Page 61 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen
As though my scars, my humiliation, my pain…don’t matter.
To open my heart to him would be worse than weakness. It would be an unforgivable betrayal of everything I’ve fought for and everything I’ve lost. It would be like handing him the same arrowhead his mother used to ruin me and begging him to cut deeper.
I’ve been tasked to kill his brother, to betray him, and trade his trust for my freedom. And I will. Because anything else would mean defeat.
“He saved you last night,” Percy whispers in my ear.
My loyal Faeling is perched on my shoulder, his gaze glued to the large hand resting comfortably on my stomach. “You don’t have to work this hard to hate him, not if you’re hurting yourself at the same time.”
“Shush.”
He only saved me to win my trust, because we’re not already married.
Starting the moment this nightmare of a sleigh ride ends, I’m done with fake kisses, convenient cuddles, and impromptu voyeurism sessions. I’m trading all that for locked doors and personal bubbles. Strict boundaries. From now on, every physical touch between us will be strategically calculated.
Seth grazes the hollow of my neck as if daring me to break that silent vow, his other hand heavy on my belly. “Relax, witch,” he murmurs.
His command settles over me like a weighted blanket, and I melt against him, my head lolling over his chest. I’m exhausted—from the lack of sleep, the unsated lust, the turmoil I’m hiding behind my blank stares and tired sighs.
I drift to sleep, enveloped in the treacherous heat of Seth’s body. Seth’s scent. Rain and steel, and the faint, earthy trace of blightroot, a plant that only blooms where lightning has struck.
When the sleigh glides to a sudden stop, I jolt awake.
“Easy, guys. Easy,” our guide—the musher—calls to the ice wolves.
He yanks at the reins, but the alpha veers into a half-circle, turning away from our destination. The sleigh tips, and the three of us are thrown into the snow. Seth and I get ejected from our cocoon and land hard on the icy crust of the Frozen Hills. I grunt, crushed by his weight, but he swiftly rolls to stand.
“Are you alright?” he asks, offering me a hand.
I rise to my feet without taking it. “Of course.” My boots find traction on the ice. I dust the snow off my pants and coat and untangle a morsel of ice from the bun on top of my head.
The musher spits out a mouthful of snow. “Something spooked them,” he mutters, walking over to the lead wolf and petting his head. “You okay there, Ulrik?”
Steam rises from the alpha’s black snout as he tosses his head toward the void ahead. The other wolves pace restlessly behind him, claws scraping the snow, and let out high-pitched, nervous coos.
“Good thing the beasts have more instinct than our guide, or we’d be dead,” Seth whispers. “We’re here.”
A hundred feet ahead, the Uaithe cuts through the earth, its depths too far to see. Its signature lightning-bolt shape isn’t visible from this vantage point, the span of it too vast to grasp from the ground. This chasm keeps storms from reaching the ice of Wintermere, or vice versa. A narrow bridge without rails stretches across the divide, built by ancient Fae and worn smooth by time.
We say goodbye to our guide and the clever wolves, dig our bags from the overturned toboggan, and finish the rest of the journey on foot.
“Whatever you do, don’t look down,” Seth says with humor.
No wind stirs near the abyss—only the weight of silence and the echo of distant thunder. Percy cowers under my tunic until he’s nestled safely near my heart, and I step closer to Seth. I’ve never struggled with vertigo, but this is different. Oxygen feels sparse. I can almost hear my name on the wind, its spectral call beckoning me closer to the edge.
All the hairs on my arms stand on end. A strange beat drums at my ears, soft at first, then clearer. Faint whispers of my fears. Of dying before I can reclaim my crown, of being forgotten and erased by time, as if I’d never existed at all. The trench hums adark melody woven into the wind, and the vacuum left behind it sucking me in.
I stop near the rock base of the arched bridge just as Seth begins to cross. The backpack’s straps dig hard into my shoulders, and a trickle of nausea washes over me.
“Wait.”
Seth turns around, unbothered by the gaping holes on either side of him, and a prickle of déjà vu sends my world spinning. My mouth goes dry. A vivid image overlaps with my vision—him losing his footing, slipping, then tumbling down to his death.
And dragging me with him.
Cold sweat gathers at the back of my neck. “I need a minute.”
Seth returns to my side and raises an arm to pat my shoulder, but I sidestep away from him, away from the Uaithe, and turn my back to them.
