Page 62 of The Ruthless Fae King
“She’s here. In your room with a nurse. She’s shaken but fine,” Piper told me, and looked at me head-on. I could see the trauma hiding behind her eyes. My friend would never be the same after what she’d seen. “Maddie, they had metalwings. They tried toflyLibby out of there. Your mother…” She stared down at my mom’s limp form. “I’ve never seen her like that. She wassopowerful, she flattened every tree for a mile, but… she depleted her power saving Libby.”
“No,” I sobbed.
My sweet mother. Depleting your power as a fae could be a permanent thing. You used up so much of your magic in one moment that the well ran dry.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
The room was suddenly plunged into a deep coldness. I looked up at Lucien. His eyes were practically glowing silver. “The war has begun. This is inexcusable.”
I rushed towards him as my mother started to moan and awaken. Piper bent to help her while I placed my hands on Lucien’s chest. “Please. Please, tell me we’re going to get revenge for this. She went too far,” I growled.
A conflicted look crossed his face and my stomach tightened.
“Of course we will, Madelynn, but we can’t rush out right this second. We need to rally an army.”
I was afraid he would say that.
My throat pinched with emotion as I tried to remain calm. I wanted to suck the wind into the room and throw it at a tree, but I had to keep my head. “If we wait too long, Zaphira might take someone else important.” How dare she try to kidnap my sister! Was she going to drain her of her power? The very thought made my blood boil.
“I could plunge her entire lands into a death freeze, but I’d risk killing the innocents there,” he told me. Therein lay the true issue. We knew from reports of defectors that had fled the Nightfall realm that innocents were there who hated Zaphira, and they didn’t deserve to die for the actions of their mad queen.
There was a knock at the door and I looked over to see a beautiful woman with white hair that held a brown streak in front. She wore a regal dress and stood next to a dapper-looking elf. I knew instinctively this was the elf king and queen.
“We heard about the attempted kidnapping. How can we help?” the queen said.
I nearly cried in relief.
“Zaphira is getting bolder. We must strike a blow so that she knows this was unacceptable,” Lucien told the elf king.
Raife Lightstone nodded, his moonlight-colored hair shaking around his shoulders. “I’ve been waiting years for this war, you know that.”
I was so grateful to have these men working together to ensure nothing like this ever happened again. The thought of my mother or sister being taken filled me with so much fear I felt sick.
“I hate to ask this…” I looked to the elf king. “…but my lady-in-waiting is hurt.” I motioned to Piper, who held her arm to her chest as my mother lay in her lap.
Without a word, he knelt next to Piper and waved a glowing purple hand over her arm. Her face, which was previously pinched in pain, relaxed, then he went to work on my mother.
“She just needs rest. Exhaustion.” He peered up at me from my mother, who was in and out of consciousness.
“Thank you,” I told him. “And thank you for helping heal me.” I looked to the elvin queen. “Both of you.”
She smiled at me as the elf king waved me off like it was no big deal. I suppose he saved lives every day and it wasn’t a big deal to him. But it was to me.
“Do you have spare healers you could send to the battlefield when we strike?” Lucien asked the elf king, completely going into war mode, which I appreciated. The fact that the Nightfall queen had gone after my sister left me feeling angry but also afraid. I’d mistakenly thought we’d have a few months until we were in full-blown war, but the war had begun like Lucien said. There was no way we could let Zaphira get away with trying to kidnap a royal and live. We needed to crush her before she did something even more bold.
“Absolutely. I’ll ready them now,” the elf king declared. The elvin people were known for their healing. Even the weakest among them had some sort of healing power, and they were all expert archers. Having them in battle with us would be priceless.
“We have the Winter Soldiers,” Lucien told me, “Every single one of them will do as I ask.”
I stared at my mother. She seemed to have gained her composure, and stood with Piper’s help. “Fall Court is already suiting up and heading this way,” she told me. “Your father stepped down in leadership this morning and left me in charge.”
There was shame in her voice. I knew she must be so disappointed with how he’d handled things. Their marriage was strong, and I hoped it would survive this. Lucien hadn’t yet stripped him of his title, but he would when he had a moment to breathe. It would devastate my father, who had served our people for decades, but he’d made a mistake selling me to Marcelle and backing out of the agreement with Lucien. If he kept his life, I considered us lucky.
“If the Nightfall queen has Summer and Spring Court powers, then we will need them too. I will go rally the remaining courts,” I declared.
Lucien growled. “TheyleftThorngate. Let them go! Zaphira will come for them eventually and I will deny their pleas for help.”
I snapped my head to glare at him. “I am their queen now, Lucien! So they will do as I say, or may the Maker have mercy on their souls.”
