Page 47 of Fae Crown

Now.

My death was mere breaths away.

So I stopped even thinking about the land’s magic, about my magic, whatever it might have been able to be, and allowed myself to simply imagine my lover, my friends, the man I wished had actually been my father as he’d claimed, so I’d have been spared all of this.

What was the point of my life? It had all been so … useless.

I was going to die, and my mate would possibly never remember who I was after I was gone.

The dragons would continue to be butchered by the queen.

The goblins would keep suffering at her hands.

So freaking many fae would suffer and suffer andsufferamid the shadows she’d woven. She gripped the Mirror World so tightly she was suffocating any remaining light that had survived.

I’d never see where the map branded on my skin led. Nor would I see the puckeredkiss of deathscar at my heart fade beneath the glimmer of the handprint of my lover.

I’d fail as the first person markedscaledsince King Erasmus’ extermination of the dragons.

I’d fail—in spectacular fashion—the destiny the sapphire dragon had told me in such a wise, ancient voice that I possessed.

I was failing everyone before I’d had a proper chance to try.

Worst of all, I was failing myself.

I no longer struggled. I hurt every-fucking-where. To end the pain, I attempted to unfurl my body to bring on my death sooner. But I was too shredded and disassembled to uncurl myself at all. All I managed to do was crane up my head, expose the front of my throat, and welcome the next bludgeon.

Everything was fading.

I could hardly hear the snarls anymore either. Like the faces I longed to hold on to, they faded. Even the bright light was ebbing, darkness pressing in on me, and for the first time since meeting the queen I welcomed it. I wanted it. I gave myself over to it completely.

And when a beast finally materialized in frontof me—massive haunches above my head, paws the size of saucers, claws like knives, saliva dripping from fangs the size of my fingers—I did something that made no sense.

If I was anything, I was well and surely beyond sense.

I dragged up a hand from where I found it limp beneath me. I glided it across my leg, smearing it in my blood until it thickly coated my palm. And then I thought about the map that had revealed itself across my skin like a brand, how it had pulsed with the very color of my blood. This blood.

My thoughts muddled more, piling on top of each other.

A lone one distilled from the morass…

Beyond the frenzied, crazed cries of the beasts, I singled out the one thought and clamped on to it. Through my moans of pain that I only now noticed, I held on to it.

Map.

The map.

Suddenly, it was all there was.

My entire arm trembled as I lifted my bloody palm, blood sliding down the arm. I aimed to bring my hand to my heart, to thekiss of deathand Rush’s palmprint, but I missed.

It fumbled onto my clavicle, which I found broken. A flash of agony exploded behind my eyes even as I felt a tug deep within my torso, behind my heart. It dragged me, limp and moaning, away from this hell.

Without ceremony, without warning, it—whatever it was—dumped me onto cold, hard dirt. It was dank, dark, and wet. All that light and noise was gone.

Even so, I couldn’t open my eyes. Couldn’t move a muscle.

Whatever had happened, it was too late. Death had already claimed me.

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