CHAPTER 16

QUEEN MALINA

My eyes land on one of the fae. Intense anger and shame sharpen within me like the ends of an arrow as soon as I see who it is. The charming swindler who claimed he would lead me to my heart's desire, when all he led me to was ruin.

Sir Pruinn.

His gray eyes still appear almost reflective, and his light blond hair is still shorn short to his scalp, the color making his dark brows stand out in dramatic arches. He's dressed impeccably in a bright green velvet tunic and matching cloak. I watch his gaze cast over my filthy appearance, and his lips quirk up, showing a hint of fang.

Slick ice swells from my palms.

Pruinn stops in the street before us as six other fae fan out behind him.

"Oreans," one of them sneers. "Scum ready to be scrubbed away."

"Get behind me," I tell my people, my tone firm.

Their hurried footsteps gather at my back, and Pruinn chuckles at the display. "Like chicks behind their mother hen, is that it? How quaint," he says mockingly.

I clench my teeth together as hard as I can. "What do you want?"

"I'd heard the Orean queen slipped out of her tower," he says, tilting his head in thought. "Funny. You were happy enough to stay in it when fae illusion had you thinking it was filled with music and flowers, weren't you? Once the accommodations were less than opulent, you were certainly quick to leave. Tell me, how did you escape?"

My eyes are hard as steel. "I walked out the front door."

"Hmm." His eyes flow over me, head tilting. "Our beloved king had to return to Annwyn for the time being, but he requested I bring you back to him, so I've come to find you. Quite convenient that you've shown up like this and that you aren't already dead."

Shards of fear stab into my stomach at the thought of being forced to leave with him. What if he drags me off and then Dommik never knows what happened to me?

I shake my head in defiance. "I'm not going anywhere with you," I tell him, though my voice wobbles, betraying my fright.

I know I'm outnumbered, that my people are too weak to help defend against these fae, but I won't yield and go with him. I have a responsibility to protect everyone behind me.

"I thought I'd have to spend longer tracking you down," he muses, as if I didn't speak. "Just as I thought it would take longer to force our first meeting and get you to listen to me. Once I knew you were the royal we needed, I stayed in Highbell for weeks, trying to come up with a plan to get to you. It was pure luck that you left your castle that day, wasn't it?" He lets out a prudish laugh. "It was so easy to manipulate you. Must have been ordained by the gods and goddesses."

"Your fae gods have no foothold here," I spit.

A spiteful look crosses his face, making his fae beauty fade, sharpening his features with hate instead. "Orea doesn't deserve anything of the fae. Not our gods, and not our magic."

"And yet you want our land," I snarl back.

Pruinn shrugs. "The superior species should have it. And we will, thanks to you." He tilts his head to motion toward me. "Tell me, how have you healed after willingly giving us your blood to rebuild the bridge?"

My hands curl into fists at my sides, fingertips digging into the gashes that are filled with frost.

He smiles snidely. "Thought so."

I can feel the tension in my people. Perhaps they're judging me, hating me, feeling betrayed even as they're forced to cower behind me in fear.

My heartbeat thrums wildly, but I stand my ground. I imagine this is what it's like for prey to be cornered by a predator. To know you're under threat, that your life is on the line. That one wrong move will find you clutched between deadly jaws.

"Shall I read what your greatest desire is now, Malina?" Pruinn taunts as he pulls out a scroll from his pocket. The same one that showed me a map of Seventh Kingdom. The same one I was fool enough to fall for. "Shall I see where it leads you this time?"

"I don't need your charlatan tricks to show me anything," I lob back, my body shaking with anger, more snow collecting in my hands. "My greatest desire is to undo what I've done and rid Orea of every single fae. Starting with you ."

He looks over his shoulder at his group. "I'll take the Orean queen. Kill the rabble behind her."

My arms fling out protectively, as if to block my people from the threat. "Don't touch them!"

A fae with spiked silver hair behind Pruinn lifts his hands, and I instantly recognize the purple sparks of electricity that start to form in his hands. The hair on the back of my neck lifts, worry gathering between my tightening ribs.

This is the one who attacked the city with his lightning. Crumbled buildings, charred people alive. Left gaping pits of smoke in his wake.

But a fae to the right with a thick black beard steps forward also, jerking my attention toward him while the lightning fae seems to build up his power.

The bearded fae points his hands to the buildings beside us. Wooden boards suddenly yank from the walls as if he's gripped them with invisible fingers and suspended them in the air.

My eyes widen, everyone behind me crying out in alarm that makes me stiffen. Makes me hate how terrified they are.

I turn to Pruinn, my harshness traded for pleading. "Please," I blurt out, my head shaking back and forth, my expression pinched in panic. I can hear Neira crying and her mother trying to comfort her. Can hear whimpers and rushed prayers coming from my people. "Do not do this. They're no danger to you! Just let them go."

