Page 81 of Fae Reckoning

“Then all we have left is to claim our weapons. Pru? Ivar?”

They nodded, Ivar with far more reluctance than Pru, whose eyes now shone with a resolve they never had before.

I swallowed. “Then we march on the palace—wait. How long will that take?” I asked Rush. Fuck, how was I supposed to lead them when I knew so little about life in the Mirror World?

“From how lush it is here, and how parched the outskirts are, we figure that if we walk steadily for half of the three days, we’ll arrive by dawn of the third, well enough rested.”

“Alright,” I said with pursed lips. The icy fingers of dread crawled along my neck, making me twitch.

Everyone continued to wait as if anticipating mydismissal or a final order or … something. What,whatdid they want from me? I’d been raised a servant, not a queen, among brutal, crass dragon shifters to boot.

But then it came to me. It was what the royal guard had so courageously shouted to the crowds in the stands of the Gladius Probatio’s arena before he was sucked into the devouring pit conjured by Braque’s potions.

I threw back my head and yelled, “We bring down the queen before she’s the end of us all. We fight as one in the light or we fall divided in the darkness.” Then I snapped my stare, now fiercely determined, back down to scan my audience. “So let’s damn well fight in the light and rip the shadow of darkness from this world forever.”

I’d expected some kind of civilized chorus. What I got instead were wild, savage, feral howls—from the people as much as the creatures.

I’d never before in my life howled, not even when the dragons and shifters of Nightguard had made all sorts of animalistic sounds that had made me feel left out.

Once more I tipped back my head, intending to try a howl. What emerged instead was a motherfuckingROAR.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Evil Awaited Us, It Watched and Plotted, Our Opponent Was Worse Than Nightmares

~ Elowyn~

News of my newly minted role as the dragon queen and the realm’s savior—yikes—spread rapidly. As we advanced toward the palace, sticking to the thick cover of the woods as much as possible, fae of all sorts emerged from the trees and skies to join our ranks. Sometimes it would be one or two creatures. Others, an entire clan of goblins or feethles or numenits or changelings or something else I’d never seen before would arrive to seamlessly merge with our steadily increasing numbers. Despite the unmistakable presence of Einar swooping overhead in plain view, no more dragons appeared. I feared King Erasmus the Bloody had truly decimated them until none existed in the wild save Einar. It made me wish the king were still alive so we could punish his sins along with his daughter’s.

Before setting off from the cabin, we relocated Talisa’s former captives farther into the woods, where there were no signs of visitors. Several goblins incinerated the body of the unknown deceased male. They conjured fire that was so sudden, and burned so hot and ferocious, that the man’s body broke down to ash and a few clumps of bone in mere minutes—without a single puff of smoke to betray our location. After that display of power, Rush visibly relaxed, as did West and Ivar, all of whom were reluctant to leave behind their loved ones. Larissa and the others would be safe enough until we returned for them, especially once we drew the false queen’s attention to us—and no doubt we had. Even with our efforts not to announceour presence, Talisa surely had spies everywhere. There was little chance our movements had gone unnoticed, especially with a giant dragon keeping pace with us.

As I’d been doing since Dougal first delivered me so rudely to the royal palace, I was going to make the best of every disadvantage. It helped, of course, that we had little choice. At this point there was as much risk in delaying as there was in attacking without complete preparation. No matter how we spun it, we’d be going up against a formidable monster with self-proclaimed immortality.

As I’d also been doing since my abrupt arrival in the Mirror World, I was playing the false queen’s game by her rules on her gameboard. No one, not even Rush or Xeno, neither of whom allowed me out of their sight, bothered to reassure me with empty platitudes. There was no,Everything will be fine, you’ll see. No,We’ll kill the false queen and every one of us will survive. We all understood these were very possibly the final hours of our lives.

Hundreds of us presently hid amid a final stretch of trees and brush, the last of the dense foliage before the outskirts of the royal city and its parched, dying earth. Once we left the forest’s camouflage, there’d be nothing to shield us until we reached the palace. I hadn’t forgotten how many sets of curious eyes had peered out from the meager huts that housed the common folk of the outskirts as Dougal delivered me in a royal carriage all those months ago to simultaneously the worst andbest experiences of my life. Just like back then, we’d be watched the entire way.

With hands never far from our weapons, or tails twitchy and ears perked, we traversed the many hamlets, walking brazenly down their dirt roads, daring anyone to defy us.

No one did. In fact, our ranks swelled with fae of an astounding array of colors and varieties, none of whom appeared to be trained as warriors, but the false queen’s subjects who’d had enough of her shit.

By the time the palace came into sight at the top of its isolated hillock, as if it and its inhabitants were immune to the malcontent that affected everyone beyond its boundaries, my skin crawled as if overrun by invisible worms. We’d awoken when the moon was still high in the sky to arrive at the palace itself with the dawn. But the villagers had obviously been anticipating us.

So who else was expecting us?

I no longer minded the protective posturing of Rush and Xeno as they walked on either side of me, their heads swiveling, jerking toward any and all unexpected sound. While I’d done my best to get some rest during both nights of our journey, I wasn’t sure either of them had slept at all, their watchful gazes rarely straying far from me. Rush tried to convince me to ride Bolt to conserve my energy, but I’d declined. What sort of queen would I be if I forced everyone else to walk while I didn’t? It would have been too like what Talisa would have done.

The little dragonling was the only one content to accept a ride. Saffron started to slide down my back, probably because he was snoozing. Tucking my arms around my waist and under his haunches to change things up for a bit, I hitched him farther up before scanning the horizon in the lightening sky. I’d been expecting an attack practically since we set out—hell, since the false queen first tried to kill me in the arena, when Lennox had stabbed me in the back when no one was looking.

“It’s too still,” I murmured, loudly enough that not only Rush and Xeno would hear me, but also Ryder, West, Hiroshi, Roan, and Reed, who walked with Ivar among them. At first, they’d positioned Ivar with us to keep a close eye on him. But then the advisor began regaling us with every secret of Talisa’s he knew. What information he provided was at once too much and not enough. It did, however, prove two irrefutable facts: the queen was even more brutal than we’d realized, and she’d stacked every single fucking odd against us. “Way too still,” I added with a shudder of my crawling-with-worms skin.

“I couldn’t agree more,” piped up a squeaky, high-pitched voice that made Saffron answer with his own yip of surprise and climb my shoulders until the only place to go was to perch on my head.Tsking at the goofy, skittish boy and guiding him down from my shoulders, I whirled on Zafi, whom I couldn’t actuallysee.

“I don’t like it at all,” she added from somewhere behind my left shoulder. “It feels too easy.”

“Ya, it does,” Roan said, sounding just as troubled. “Makes me bollocks itch.”

“Tell me about it,” West grumbled.

I was craning my neck, seeking out the little MISO. “Why are you invisible?” I asked of the pocket of air from where her voice had last sounded.

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