Page 101 of Fae Reckoning

With steely eyes, Talisa told Oren, “There’s been a plan in motion for three thousand years. And I’m going to be the one to bring it to fruition.”

Oren frowned. “What plan?”

“A magnificent one. But I can’t tell you about it here. It’s not meant for the ears of any but the queen and king.”

“I thought I wasn’t a king.”

Talisa smiled, a tight stretch of her painted lips. “Oh, Oren, I didn’t mean it. You know me.”

“Puh-lease,” I exclaimed. “Oren, you can’t actually be falling for her shit again. I mean,come on!”

Talisa’s stare whipped toward me so fast it was unnatural. “Shut up, you stupid, idiotic girl,” she hissed. “You ruin everything.”

“No, you crazy bitch.Youruin everything. You all but killed my mother and my aunts. You obviously killed Saturn, my brother. You’ve tortured pretty much everyone in the Mirror World. And you treat my father like he’s your feeble-minded pet. I won’t stand for it.”

“Aye,” shouted Rush. “We won’t stand for it any longer.”

I flinched, wishing he could fade into the walls like the goblins did so he might be safe.

Talisa’s eyes narrowed to serpentine slits, taking me in, then him, before locking on to the king again.

The king was standing on his own, with Dashiell hovering behind him. His chin tilted up, his crownsliding a bit more. “I will ask you only one more time.Did you kill our son?”

Talisa stared at him, blinked, took in her audience, and eventually scowled. “Yes, Oren, of course I did. The needs of Embermere come even before those of our own family.”

Oren’s legs buckled. He fell back into Dashiell, who struggled to sheathe his sword and hold him up with one arm.

“How could you?” Oren rasped so quietly that the courtiers, whose numbers had grown, barely breathed so as to absorb the unfolding drama. “He was our boy. Our sweet boy.”

Talisa tutted. “He wasn’t a boy, and he wasn’t sweet, not anymore he wasn’t. He was about to destroy everything.”

“How … how could you even do it? The magic doesn’t allow you to kill me. It shouldn’t allow you to kill your own flesh-and-blood son either.”

“Oh, Oren … the rules don’t apply to me. They haven’t for a long time. Haven’t you realized that?” Her face suddenly blank, she studied him. “You should have gone back to your room like I told you to.”

So fast I struggled to register what was happening, her eyes surged an incandescent red. Like flames, the crimson glow swiftly spread across the entirety of her body, burning away her clothing and heels. She stood wholly naked but for her diadem and the rubies on her hands.

She extended her glowing fingers in the direction of her husband. With a quick slash of her hands, Oren gasped, then gurgled. His crown toppled from his head to bounce along the floor with a tinklingclank,clink,clank,cludd. A second later, his head slid from his neck, tumbled, and propped itself on a ragged crest of glass, which protruded through his cranium from ear to chin.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Are We Going to Stand around Gossiping and Sharpening Our Blades, or Are We Going to Use Them?

~ Rush ~

Dashiell keened until his legs collapsed, and slunk to the floor with the decapitated body of his king pressed to his chest, blood arcing in spurts from Oren’s severed neck up onto his gaping mouth. His different colored eyes were bright and savage as they looked from his king’s head to Talisa’s satisfied grin. I suspected Dashiell was fantasizing about ripping it from her face with his bare hands.

The stunned silence shattered.

Crying out their own horror, many courtiers fled, openly disregarding the false queen’s standing order that none were to leave her presence without her express permission. Their heels clacked loudly as they skimmed the mirrored walls, their hands squeaking against the gleaming glass, to avoid the dragons, who were crouched menacingly toward the center. They’dbeen taught to fear and revile the beasts as fae-eating monsters.

Unlike the dozen or so dragons, the snakes were everywhere, slithering across upturned, shatterproof glass—which obviously wasn’t dragonproof—and panicked nobles alike. Aristocrats from all levels of the ladder gasped and shrieked while the serpents, agitated by all the commotion, lunged and struck.

A minor lord of Leantos stumbled and fell. One of the largest snakes I’d ever seen slid over his body, bared its fangs, and buried them in his neck. The male’s screams strangled into wheezes before fading into squeaky silence.

The unfortunate lord was too far away for me to reach in time to help. Besides, I had Elowyn to protect—and she was more important than all of us put together. Talisa hadn’t physically touched Oren to kill him, cutting off his head from several feet away, unveiling a power I hadn’t known she possessed. The instinct to flee with Elowyn and not stop until we arrived at the far reaches of the Sorumbra and then the coast was a tangible impulse beating through my veins. I angled farther in front of her, exchanging a look with Xeno when I discovered him doing the same from her opposite side.

The changeling’s jaw was as hard as the stone of ancient mountains. No doubt he was also warring with the urge to whisk El somewhere secure. Only that was the problem, wasn’t it? There would be nowhere safe for Elowyn so long as Talisa lived. Even if I were toquickly locate a fae with the capacity to open a portal to Nightguard, there was no place in any of the magical or human realms that would remain beyond her reach—save for Faerie, and we couldn’t voyage there any more than she could.

The only viable option was to stay and end it—end her.

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