Page 113 of Fae Reckoning

I inhaled sharply as blood spurted onto Pru’s dingy frock and she stumbled. Starkly, I remembered how she’d told me she wanted to wear breeches but Talisa wouldn’t allow it. Talisa wouldn’t allow goblins their magic or their freedom or their safety. She only allowed them to do as she told them when she told them and how she told them—or it was, indeed,off with theirheads.

Pru pressed her thin lips together as she struggled to heft the sword another time. “Yes, a goblin. We’re important too. Even if you don’t let us be seen. Even if we’re not allowed to rest. Our bones ache when we never get to rest.” She hacked at Talisa’s neck again. “For Pru’s granddoody. You hurt him horribly.” Her voice caught. “He’s a good goblin, a really good granddoody, and you hurt him till he wanted to die. Pru begged him to stay. He lived only for Pru.”

Talisa’s mouth opened but no words flowed past her moving lips. Blood slid along their seams, pooling beneath the side of her face that rested against the floor.

Pru chopped again. The sword sliced halfway through Talisa’s neck. Her eyes glazed over as Pru muttered, “For Prince Saturn. He was a good prince and a good male. You killed him because he tried to do the right thing.”

A tiny, yet hugely ferocious, roar sliced through the stunned silences between Pru’s accusations and blows. My goblin friend didn’t even glance up as Zafi, now fully visible, zoomed toward Talisa.

The MISO landed with a purposeful jab of both diminutive feet upon Talisa’s up-facing cheekbone, drew back an arm that gripped a sword the size of a toothpick, and jammed it into Talisa’s eyeball. I’d believed it to be unseeing until it blinked to dislodge the little weapon and failed. Zafi sneered like a deranged, swarming hornet and held on to her sword as a curtain of thick lashes fought against it.

“For my ma. For my family,” Zafi snarled,pushing her sword farther in. “For every parvnit you hurt. And for hurting Elowyn.”

Tears moistened my eyes. I blinked them back as they blurred the sight of Pru, again raising what must have been the discarded sword of a Rush-sized warrior. Zafi abandoned her own little sword in Talisa’s eyeball and zipped out of Pru’s way just as the goblin brought the blade down with a blunt thud against Talisa’s neck again. The sword missed the original slice and gouged out a new one.

“For Elowyn,” Pru also said, and the tears broke free to spill down my cheeks. “She’s a good fae. She’ll be a good queen. She’s Pru’s friend. Pru isn’t a slave, she’s afriend. You hurt my only friend. Off with your head!”

The sword swung down, missed the main cut another time. Pru gritted her teeth, hiked the blade high, and bit out, “For little Saffron”—when the dragonling was larger than she was … this goblin with a heart bigger than this entire room. “For all of them.”

Swing, hack, squelch.

“So everyone can feel safe.”

Swing, hack, squelch.

“So no one else has to cry themselves to sleep.”

Swing, hack, squelch.

“So Pru can keep her head. We want our heads. We need our heads. Pru can’t see another head roll but this one.”

Pru swung her borrowed sword one final time—and it was indeed off with Talisa’s head.

Eyes frozen forever wide with her shock, one stuck with a tiny sword, the head rolled once. Twice. Until the long, silky hair that was now matted with blood caught on an edge of glass and bumped into the face-down body of a dead fae. The former queen’s head rolled to a stop against the male’s boot.

Pru dropped the sword with a booming clatter that rattled the stunned quiet that blanketed the hall. She sank to her bum. Her large eyes blinked dazedly several times before they seemed to focus on the rest of us, all staring at her, utterly, completely agog. Pru’s ashen face flushed. Her cheeks warmed a forest green, the color of goblin blood. Seconds drew out while Pru panted from her efforts.

Eventually Rush said, “Well, I suppose that’s the end of the dark queen, alright.”

People and creatures alike cheered in whatever way they could. Nobles applauded. Pru’s blush crept down her neck.

It was indeed the end of the dark, false, blood queen.

The end of her head.

The end of her reign of darkness.

The end of an era.

“Pru,” I stammered, starting toward her.

Braque cut me off with a shrill, “No!”

He stumbled forward, shoving others brusquely out of his way. He fell to his knees beside Talisa’s head. Blood seeped into the fabric of his breeches.

“No, no, no,” he repeated. “You promised me.” Hegripped her head in both hands, raised it to face him, and shook it hard. “I was loyal to you and you promised.”

Braque yanked Zafi’s sword from her eyeball, tossed it aside, and slammed her forehead against his. Blood dripped from her neck to his shoes and their polished buckles. Staring into her now-definitely blank eyes, he shrieked, “You promised me!”

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