Page 176 of Bride of the Fae Prince

“Ash!” I breathe.I cannot be High Queen! There’s no version of reality where they will accept me as their ruler!

He is too busy kneeling before me to respond.

Shuffling rips my attention from my husband to the masses before me. My breath catches in my lungs.

Prince Rahk sinks into a deep bow. Then one by one, shock shifts to awe, and each fae in the room bends their knee and bows.To me.

I don’t know what to do or say. More fae come streaming in through the open doors, and each one joins in suit. Even Lord and Lady Nothril bow, until the entire room is on their knees before me.

Except one.

Faradir remains standing where he is, murderous hatred twisting his beautiful face, contorting his broad shoulders. Ash gets to his feet and draws his sword. Faradir’s gaze shifts from me to him, and that hatred only redoubles. Ash points the blade at his father’s neck. His voice rings out: “Bow to your High Queen.”

“I bow to no one,” Faradir snarls.

Ash takes another step, presses the blade against Faradir’s throat. “Bow. To. Your. Queen.Now.”

A shift takes place in my mind. The shock melts away. The denial follows. There is still a strong feeling of inadequacy—though I’m not sure anyone can sit on the throne of all Faerieland and feel adequate—but there’s also necessity.

I’m not the High Queen of Faerieland because I want to be, or because I’m the best candidate.

I’m the High Queen of Faerieland because Ash paid in blood for his people to be free.

It is not for me that I open my mouth and issue my first order. It is for Ash, for his mother, for Hylath, for Dottie, for Edvear, for Oleria, for Rahk, for Mama Bagogs, for the Small Cities, and everyone who has suffered under the wrath of Faradir.

I lift my chin, narrow my eyes, and let the well of power rush through me as I say to Faradir: “Bow.”

Surprise rolls through his shoulders. He looks at me—reallylooks at me. He doesn’t see the human girl his son brought home to spite him. He doesn’t see the pawn, or the girl who learned to stand before him without shrinking.

He sees the woman I truly am. The woman Ash fell in love with. The woman who sits on his throne.

And he bows.

Uproar bursts around the room, a mingling of alarm to see the former monarch brought so low, and something that soundsalmost likecheering.Lord and Lady Nothril protest with vocal shouts, while others dance in celebration.

It distracts me.

I miss the way Faradir gathers magic in a glowing ball in his one good hand, hidden by the bloody stump of the other.

“No!” Ash arcs his sword downward, but not fast enough.

Faradir shoots the blast of magic. It hurtles toward me like a shooting star.

I don’t even know what I do. I’m not sure it’smethat does anything. I throw up a hand toward the ball of light, and energy rushes through me. Pulsing energy from the throne, from the deep wellspring of magic now available to me.

One minute, a ball of light is about to incinerate me.

The next, a blackened spot of cracked marble is all that is left of Faradir.

Ash turns saucer-wide eyes at me. “Did you just do that?”

My eyes are equally wide. “I think I might have?”

Ash lets out another holler, so out of place with the increasing number of kneeling fae, protesting fae, and the fact that I just killed his father. He runs up the steps to me, catches my face in both hands.

“You, my darling, are magnificent beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” he tells me, and then kisses me in front of all my new subjects.

Chapter 67

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