He tsks. "Does a master leave the roaches to crawl through his house?" he counters, nose wrinkled in disgust. "Of course they're no danger, but we do not leave pests to run rampant."

My eyes flick to the magic wielders who stare me down. Their powers are paused. Threat lying in wait.

"Sir Pruinn…" I say, trying to ingratiate myself to him, pleading once more. " Please ."

"Oh, Queen Malina," Pruinn singsongs with derisive pity. "We both know everyone behind you is going to be killed. But I'll offer you one thing, in respect of your royal status." He takes a step forward and holds out his hands. "Come with me now, and you won't have to watch. I'll spare you that. Your people are going to die regardless, but you won't have to see."

He thinks that's a kindness? He thinks that's a bargain I'm willing to strike?

" No ," I snarl out. I'm done being willfully blind. I'm not going to turn away from any of it ever again. I won't leave them. "I stand with my people."

Pruinn drops his hands and lifts a shoulder. "Have it your way, Majesty."

The fae controlling the wood attacks. He sends the planks flying toward us. The cluster moves quickly, causing a spurt of wind to brush my cheek as it passes me by.

My eyes latch onto Dari's for a split second, her bony fingers gripping her daughter, her face pale with fear. Then the boards make impact.

Dari and everyone else gets thrown back and I watch with suffocating panic as she and the others hit the ground hard, the wood breaking and splintering from the force.

Neira screams as she and her mother crash onto the ground, and the sound pierces through my heart, making my adrenaline spike.

The wood pulls back again, ready to repeat the action before anyone can recover, but magic shoots from my hands, ice bursting forward with a force that rattles my chest. I watch it arc through the sky, and then it hits and envelops the planks. As soon as my ice freezes them through, the wood falls to the ground and shatters like glass.

The magical fae isn't deterred. He reaches up in the air again, his magic pulling more large boards from the dilapidated building to my right. He strips the wall until he yanks out a thick beam, making the weakened structure start to topple.

"Watch out!" I scream as I leap back, just as the building falls, half spilling out onto the road.

It nearly crashes over us.

The fae smirks from the other side of the crumble, and without reprieve, he angles the floating wood in our direction. Their ends are splintered and wickedly sharp, and he sends them flying toward us like a volley of spears.

Pure instinct has me tossing up my hands, my magic unleashing in a curved wall before me. I flinch back, eyes squeezing shut, just as the wood crashes against my ice.

My eyes spring open again, my pulse racing, seeing the fissures spread through my wall…but it holds.

I fling my hand out again, making ice attach to the roof of the building beside me, forming a spire as high as I can manage in a desperate bid for Dommik to notice—to come help.

Please help .

But the lightning fae steps forward.

His magic seems to be fully charged and ready now. Built up and crackling with power.

With a gritted-out cry, I force more magic from my depleting body, creating another wall that freezes up from the ground and then arcs backward to create a dome over the heads of my people.

They huddle beneath it, while some of the men have picked up pieces of metal and stone that fell from the crumbled building and are using the debris to try to block the wooden fae's continued assault.

I start to direct more ice to enclose all the way around them, but the lightning fae suddenly sends a purple bolt stabbing down from the smoke-filled clouds.

It cracks directly into the ice wall in front of me, shattering it in a blinding flash that sends me stumbling back.

Shards explode out, and I duck my head in my arms before the frozen shrapnel can slice across my exposed face. When the onslaught ends, I whip my head up again to lock gazes with the lightning fae, and he's already building up another charge of lightning, already making electricity singe the air.

He's going to decimate the icy barrier over my people too.

"Get into the house!" I cry with panicked command, because I know my ice won't be enough protection.

But the wooden fae doesn't give them the chance to run.

Before anyone can so much as reach for the door, he snaps the wooden walls directly beside us, ripping them off in thin air and making the entire structure weaken and crumble too.

My people scramble, trying to get out of the way as they panic, running as they try to escape while leaving behind my protective arc.

Before they can get more than a few running steps away, the lightning fae strikes the other end of the street right in front of them, cutting them off. Bolt after bolt, the lavender strikes crash down, splitting the road, charring the cobblestones.

"Leave them alone!" I scream before sending thin shards of ice hurtling toward the enemy. Before it can hit him, a wooden board slams into me, cracking against my chest on impact.

I land hard on my back, blinking up at the sky. The hit stuns me, breath knocked loose from my lungs and scattered around my ribs where I can't reach it.

My people's screams spur me on, forcing me to move. So I roll onto my side and push myself up, nearly teetering over again as I heave in a strangled breath.

The other fae are closing in. They're gathering around my people, with swords in hand while lightning strikes, keeping them hemmed in. The fae controlling the wood makes the planks embed into the street like a shoddy fence for livestock.

The fae are toying with us. Laughing at us.

