Page 11 of Crown of Wrath

And humans stink. I didn’t know how bad cities smelled when I was just a Wyrdling. Now, everything is heightened, and I can’t imagine walking through the filthy streets. At the same time, the sounds that drift up from the crowds below are different.

They’re real. Every single person is down there having emotions that remind me of a time when I had them, too. Before the humanity was stripped from me, I was frustrated by people staring at me. I laughed at stupid things. I smiled and hummed songs for no reason other than because the sun was shining. I was alive in a different way.

I was like the people down there. I probably stunk like them. I was probably disorganized, but I smiled for no reason. I felt things.

“What are you doing up here by yourself?” a voice says from behind me. I turn around, surprised at the voice.

Usually, it’s only Cole who sneaks up on me, but this time, it’s Darian. He’s still wearing his least wrinkled court wear. A soft velvet that shimmers with a dull light that humans probably don’t even notice.

“Just looking at the city. I’d expected Stormhaven to be like Draenyth. It’s…” I pause, not sure how to put my thoughts into words.

Darian finishes for me, “It’s a fortress and Draenyth is the grandest city in the world. They’re not comparable.” He moves to my side, and together we stand on a tower’s roof, so similar to how Cole and I had sat on the Keep of Flame’s guardhouse. “You’re acting much more like a Queen than I expected.”

He’s not looking at me, and I turn back to look out at the city as the sun gets closer to the horizon. “I didn’t want to be Queen,”I whisper. The words are an admission of something that the Queen of Earth would never say, but it’s something that I need to say. “You three forced it on me.”

“I know that. We all do, and you understand why we had to. You were the only option, and no matter how angry you are at all of us, you can’t deny that what we did was the right thing.”

They did the right thing? Maybe. “If you’d never showed up in my life, Hazel would still be alive.”

“If we’d never showed up in your life, she’d be alive, and the world would be certain to die, Maeve.” He says my name without the least bit of formality, but it feels right. It feels…real. It reminds me of how we’d talked before. “You’re the Queen of Earth now. You can’t ignore the drakelings anymore. The gryphons and basilisks and chimaeras depend on you. Maybe you can’t feel them yet since you haven’t truly claimed the Throne of Earth, but deep down, you know they depend on you. The Painted Crownneededto go to you.”

I breathe deep, letting the peaceful feeling that’s taken up residence inside me overwhelm the doubt that Darian’s trying to draw forth in me. “You’re right. You did the right thing, but it doesn’t change that you’re the reason my cousin is dead. I don’t hate you. I’m not even angry at you. But I can’t be friends with you, either. Not like before.”

Darian is quiet for a while, and I don’t say anything. That’s another thing I’ve learned since becoming full-blooded High Fae. I don’t have to fill the silence. Sometimes, silence is good.

“You don’t have to be friends with me or Lee. You’re right. But you have to respect the bond that you and Cole have. He…”

I turn on him, a flash of anger crossing my face, and power fills the air between us, like the electricity that lingers during a thunderstorm. “I do not have to do anything, Darian,” I say, my voice going deathly soft. “Especially when it has to do with Cole Cyrus. I maintain the bond that I have with him because ifanything were to happen to me or him, the other person needs to know immediately. I’m High Fae now, and we have an alliance. The two strongest High Fae in Nyth. This is not an unusual arrangement amongst Immortals, is it?”

He looks at me, and I can see his nostrils twitch as my magical scent permeates everything in the area. A bit of fear moves into his eyes, but he’s dealt with advising people who could destroy him with a thought for centuries.

“It is a typical arrangement, but you and Cole aren’t typical, Maeve. You… you had something that very, very few Immortals ever have. You had something human.”

I shake my head, a smirk crossing my lips. “I’m not human anymore, Darian. It would do you and Lee well to remember that.”

“Maybe not,” he says, and then he reaches out and touches my hand. Not aggressively. It’s how I’d first touched the Shade, and I recoil just as much as he did. Why would he touch me?

He takes a step toward me, and I panic. It’s an instinctual response. I don’t want to hurt Darian, and so the anger flees, but I don’t understand what he’s doing.

“You have memories of being human. That’s why you care that Hazel is dead. That’s why you can’t let go. You’re not angry at us because you know we did the thing you’d do now. But you haven’t always been like this. Maeve, remember what it’s like to be human. That’s why we followed you. It’s why we trusted you.”

They trustedme? No, they trusted Cole. They were kind, but they always chose him. They believed and followed him. Not me.

It’s like that discrepancy gives my mind a purchase to fight back from. “No, you didn’t believe in me, Darian. You just trusted Cole, and Cole trusted me.”

Darian shakes his head. “I’m not a slave or a soldier. I question things. Lee does as well. Maybe we won’t ever fight against Cole, but he won’t fight against us, either. Before Coledid the betrothal ceremony, we all agreed that you were right. Lee and I were a little more nervous about it than him, but we’d seen the tenderness in your heart. It was everything good about the House of Earth with none of the bad. Now… Things have changed, and I don’t know how to help you find your way back to the woman that all of us followed into the darkness.”

I turn back toward the city and look at the little people scurrying around under the light of torches. Humans. Even more fragile than Lesser Fae. Yet, they have hope. They love. They feel.

“Maybe I can’t be like that anymore. Maybe that’s the price I had to pay to become the Queen.”

Darian stands just a little closer to me. “Maybe. But have you tried?”

His words linger in the air, and I don’t have an answer for him. Have I tried to feel something other than peace or anger? Many times. Have I tried to love? Have I tried to hope? No, and I don’t think I could handle feeling either of those two emotions.

“Goodnight Darian,” I say after several minutes have passed. I take one step off the ledge of the tower and plummet to the rampart thirty feet below me. The air rushes around me as I fall. Just like in dreams where you fall and wake up right before you hit the ground, it’s not instantaneous. I have time to think—time to act.

My knees bend slightly. My back shifts into a crouch position. Everything in me prepares to absorb the impact that would kill a human.

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