Page 156 of Moonmarked

The people no longer whispered nor gasped. The initial shock had already passed, and now they were all silent. Begging to hear more. To understand, I thought.

“Tonight, I stand before you with my own face to share with you what should have been announced long ago: your beloved queen—andmybeloved mother and teacher and guide—will soon step down from the throne.” He turned just slightly toward the queen, who hadn’t moved a single inch. She looked at her son then, and she seemed…relievedwhen she gave him a curt nod—her blessing.

“May the process of my son’s coronation begin.”

There was power in her words. It spread in the air, so intense I couldn’t even breathe for a minute. My nails had made a bloody mess out of Rune’s hands by now, but he didn’t stop me. He didn’t complain. His eyes remained on Lyall, too.

“The future of the Seelie Court will be forged with new blood.Myblood.” Lyall paused a moment for his words to sink in before he stepped forward again, his glass raised. “I offer you a court of strength. Of clarity. Ofvengeance.” He smiled again, sharper now. “Because I have not only returned—I haveremovedthose who stood against us.”

Whispers among the guests.

“Yes—the traitors are dead. The bonds that weakened me are severed.” His gaze flicked toward me for just a second. “And those who remain will learn that loyalty is not optional. It isabsolute.”

It was a fucking threat if I’d ever heard one.

Suddenly my eyes moved to the woman standing at the other end of the platform, that bowl still between her hands. I must have felt her watching me because our eyes locked and my breath caught.

Those eyes…

“To the crown,” Lyall said. “To a future no one can take from us again!”

The room erupted into applause—forced at first.

Everyone clapped, but few of the smiles were genuine.

That of Hessa as she slowly lowered the bowl to applaud wasn’t, either. No, she looked damn wellterrified.

And suddenly I was thrown back to a different time, a different room, one dark, where the faces of those consideredcursedsurrounded me.

I turned to Rune, drawing in a sharp, loud breath as if I hadn’t tasted air in forever.

“Wildcat, what is it?” Rune asked when he saw my face.

“It’s…it’sher,” I choked, my entire body shaking from head to toes.

“What?”

“Hessa,” I whispered. “She’s the masked woman who gave me the knife in the Gallery of Time.”

His eyes darkened right before mine. His entire expression changed as my words registered.

When he looked up behind me and at the people on the platform again, Rune was a completely different man.

He didn’t askme if I was sure, though I asked myself. The trust he put in me freaked me out a little bit, not going to lie.

The applauding had stopped, and I’d drunk two glasses of water Rune had poured for me, and ate a few strawberries, too. So much sweeter and juicier than any I’d tried back home, though I was still shaking a bit and I still hadn’t gotten myself together all the way.

“How much longer?” I asked, and I did feel like a kid sitting in the back, askingare we there yet?once a minute, but I couldn’t help myself. I was a mess of nerves.

“Just until we speak to him,” Rune said, his eyes following Lyall first, but Hessa as well. She was there with him right now, on the platform, and they were deep in a conversation.

My God, she looked up at him like she was in love with him. Like she existed for him, breathed for Lyall. The smile on her lips as she spoke, the admiration in her eyes—so genuine.

“I swear it was her,” I said, and it sounded right to me. My instincts approved, but it was so difficult to trust my own eyes. Fucking hell, this place and these people—it was far too much. Fae were nothing at all like I could have ever imagined. Because if that woman could conspire against the man she looked at like he was her entire world, then I didn’t know what the hell to even believe.

“Hush, Wildcat,” Rune whispered, and I felt his cool magic against my bare ankles as he let it out under thetablecloth, possibly to keep us shielded. “Not here. We’ll talk later.”

And he was right.

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