Page 95 of Fae Crown

The night closed in on us as we hopped, ran, and flew through an archway, exited the courtyard, and slipped into the forest and the darkness of night.

22.SOMEPLACE AND SOMEONE TO RUN TO

RUSH

When Erasmus crowned Talisa the new queen, a position that had remained vacant since the death of his wife many years before, and the man vanished from court life, we fae celebrated. No one had dared crowd the streets or squares to expose our tangible relief, but we’d believed the hard times over. Queen Talisa Zafira Tatiana the First would dispel Erasmus’ darkness and return the Mirror World to its natural order. We’d have a chance to reflect the harmony of Faerie once again, as the elven King Spiro had intended.

We could hardly have been more mistaken.

After the queen announced the death of her father, she didn’t much bother to pretend she was anything but a monster draped in pretty skin—at least, not for long, and not for anyone who bothered to properly examine the signs.

Prince Lohan disappeared before I was born, and so I’d experienced the tail end of Erasmus’reign. Ramana, too. Though many years younger than I, she’d known the “dark reign of King Erasmus the Bloody.”

But Larissa … Larissa had still been so young when the queen was crowned. Too young to accurately remember life before her.

Larissa was a surprise addition to the family, one our parents hadn’t planned. So much younger than Ramana and me, she’d been the baby of the family. Even now, when she was in her thirties, it was still how I thought of her.

Since she’d wrapped her pudgy little baby fingers around my own, I’d understood that, above all else, it was my job to protect her. I hadn’t needed my parents to remind me constantly of that duty. I’d known. With Larissa, it had been love at first sight of those wide innocent eyes and flushed chubby cheeks. Her smile still ranked as one of my very favorite things in this wretched world, where delights were so challenging to find, and far more difficult to hold on to.

Her first word had been “Ruh,” and Ramana and I had each fought to claim it was a fumbling attempt at our name.

And yet, after three-plus decades of protecting her … after traveling all over the bloody kingdom and back to do the queen’s bidding instead of prioritizing my clan’s needs … after almost four years of living continuously at court in exchange for Larissa’s ongoing medical treatment … here I stood.

My precious baby sister wept in my arms andtrembled. She clung to me and expected me to save her. She sighed with evident relief that I was here?—

And broke my fucking heart.

I pressed a hard kiss to her head and tugged her closer to my chest. I noticed I smeared some of the blood that trickled down my face over her pink-rose hair but didn’t bother wiping it away—what would be the point?

A fury so righteous, so indignant, so fucking overpowering raced through my body, leaving me feeling flushed and heady, like I might either pass out or explode in a ball of fire that would finally kill the nasty bitch. My tattoos flared so brightly that they blotted out the details of anything beyond them.

My chest heaved against Larissa’s as I worked to get myself under control and figure out what the fuck I could possibly do to get her off this stage and as far away from the palace as possible.

I’d be willing to never see her again if it meant getting her beyond the queen’s reach.

Larissa whimpered, and I hurriedly pushed her to arm’s length.

“What? What is it?” I asked, willing my tattoos to dim so I could properly study my sister. As usual, they didn’t obey.

“It’s nothing,” she said too quickly, and leaned back into my chest.

“Lari,” I whispered. “What?”

She pointed her head away from our audience, the one I was trying very hard to forget was ogling us,recording our every move to later recount to the eager courtiers awaiting gossip of the Nuptialis Probatio. This would serve as currency for these females finding themselves so suddenly out of the running to become princess.

So softly I had to strain to hear her, even standing pressed against her, she said, “It’s my … nipples, that’s all. They hurt.”

In a pulse of light, my tats flared.

“My patience wears thin,” the queen announced from her throne, the warning in her tone clear.

After going rigid, I waited several long seconds until I could control the impulse to leap from the stage and kill her in the bloodiest, most painful, most gruesome way possible. I wouldn’t stop until I was dripping with her blood and gore, holding her still-beating heart in my clenched fist.

The fantasy ceased abruptly when I recalled I wouldn’t succeed in killing her—because she was fucking immortal—and then what would become of my sister?

I knew all too well. The queen would kill me and punish my sister for what I’d tried to do.

Because I would fail. Everyone who had ever tried to kill the bitch had failed.

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