Page 80 of Fae Crown

19.THE WRETCHEDNESS OF INEVITABILITY

RUSH

The queen had stretched the days of the Nuptialis Probatio into a second week, and I found myself yet again in the Great Salon of Delicacies waiting for another of hereventsto begin. Not even the last. The third of four. All her fancy parties and gatherings—attendance mandatory of course—had become a special kind of torture.

If it wasn’t her attention on me, then it was that of the many ladies who continued to hope they’d become the next crown princess. The mere thought of any one of them as my wife felt insidiouslywrongin the same manner the queen herself did: a depravity of the natural order of things.

Now I better understood why. It wasn’t just that these females were simpering and foolish, vacuous and trite, conniving, cruel, and catty. It was that they weren’t Elowyn—the one woman with whom I’d beendestined to share my life from before either of our essences incarnated into these bodies.

A female other than Elowynwas the only possible result of the Fae Heir Trials at this point. The queen had ordered the dark doorways of the first event dismantled even though Elowyn hadn’t come back. Perhapsespeciallybecause she’d stepped through the threshold never to return.

Though I asked, the queen refused to tell me where that middle doorway led. She brushed off the specifics, claiming only that all the other contestants had been able to complete the challenge. It wasn’t her fault Elowyn was incompetent.

With a contented smile that made my insides churn, the queen had declared Elowyn disqualified from the trials for leaving the premises—a freedom not even the queen of Embermere had, she’d said. According to the queen, Elowyn had violated the terms of the Fae Heir Trials—and so she could never become my bride. It didn’t matter that Elowyn hadn’t chosen to abandon the trials.

With Azariah off hunting for her, and he the only one with a connection to the trials’ magic that might supersede the queen’s, there was no one left to contradict her. Even if the pegicorn had remained behind, it was possible he wouldn’t have argued against the point anyway. Azariah was smart enough to recognize a losing battle.

My brothers and I had been fighting a losing war against her for too many years. Many of us fae had—without a single substantial sign of progress for our many, many losses.

The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the wall of windows, casting the room in a pretty golden glow. How ill-fitting that I’d grown to detest this great salon practically more than any other space in the palace. The entire wing set aside for this stage of the trials, actually. I was so over the contrived artifice of the competition that I’d begun to wonder if the fae dungeon might be a better place—until the memory of a gaunt, haunted Gadiel rapidly dispelled the notion.

The queen sat ahead of me in a smaller version of her usual throne, positioned directly across from a stage that had been erected in the middle of the ample room—this time not sectioned into parts. Layers of flowing light-gray, lilac-tinted gossamer were drawn around the large platform. Braque stood obediently at the queen’s side, slightly behind her.

The contestants were divided into two rows of high-backed, ornately carved chairs behind mine. Their stares were warm along my face and body, but I refused to glance their way, not even at the less threatening ones among them such as Octavia Lily Rose. Merely studying them—or the queen, always the queen—made me burn with the wish to abandon my body, leave it for some other poor sod to occupy.

Counting Elowyn, the competitors had winnowed from the initial twenty-two to fourteen. Even Natania, Coretta, and Malina, the most arrogant and obnoxious of the bunch, were nervous in a way they hadn’t been atthe start of the Nuptialis Probatio. Then, they’d seemed eager. Excited even.

They’d obviously been delusional.

They could harbor no great delusions now. The queen didn’t bother pretending she minded when any of them died—or disappeared into magical doorways. Neither did she bother to pretend she’d stop any of them from killing off their competition. She stopped short of highlighting the glaring possibility that she might herself be behind the murders.

Seated in anticipation of the queen’s arrival, the ladies had grown silent when she entered and claimed her throne without comment. Sigmund had recovered from the thrashing he’d received, courtesy of the queen attempting to keep Elowyn from the trials, and had announced the queen’s entrance. I’d expected him to tell us more, but the tall, thin man had only stood off to one side, his stare fixed on a point far away.

After a long wait and no sign that this third event was to start anytime soon, the buzz of light chatter began behind me. After more waiting, its volume rose.

Until the queen turned in her throne. Not to censure any of them. Not to feign interest or friendship, to play at being “one of the ladies”—a ruse only an idiot would believe.

But to smile at me.

The conversation behind me ceased abruptly.

My blood chilled by several degrees.

It was the queen’sI caught you being badsmile, and it spread as she pointed it solely at me.

“Rush,” she said in that smooth voice that disturbed me for its outward pleasantness. “Come. Join me. Keep meentertainedwhile we wait.”

Wait for what?I wondered warily even as I couldn’t help but notice her emphasis on the one word and what it might mean.

Since I’d denied her several nights ago, nothing had happened. I’d braced myself for the worst, even my death. But she’d done nothing to punish me for denying her my performance or company.

Nor had she mentioned thatsomeonereleased the parvnits that were the subject of her exhibit in the Silver Salon of Rarities and Curiosities.

After a brief moment to steel myself, I stood and walked toward her with an overwhelming sense that I approached my doom. The queenneverforgot to punish any transgression, no matter how insignificant.

Though I was mere steps from her, and covered the distance quickly, it was sufficient time for a lifetime of regret to wash over me.

What had I been thinkingby refusing her? So many fae depended on me to redirect the tides and spare the Mirror World from her darkness. Those I cared for most would be the prime targets of her vengeance. How many of them would I let down this day because I hadn’t been able to stomach her intentions for me?

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