Page 52 of Fae Crown

“Not far from here, Your Majesty. A few days’ travel at most.”

“I need more specifics.”

“I only feel her in a general radius. The information grows clearer the closer to her I am.”

“Then you and Ivar will go find her together.”

Braque smiled at the prospect of time alone withthe queen—possibly the only person in the entirety of the Mirror World to do that—and Azariah tottered backward a step before playing it off as excitement.

He really leaned into the lie, tossing his head in what I guessed was an attempt at enthusiasm.

The queen only sighed and pursed her lips. “You leave at first light. Ivar will kill her when you find her. In the meantime, good riddance.”

She gazed out the wall of windows until a pleased smile contorted her lips. “Now this is an unexpected surprise. She broke the protection of the trials’ magic all on her own.”

“I volunteer to help find her,” I announced before thinking it through.

That smile widened even before it pointed at me. “No. You promised me nightly entertainment.”

I’d never promised her a damn thing in my life. That had been my parents. They were the ones to offer me into her service to spare Larissa.

She stood, her gown draping heavily around her. “I’ll expect you at my bedchambers every night until I tell you otherwise.”

“Very well, Your Majesty.”

“Now.” She extended her arm toward me.

Though I would rather cuddle a bloodthirsty feethle than touch her, I tucked it into the crook of my elbow. She led us toward the doors.

“We’ll enjoy the exhibit I arranged. You’ll love it, Rush. Every specimen of parvnit ever discovered.”

Theparvnitwas a fairy that required a special kindof magic to be seen, even by fae, unless they allowed it. They were known to be devious and fierce, yet loyal and brave as a creature many times their size.

Despite myself and my current company, I discovered myself excited to see them. They were rumored to come in every different color to have ever existed.

But when we entered the salon for the queen’s curios, I wanted to see none of it at all.

The parvnits, as small and delicate as hummingbirds, were lined up across the walls, pinned up by their wings.

Worse than that, the parvnits were suffering through the display alive.

13.BY BLISTERINGLY HOT SUNSHINE AND A DRAGON’S BARBED DICK

ELOWYN

I’d been not just wrong, butdead wrong.

As it turned out, I was very much alive. A searing agony that stung even my eyeballs consumed what felt like every part of my body. I couldn’t helpbutbe alive, desperate as I was to escape the pain, which was everywhere all at once, awful and unrelenting. I feared I’d never again be the same even after it abated. A pain of this magnitude probably changed a person forever.

I teetered on the threshold of a transformation I feared would be permanent. What the change exactly might be, however, I didn’t know—unless it was death. Death hovered so close by it was like a scent on the wind, luring me nearer.

A wave of what might have been actual fire raced across my torso and limbs, surely charring what remained of my battered flesh, and I clenched my eyes tighter against it. By sunshine, could this please end?Please. Fuckingplease.

Maybe I was dead after all, in the Igneuslands. It would be some major dragonshit that I should end up there when my sins didn’t seem great enough to warrant it, but why else would even my hair hurt? My nails and teeth? They weren’t ever supposed to hurt. What the ever-agonizingfuckwas this misery?

My next inhale was deeper but it gurgled. That couldn’t be good.

Finally, I forced open my eyes, if for nothing else than to see where I’d landed before I did die.

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