Page 50 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen
The three monarchs in front of us filter in one by one, with Elio and me closing the march. Freya is already inside, waiting, and the Winter King shuts the door behind him. Ice spreads across the room, frosting the windows, dimming the sunlight, and sealing the crack beneath the door, cutting us off from the outside world completely.
The arrangement of chairs has been altered from its original setup, reflecting the current state of Faerie politics: Summer, Winter, and Shadows now face the Sun, Spring, and Red Courts.
I graze the armrest of the stand-in for the Storm throne, a gray chair squeezed between Spring and Summer.
The swing vote.
With a bit of swagger, I unbutton my jacket and sit with them, an action that earns me a scowl from every one of them—especially my mother.
“You have no standing here, boy,” Ethan enunciates in a deadly manner.
Elio clicks his tongue. “Seth is here at my invitation. As the only one of us who spent some real time in Storm’s End, his perspective could prove invaluable.”
“Let him stay, Ethan,” Freya clips, her amity for Ethan cooled by his blatant show of disdain toward me.
The King of Light shows his teeth in the cruel imitation of a smile. “I saw Devi Eros in the ballroom. Have you taken another lame duck under your wing, Elio?”
My fists clench at the satisfaction curling his lips, but the Winter King keeps a straight face, clearly used to his father’s antics, and definitely not as hot-blooded as I am.
“Helping people is only a sin in your book, Father,” he says.
Ethan links his long, skeletal white fingers over his knee. “Not a sin, but weak. Devi Eros needs to be thrown into a cell until such time as the rebellion has been squashed.”
Freya nods emphatically at that, but Damian clears his throat, commanding attention. The shadows hovering above his shoulders are twice as thick as usual, tendrils of smoke hugging the shape of his body.
“Enough squabbles, cousins. I have dire news to share. I can’t get anyone in or out of Storm’s End—and not because of the wolves prowling the sceawere.” His tone is low and growly, making every word sound more ominous. “My sources say the new Storm King allowed an armada of boats into port and ordered all mirrors destroyed in Zepharion.”
“As it’s been foretold… another Fae court has fallen,” the new Red Queen drawls.
“Who’s the new Storm King?” Freya squeaks.
“It must be Luther. I can’t see Maddox siding with the Tidecallers,” I say quickly, taking it all in. Zepharion at the hands of the Tidecallers… My father would faint.
“An armada of boats?” Ethan repeats.
“Yes. A fleet of war vessels sailing north from the Breach,” Damian clarifies, and the room falls dead silent.
The Breach is a narrow stretch of ocean renowned for its typhoons and the many monsters that hide within them. It separates the continent from the Islantide, but its waters have been deadly since the fall of the Mist King, and the few rebels and pirates who managed to cross it in the last few centuries were almost as violent and merciless as the monsters themselves.
“But— That’s impossible,” Ethan scoffs. “Any boat spotted crossing the Breach is blasted on sight. The Zepharion fortress’s walls are riddled with cannons equipped to do just that?—”
Damian cuts off the King of Light. “I think we all have to re-evaluate what we thought impossible. We assumed the Tidecallers were a bunch disorganized rebels— We were wrong.” He grips the armrests of his chair.
“Where would they go next?” Freya asks.
The Red Queen plays with the sash of her war tunic. “Even if Luther Storm has been crowned king, the regional Lords of Storm’s End are bound to rise up against an insurrection of this magnitude. The Tidecallers can’t expect to invade the Fae Continent without being challenged.”
Elio nods. “Janina is right. I wouldn’t expect the Tidecallers to march onto Wintermere or the Shadowlands just yet. They’ll be expecting a challenge from within. But controlling Storm’s End’s capital legitimizes their rebellion. With Alaveen behind us, we have only a month before the seven crowns need to reunite for Beltane. Maybe Luther plans on strong-arming us in exchange for his participation in the ritual.”
The Spring festival ensures fertility on the continent. Botching it could derail birth rates for generations to come. All monarchs must meet for each of the seasonal rituals, or chaos will ensue.
Elio perches on the edge of his makeshift throne. “We’re going into this war blind,” he adds. “We don’t know anything tangible about the Tidecallers, the Breach, or the Mists, aside from what we’ve read in history books. We need to make contact with the new Storm King and the Lord of the Tides and find out what they intend to do with their newfound power. If we mean to act in any efficient capacity, we have to know exactly what they want.”
Janina sneers. “We need to kill them, you mean.”
“Killing Willow or Luther or both will not destroy their armies,” Damian says flatly.
“But it’s a start,” Freya sniggers, and a nasty shiver lances up my spine.
