Page 137 of Fae Reckoning

Studying her journal entries and logged experiments, a few in Braque’s hand, her descent into darkness—and its attendant madness—was plain. She began drinking blood to more directly consume life force.And when she imbibed the blood of the dragons, she forged a connection with them that allowed her to override their will.

When she’d believed herself to have become immortal, her writing had grown shaky. Of course, there’d been no entry proving this hypothesis of hers false after Elowyn’s power collided with her own.

“What if no one shows up for the land soon?” Elowyn asked, drawing me sharply from my thoughts. Her brow was furrowed. “We can’t just keep all these fae waiting.”

With effort, I focused on the present. No matter what Talisa did, we’d have the opportunity to fix it, even if it took us our entire lifetimes. “I don’t think they mind waiting.”

“How can they not? It’s been at least an hour of everyone just standing around.”

“And they’ll wait many hours more to witness such a significant event in our shared history.”

“He’s right,” West chimed in. “This is a really big deal.”

I spun toward where he stood with Ramana’s hand tightly clasped in his. Since he’d brought her back to court, I hadn’t seen my sister farther than a foot from his side.

I scowled at him, though the gesture was halfhearted. “You’re supposed to be pretending El and I have some privacy here.”

Ramana laughed. The boisterous roll, which I’dbelieved I’d never hear again, was a balm that soothed the ragged edges of my essence.

“Only you would expect privacy as the new king of Embermere,” Ramana said with a twinkle in her eyes, back to being the brilliant, deep blue of her youth. “You’re gonna have to get used to not having it, big bro. Everyone’s gonna need something from you.”

In earnest this time, I scowled at my sister. “That’s not helping.” I flicked a glance at El, and sure enough, her brows were pinched. “Maybe you should go stand with everyone else.”

“Un-uh. You’re stuck with me right where I am. Besides, you said you wanted your friends close.”

“I did…” And now my sisters, whom I adored of course, and my brothers, whom I loved, and Bolt, who was my best friend if on four legs, and Azariah, who was seemingly glued to Bertram, and Xeno, who was apparently glued to my mate, and Saffron and Pru and her granddoody and Horst, the goblin who’d attended me at court, and Einar and a deep-blue she-dragon … and on and on the list went … they crowded around Elowyn and me from the opposite side as the crowd.

Ryder grinned and laughed from among them. “You’re well and truly stuck with us, bro.”

My stare flicked from him to Hiroshi. I suspected it would be a long time before I looked at either of them without experiencing a rush of relief.

There’d been steep losses—awful, horrible losses—but despite it all most of us had survived. Everyone Iloved most in the world was here at my side—crowding the crap out of me.

“Waaawaaaa,” croaked the ranucu.

“What is it, Bertram?” Azariah asked of him right away, turning to face him with an attentive flutter of his wings and a whoosh of his fluffy tail.

“Waawaa,waawaa.”

“Where?” the pegicorn asked urgently.

“Wawaaa.”

Azariah’s head turned to search the groups of fae across from us, his horn jerking perilously to either side. Bolt bobbed his head out of its path.

“What is it?” I had to ask.

“Bertram says the land is here,” Azariah offered.

“Who? Where?” I asked.

But when I turned back around, thewherewas obvious. And when Xeno gasped, much like he’d seenthe dead walking, so too was thewho.

“That ain’t possible,” Roan rasped.

The dwarf’s eyes were shining a startling green. He’d shaved his face of his bushy beard and mustache to match his short hair, and it was still like I was looking at a different person every time I saw him.

“Finn’s … dead,” Roan finished.

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