Page 9 of Across an Endless Sea

“What will he do with her?” I mutter.

“What?” Prae shakes her head and stares at me, alarmed. “Why do you suddenly give a shit? What happened to ‘grab the queen and wallow in the glory?’”

She throws my own words back at me, and I grimace. I never considered what my father would do with the Nicnevin before I met Rose. She was an abstract concept. A queen no one could even find. Now it’s all I can think about.

The Fomorii family motto is ‘survival and glory’; words handed down from Balor himself. Concern for others gets you killed, but my stupid fae half doesn’t seem to understand that.

“I know what I said,” I growl. “You must know what he has planned. You know everything.”

“She’ll be a prisoner,” Prae answers slowly. “But Elatha can’t risk her dying, so she’ll be a pampered one.”

Pampered is a subjective term. To the fae, it means cushy pillows and warm beds. To us, it means eating more than once a week and being able to sleep with just one eye open instead of two.

“If we’re unlucky,” she continues, “One of us will be made her jailer.”

“He’ll pick you,” I mutter.

Prae spits on the ground. “I’d rather marry a damned fairy prince.”

The vehemence in her words usually amuses me. Not today. Today, it triggers my last memory of the knight commander, holding his sister as the two of them bled out.

“Too bad the only eligible one looked like he was at death’s door while he cradled my dying mate,” I hiss.

Prae’s good eye narrows. “You’re Fomorian. We don’t have mates.”

Fuck. I know that.

Something in Prae’s expression shifts.

“Did she do something to you?” she asks. “Use her magic to influence you while you were there?”

“Of course not,” I retort. “I think you would’ve noticed if I’d been brainwashed by a fairy.”

My two days as a prisoner were a total mindfuck, but I’m still me.

“You can’t blame me for asking,” Prae replies. “You’ve not been yourself ever since I broke you out… Now you’re worrying over her like a mother hen…”

I stop pacing and hoist Rose over my shoulder again—careful not to let my armbands touch her this time as I carry her to my drake. She’s disturbingly light. Has no one been feeding her in that palace? All of those lush fields and blooming orchards and they couldn’t spare enough to feed their queen?

Not. My. Problem.

“We need to restrain her,” Prae says. “If she wakes up in transit and uses her powers…”

Which means iron, which will just do more damage.

I ignore Prae’s words in favour of lifting Rose onto the saddle of my drake. It takes some work to get her legs on either side of the great lizard, but I manage it. She slumps over the long neck, but doesn’t fall off. Like this, I can see the slowly healing wounds across her back, her tattered wings, and the bloody wound to her temple where Prae knocked her out.

After a second’s hesitation, I take my coat out of my pack, unbuckle the armoured plates from the shoulders, and wrap the heavy fabric around her. Doing up the three buttons in the centre does little to protect her modesty, but she can hold it closed when she wakes up. The heavy garment drowns her, but at least it does something to appease my instincts.

Prae watches the whole thing with raised brows and thinly veiled amusement.

“We need to get out of here before the rest of her Guard shows up,” I say, trying to brush over the incident. “We’ve wasted too much time already.”

Prae rolls her eye at my obvious deflection. “We’re not far from camp. Once we’re there, they’d be stupid to try to grab her. It’s not like they can call the army to do it either—all their soldiers are shut up inside Elfhame. The threat isher. Until we know what her powers are, she needs to wear iron.”

I hesitate again, and Prae frowns. “Do you know what her gifts are?”

“I have suspicions,” I admit. “She healed me, but it wasn’t… conventional.”

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