your thoughts at all costs.

But whenever I looked at her, I saw not just the woman but her power and cruelty. How easily she could end every person and creature I’d grown to love. How easily she could steal away my mate and our connection, so wonderful I’d never dared dream it could happen to me.

The more I gained and the more I loved, the morefear and faith warred within me. The more fleeting moments of faith became, the more I feared faith might not be enough to lead me—us—to banish the darkness from the Mirror World.

Fear shook me to my core as I marched through the throng of females, allowing them to step aside and make way for me. I didn’t even glance at Rush. I didn’t need any more reminders of all I might lose, or all I’d already lost.

With my eyes narrowed on the center doorway and its beckoning, terrifying darkness, I didn’t wait for anyone or anything before I stepped through, and left the world I knew behind.

11.AN IMPENETRABLE WALL OF SAVAGERY

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