Page 53 of Fae Crown

A pained moan shuddered through the unfamiliar dimness for several moments before I realized it wasn’t mine.

I tried to sit, but succeeded only in crumpling into myself, pain surging in another strong wave as if in punishment for even that lame attempt. Once the worst of it passed, pink tinged my vision on one side, but that must be my own blood and not my surroundings.

I lay sprawled across a dirt floor. A hazy light streamed above me, its rays highlighting dancing dust particles, and for several moments just noticing something beyond my pain was significant. Tears stung my already stinging eyes as I found hope that I’d again feel something that wasn’t pain.

You’re losing it, I chided myself.

Another moan arrived, this one dragging out, as I slowly, carefully, tipped my head to either side.

Laden burlap sacks leaned against a wall on one side, crates piled two high on the other. The walls were a wood so coarse that light shone through boards indappled seams and knotholes. Strangely, I found beauty, too, in that show of light and shadow.

The moan sounded again, more insistent this time.

I nudged open my mouth, but pain lanced my jaw so forcefully I nearly blacked out. Quickly, I clamped my lips and tried splaying my palms flat against the ground and pushing up. I rose a foot before collapsing back onto the ground. Both palms felt as if the skin had been flayed from them. When I finally was able to raise one in front of my face, the entirety of it was coated in blood and now dust.

Barely moving my lips, I attempted to speak again, but liquid gurgled deep in my chest, preventing words.

Yet another moan from whomever shared this shack or perhaps cabin with me, but this time, rapid footfallsclicked closer before heading away from me. The faint tinkling of chimes accompanied the movements, and I stilled entirely. Where had I heard that soft tinkling before? My mind was hazy but it was familiar.

“It’s alright, my dear,” cooed a soothing masculine voice I’d also heard before.

My heartbeat whooshed through my head even as I wished it aside and strained my ears.

“I have something here that will help soothe the pain.”

That—by an entire host of rays of sunshine—that, I wantedthat.

Knowing all I needed was to draw the man’s attention,that I didn’t need to manage a specific plea, I pushed out a “Help.” It drowned in a gargle that might have been, on its own, loud enough for him.

But wood creaked.

“How I wish you could see her. She looks so much like you.” A warm, soft chuckle told me exactly who was speaking. My eyes widened at the realization until blood dripped into my other eye. Everything was now pink. But by dragons, Iknewwho that was.

“That makes it hard for him to look at her. He thinks of you every time.” Lament practically vibrated through the admission.

A few pattingthumps, another chuckle. “She acts like you too. So fierce. So brave. She’s the first person I’ve seen really stand up to your sister since this happened to you and … and Oren lost so much of himself.”

It was mother-freakingDashiell, the king’s most trusted attendant. And based on what he’d said, the other person with us must be—holy dragonfire and blazing, flaming shitballs!

“I worry Talisa will succeed in killing her,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time before she finds a way. You were so powerful, more powerful than she was, and look at what she did to you, my dear friend. My queen.”

The person Dashiell was speaking to, the one moaning out her pain, by blisteringly hot sunshine and a dragon’s barbed dick … it had to be none other thanOdelia Catalina Corisande.

My mother.

Frantic now, I stretched my limbs to their fullest extent out to all sides. I didn’t hit a thing, but like a thief, that darkness lurked closer. Like a murderer, it squeezed around me.

But I’d be damned if I’d come this close to meetingmy mother, who was supposedly long dead, only to fail.

Only to die.

I stretched and reached, but all I managed was a scuffing that Dashiell seemed not to register. Perhaps he imagined it was an animal, or perhaps the sounds were softer than they felt, taking absolutely everything out of me to make.

My dagger. By dragonfire,my dagger.

My corset was shredded and torn open, my breasts not properly contained, but now that I sought it out, I thought I could feel metal still pressed against my sternum. But how would I reach it?

With my eyes smarting and my flesh screaming, I inched my left hand up along my side. It took what felt like hours, and I could no longer concentrate on Dashiell or my mother. It tookeverything, but then my fingers were at the hilt of the knife.

---