Page 13 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
Three faces peered down at me at once, Shiel, Zev, and Finch—each one trying to hide their worry a little less than the last.
If it were only Shiel that hovered over me, I might not have known he was worried at all. But thanks to Finch, I was suddenly sitting up so quickly that the room spun nearly as fast as my heart now thundered.
“What is it?” I gasped, my voice raspy from disuse. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing …” Shiel said too quickly, his hand bracing before me, as if to keep me from leaping out of bed—which in all fairness, I was about to do. His face was, as ever, calm and collected—but there was something wrong with his voice that echoed in the all-too agreeing nods of the other two fae at his side.
“You were asleep so long, we were starting to worry,” Finch said.
He reached for me too, not to hold me back, but just to let his hands trail along the side of my face. His eyes softened slightly, his hand dropping to trace the line of my collarbone that had appeared as the shift I wore slipped from one shoulder.
Zev’s face, meanwhile, had reddened. He grabbed the sleeve and tugged it up—too high, high enough that the sudden movement simultaneously nearly choked me.
“Sorry, sometimes I forget my own strength.”
Zev’s face was even redder once he, Shiel, and Finch had managed to pull the shift back down into place where it no longer threatened to suffocate me. They somehow did this before my grunted protests could drown the rest of them out.
“The only one who shouldn’t be forgetting strength is my mother. She has something coming for—”
My snarl was interrupted as Finch suddenly lunged forward again, one finger pressing to his lips with a hiss. Annoyance flared in me as my aching muscles were startled back into the pile of pillows behind me.
“What is it?” I hissed back. “I was just saying—”
All three fae before me exchanged a glance, but before any of them could speak, Zev shook his head, his own somber face stifling my words this time. I fell into silence as the three of them shifted to the side slightly and he gestured towards the corner of the room.
It took my sleep-weary eyes a second to take in the details of the room around me. It was surprisingly plain, the walls empty save for a couple plain white and crimson tapestries hung on the walls.
That was not what Zev had drawn my eye to, however.
The reason for my sudden silencing was slowly rising to his feet from a chair in the corner.
We were not alone.
A tall, spindly fae stepped forward in silence, each of his steps so quiet it was almost unsettling.
“The queen was kind enough to have a doctor stay with you this whole time,” Shiel said through teeth barely able to keep from gritting together.
Finch’s eyebrow raised. “Kind?”
Shiel shot him a look and Zev nudged him a little too hard in the shoulder. All three of them stepped to the side again, this time to give the doctor room to loom over me. His face remained pinched and inscrutable as he walked me through his examination, checking my teeth and eyes and the tips of my fingers for signs of the magic that had once gripped me.
He must not have found anything, or perhaps he found exactly what he was looking for. Whichever it was, he didn’t say, he just finally straightened up and nodded once before making an awkward announcement that he would be informing the queen that I’d woken.
He left without another word, the rest of us holding our collective breath until we heard his retreating steps echoing down the hallways outside. The other sound that we heard was the clink of armor muffled through the door as whatever guards my mother had placed outside settled back into their places.
Only then did the three fae before me fall into a sort of frenzy.
“We have little time,” Shiel hissed, his voice low to keep any words from making it through the door to the guards’ ears. “We have to discuss where we stand.”
“Where we stand?”
Shiel stopped pacing for just a second to meet my gaze with a steely look of his own.
“Much has happened in the last week, Your Highness.”
Your Highness.
The title struck me harder than when they called me Princess.
