Page 16 of Brutal Fae King
I shake my head.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did to be taken,” I answer. “I’ve never been in contact with the dark fae. Not once. I’ve lived my entire life in Thawallow with my parents and sister—my parents died of the Weeping Fever when I was fifteen, and Maribelle was six. I had to take care of her, and we’ve been… I don’t know… Surviving ever since. I never even left my village further than the well in the forest—I’ve never been to anywhere else in Faevea. I have no idea what I could possibly done to warrant being kidnapped.”
There’s a rumbling chorus of confused grunts from the guards. They look at each other and I see their wings shimmering as they think.
“Sorry,” I say lightly. “I know you were hoping for more.”
“Well, what happened when you entered the door?” one of the other ones says.
They all nod and lean forward after the question has been posed.
“Itwasvery dark in there—I couldn’t see anything. It was like I’d stepped into the middle of a storm,” I reply. “At first, that is. Then, this… ghost appeared in front of me. She told me that a lot of women couldn’t even lay eyes on her.”
There’s a rumble of interest. They look between each other and then look back at me.
“I don’t know what that means,” I say before they can ask. “But she was already impressed before I even did anything. Then, she handed me a vial of silver liquid and told me to drink it. I don’t know what that was.”
“Probably an iron solution,” one of the guards murmurs. “To make sure you weren’t a dark fae. You had powers, and that’s not something humans are supposed to have.”
I shrug.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve always had them.”
“You shouldn’t,” the guard replies. “It’s just not supposed to happen.”
He's so firm when he answers me that there is no room for argument—facts are facts. At least, as far as he’s concerned.
“What happened next?” another guard asks.
“Oh, yes. She said that I was to drink it, or else the guards outside the room would kill me,” I say. “I figured if it was poisonous, it’d be a quicker death than by the sword, and I didn’t have any hope for escape. So I drank it.”
“Yes? And?”
“It didn’t taste like anything, and it didn’t do anything,” I answer. “Then, she let me leave. The king was waiting outside the door.”
They murmur amongst themselves in amazement.
“That was it…?” I catch one saying. “All this time, and that’s all that went on in there?”
They keep murmuring amongst themselves—in the end, I have to talk over them to make them stop.
“There is also something else!”
They quiet down and look back at me.
“The witch called me queen,” I say. “I don’t know what this means—do any of you know what that means?”
They pause.
“He doesn’t speak of it,” one of the guards says. “But I once overheard him discussing a prophecy with his lord-in-waiting. It involves the lost queen, but I didn’t hear much more than that. My impression was that he was looking for her.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why did he need to find her so badly?”
The guard shakes his head.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“Oh, okay…” I murmur. “But then, could I talk to his lord-in-waiting about it? Would he talk to me?”
