Page 59 of Fae Crown

“Help her.”

“What about the … entertainment?” West asked. “Is it ongoing?”

“No,” I lied. “Besides, I still have more of the olvidian.” I didn’t.

I needed all their focus on Elowyn, not on how the queen insisted I come to her chambers every night. At least each occasion since the first, she’d had me dance for them, undressing as I went, until I was completely naked. They touched me with their gross, grabby hands, but at least I hadn’t had to have sex with them again. It was humiliating and horrible enough to give me flashbacks that made me shiver in the privacy of my room, but at least it was far better than the alternative.

I doubted this turn of events would last long, however, not with the way the queen’s ladies looked at me with so much hunger, the queen with equal parts blood thirst and lust.

“Just find Elowyn,” I repeated. “Everything else will be over soon enough.”

Another lie, of course. I could scarcely bear even the thought of being summoned to the queen’s chambers again tonight. I’d barely been able to keep down food since that first night.

“Go,” I implored. “We’ll talk again later…”

Without warning, the faces of my friends had vanished as suddenly as they’d appeared.

Even so, I didn’t feel as alone as I had before.

My brothers were fighting for me.

And for Elowyn.

I could scarcely believe it.I had a mate. A mate. I turned the notion around in my mind, examining it from different angles.

I’d never allowed myself to imagine I might be blessed with the fortune of dragons. Mates were a gift of such magnitude I’d never allowed myself to so much as hope for one.

Not when life had been one disappointment after another. In the queen’s Mirror World, it was far easier not to want.

Only now I wanted. Oh, how I wanted.

If Elowyn was mine, then I’d find a way to get her back.

Even if I had no clue how, or how my brothers would begin to find her.

Now I had three things to fight for: Larissa, Elowyn, and the rest of faekind.

Lighter than I’d felt in days, though with scant reason, I silently slipped out the door of my chambers.

It was early morning. The second event of the Nuptialis Probatio was scheduled to begin after a luncheon. The queen and her ladies likely still slept after theentertainmentof the previous night. While courtiers slept to recover from the revelries, I usually joined my brothers in training. Besides, the peace of sleep eluded me lately. The queen’s face and taunts had stalked me into my dreams.

Anticipating guards outside my chamber butfinding none, I slunk down the hall toward the Great Salon of Delicacies. It was only exiting the Nuptialis Probatio wing that was magically forbidden to me, not moving around within it. I’d discovered my limits the first day sequestered here, smacking into solid invisible walls whenever I sought to roam.

The doors to the great salon were pulled shut. I eased beyond them and slipped inside the Silver Salon of Rarities and Curiosities—where my breath left me all over again.

The parvnits remained pinned to the walls by their gossamer wings. When I’d first seen them, their wings had been iridescent, like those of dragonflies, though large as a hummingbird’s. Now their wings were a dull, ashen gray. Only a few of them even bothered to raise their heads to look at me when I entered.

As the queen’s escort to the exhibit, I’d learned that pinned as they were, the choice whether or not to reveal themselves to onlookers had been taken from them.

I rushed toward the nearest one. Once a cheery yellow, her waist-long hair was bleached of color, hanging limply along her diminutive shoulders. Her cheeks were drawn, her skin wan as she considered me. She sagged against the effort it took to hold up her head.

“Free us,” she pled in a gasping wheeze.

Studying her wings, I understood why. Four pins supported her weight. One through each wing, shredding the delicate tissue. Her weight had dragged thewings through the pins until she hung from their top rims, leaving gaping tears through them. Another pin pierced flesh beneath each shoulder. A bloody, gruesome rip separated the muscles, revealing the drag of her weight there too.

Too aware of the consequences of my actions, I replied anyway: “Of course I will.”

When the queen discovered her little exhibit sabotaged, who knew what she’d do? But I couldn’t walk away from them. I’d already had to leave them here for days before I could sneak away to their aid. Every time I’d tried, guards had been stationed outside my room.

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