Neira is screaming through hiccupped tears, clutching her mother, and it tatters my heart.

"Stop!" I scream, though my voice comes out in fraying pieces. My eyes land on Pruinn a few paces away.

His menace holds my gaze in place. "We're going to slaughter them. Just like we slaughtered your entire city. And since you didn't take me up on my offer, you get to watch, Majesty ."

Lightning suddenly strikes down Kasin—the old street sweeper. The blinding light chars through his corpse. Screams rend the air.

Another fae throws a dagger and stabs Kasin's son straight through, uncaring that the man holds no weapon, has no defense. The fae controlling the wood starts spinning boards around and then slamming them down, like a paddle beating out the dirt of a rug.

Horrifying bursts of violence from every direction.

"No!" Ice magic shoots out of me as I run desperately toward them. It hits the dagger-throwing fae, knocking him down. But then I'm once again struck with a plank, this time square in the back.

I go sprawling, forehead cracking painfully against the frozen cobbles and making me see bursts of black that crawl through my vision.

I try to scramble up, but I'm held down by the board at my back. It's keeping me pinned, just like their king had done to me with the stone table. Fear scrapes down my stomach.

"Watch, Queen Malina," Pruinn taunts as he comes to a stop above me. His polished shoes are so shiny I can see my panicked reflection in them.

Lightning hits someone else then, making their entire body light up. I can see their bones glowing through their skin.

I can't tell who it is before they're nothing but a corpse left in a smoking pit.

My people scream, huddled together, pressing in, for there's nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. Another one of the fae soldiers has jumped into their pen and is taunting them with his sword. Laughing while he makes blood fly and another body drop with a slice of his blade.

My people are dying because of me . Because I made yet another wrong choice and led them into ruin. Because I allowed fae to tempt me into Seventh Kingdom, let them cut my hands and spill my blood, all while my people languished in an impoverished city within a greed-ridden kingdom.

Negligence. Willful blindness. Entitlement. Greed.

My mother would have been ashamed of me.

Fierce protectiveness cuts through me as I strain to get my hand out from under the board. I yank it past and then shove it toward my people, an arc of ice streaming out.

My magic gets cut off when Pruinn suddenly slams his boot on top of my hand. I cry out in pain, my eyes squeezing shut.

He grips the snarls of my hair and wrenches my head up. "I said, watch !"

My eyes snap back open, blurred with tears, and I'm forced to watch the fae start cutting down my people one at a time. Another man—Jon—by sword. Tara, who gets burnt through with lightning. Wilson's skull smashed with a board. All while the fae continue to laugh.

All while Neira screams.

This is what helpless horror is, and I'm frozen in the shock of it.

Until, suddenly, the world seems to tremble .

The very ground I'm pinned to darkens. At first, my heart leaps in both relief and fear that Dommik has come with his shadows.

But it's not Dommik.

"What…" Pruinn jerks away, boot leaving my hand, just as the fae controlling the wood drops dead.

My eyes widen when I see his body is now crawling with lines that snake through his skin, turning him a sickly color. Then the lightning fae drops too, one last crackling spark sputtering out as he falls.

The ground is spreading with fissuring vines of black and brown that seem to eat away at the cobblestones, disintegrating everything in its path. I shove the board off my body and jerk to my feet, head swiveling up at the darkening sky. Only, it's not darkening—it's the shadow of a timberwing flying overhead, descending toward us.

The rest of the fae soldiers drop like flies, their bodies bulging, their skin peeling, bursting like fruit that's been left too long and gorged on by maggots to spoil.

Pruinn makes a choking gasp, eyes bugging out, and I whip my head to stare at him. I watch in horrified fascination as the whites of his eyes go jaundiced, his skin wrinkling as it shrinks.

Infected veins spread up his neck to feast on his face, just as his panicked gaze meets mine. Cold retribution solidifies in my chest and ices over my panic, filling me instead with cruel satisfaction as his eyes brim with fear and confusion.

" I'm watching ," I hiss.

A second later, he falls dead at my feet.

I look up just as the roaring timberwing lands amongst the dead, bulging corpses of the fae. My people who are still alive cry out with joy and relief, while a shocked breath shakes out of me.

"King Rot! King Rot has saved us!"

I watch as Slade Ravinger jumps down from his beast. But this man has spikes running down his arms and back, iridescent scales along his cheeks…and pointed ears.

Pointed. Like the fae.

Fear swallows me whole when his hard green eyes land on me, because this man with his lines of famed rot, is unmistakably King Ravinger…except he's also something else. Something that chills my bones and scatters my heartbeats into useless thrums.

He has brought terrible power and terrifying wrath, and yet…he also just saved my people. Saved them, when I could not.

So I do something I never would have ever done in the past. Something that I would have been too proud for, too selfish for. Too short-sighted for.

I, Queen Malina Colier, fall to the ground and kneel .