Page 78 of Fae Reckoning

“Together we will march on the palace of Embermere and bring death to the false queen,” Rush called out.

“Death to the false queen!” someone yelled, and others repeated the call.

“Is this everyone who’ll be joining us?” Rush asked Hiroshi, Ryder, and West, who’d moved to stand beside Roan and Reed.

Where was Xeno? I scanned the crowd for myfriend and didn’t find him—likely still up in the trees keeping guard, then. I hadn’t seen Zafi either. I searched the gathering another time—no MISO, not even among those of her kind.

“Word is still spreading throughout our many networks,” Hiroshi replied with an encompassing swivel of his head that implied every group there was continuing its recruiting efforts. “And we’ve sent discreet word to the noble clans that we attack at daybreak of the third day.”

“The third day?” I exclaimed, sliding Saffron to my hip to better see everyone. “We can’t wait that long. She could find us by then.”

“She indeed might,” Hiroshi said. “But we need to give our allies time to travel. The Mirror World is vast. Even employing magical means, three days is barely sufficient time. Everyone who arrived while you were absent was already close.”

“He’s right,” Rush interjected.

“We need every ally we can gather in that time,” Ryder added. “This will be our only chance to defeat the false queen. We need to lean into the element of surprise. If she has the chance to organize her own forces, her retaliation will be brutal.”

“Her retaliation will already be brutal,” I said, but then relented. Three days to gather an armywasalready too little.

“What of your map?” Larissa asked.

She sat beside Ramana, who’d gathered enoughstrength to lean against a tree without support. The scarlet glow of her eyes was gone, and the dark veins that snaked visibly below her skin were rapidly fading. Most indicative of her recovery was the burgeoning determination in her stare. It was only a glimpse at this point, but I could already see it: the grit to do whatever it took to see justice delivered to the Mirror World. Once she was at full strength, Ramana would be a valuable ally. She nodded at me, and it was only then that I realized I’d been staring. I nodded back, then faced her sister.

“My map’s gone,” I told Larissa. “We tried”—my cheeks flushed but I persevered—“but it didn’t activate.” Raised among dragon shifters who made no qualms about nudity or their appreciation of sex, at times with multiple partners, I wasn’t particularly shy. However, neither was I in the habit of talking to a large audience about my sexual activity. “We’ll have to find the fae she’s been draining another way,” I concluded, my failure heavy on my conscience.

“Talisa believes you were going to claim their power for yourself. She wouldn’t leave them alive long enough to risk it,” Ivar said, sounding detached and matter-of-fact. Perhaps that was the only way to survive close service and quarters with Talisa all the time he had. “She sees you as her greatest impediment to full control over the kingdom.”

So I had failed them…

“With no way to find them, it’s better that they died,” Ivar continued.

“How can you say that?” West accused in a snarl after a quick glance at Ramana.

With an equally unsentimental arch of his brow, Ivar faced West. “We’re talking about the survival of anentire realmhere. We’re about to head towar. There will be casualties.”

Our allies shared apprehensive looks.

“With an enemy like Talisa, there’s no avoiding the losses. All we can hope is to weaken her as quickly and as severely as possible so we can end her reign for good. That means we can’t allow her to drain anybody any more than she already has. We have to cut off all access to her sources of additional power. If that means letting them die, then that means letting them die.” Ivar gestured to the fae recovering around his sister. “They’ll all be like this. So wasted and frail that if they were capable of making the choice they’d likely prefer death and the peace of the Etherlands over continuing after this.”

West jutted out his chin. “Is that what you’d say about your sister too? If we hadn’t found Lisbeth?” Changing his tone to mimic Ivar’s clipped one, West said, “She’s better off dead?”

“Don’t you dare threaten Lisbeth,” Ivar said with a clenching of his fingers, of his jaw.

“I wasn’t,” West said. “And your response is answer enough.”

Rush interjected: “What we do or don’t want regarding the captives doesn’t much matter. We don’t know how to find them, and we can’t scour theMirror World searching for them. We have to choose. We either take on the false queen or we try to save perhaps a few dozen captives, at most.”

As more heavy silence ensued, with obvious lament flashing across his moonlit eyes, Rush added, “I don’t want to accept a single additional loss to those we’ve already suffered. But without Elowyn’s map, we have no easy way to find them.”

I assumed our new allies didn’t know anything about my map or what it had done, but none of them appeared surprised at the mention of it. It seemed our friends had been adept at imparting information as well as expanding our numbers.

“If we don’t attack the false queen soon,” Rush went on, “she’ll figure out what we’re up to.”

“If she hasn’t already,” Ivar said. “She’s sharp as my cutlass.” He narrowed his eyes at Rush. “Which you still haven’t returned to me.”

Rush frowned at him, before looking at me. “We leave them, just for now … agreed?”

I scowled and bit out, “Agreed. Just for now. Ivar, the dragons in the dungeon beneath the palace … are you the one who chained them with that shadowy magic?” I expected him to show at least some remorse.

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