Page 14 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
“I’m not—”
“Not officially, no,” Zev said.
“But actually, really,” Finch said, tilting his head to the side and squinting his eyes. “She’s always been the crown princess. Does it really make a difference?”
“For now …” Shiel cut them off with a glare, “that isn’t what matters most. Titles come and go. What matters right now is making sure that Aurra,ourAurra, stays alive.”
All three of them looked at me with an intense stare, and I supposed I should have felt some sort of pressure at their words, but instead, I just let out a yawn.
The gesture made something almost like anger flicker across Shiel’s face. Surprise on Zev’s. Amusement on Finch.
“Tell me something new,” I said with a tired sigh. “From the moment you showed up, all anyone’s been trying to do is kill me.”
Or use my power.
Including Shiel.
“We’re at a crux now,” Shiel said, urgency dripping in every one of his words, though they still barely broke above a whisper. “The queen knows her power is waning. You saw the way the guards reacted when they realized the power you held. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the fae begin to follow suit and follow you, not her—if you were to ever appear to be at odds.”
My brow furrowed slightly. “What about loyalty? To the queen?”
Shiel’s eyes flashed slightly. “There is no loyalty to anyone in this court except to the one that bears the power you possess. Not really.”
He let out a small shiver of a sigh. “Whatever happens, we have to play this next partverycarefully,” Shiel continued. “We can’t afford to make a mistake now.”
His eyes lifted to Zev and then Finch, where they lingered longer than all the rest.
At first, Finch opened his mouth, prepared to protest being singled out—but whatever he’d been about to say died in the back of his throat. Instead, he sat back slightly and just let out a small, resigned sigh as his shoulders slumped.
“Fair enough,” he grumbled.
In whispered voices, Shiel and the others told me what had happened in the days I was unconscious.
The queen had sent doctors to tend to me, their bodies hovering over mine without leaving my side even for a moment. In turn, neither had the three Western Court fae. Not that they could have, if they wanted to.
For fear of news spreading outside of the castle walls, the entire population of the palace had been put into strict lockdown. No fae came or left the castle, and only a select few had even been allowed outside of their rooms—to slow the spread of gossip. The castle’s inhabitants were told it was to slow the spread of a mysterious disease carried in by travelers that had forced their way into the city gates.
It was a smart cover, especially when the king was known to the rest of the court to be bedridden with an illness that had left the queen ruling in his stead for months now. Only a select few knew the truth, that the king had long since died and the queen clung to the throne now on nothing more than pretense.
Once news spread of what the travelersactuallybrought with them, the rest of the throne’s lies would crumble in an instant, because there was only one way I could possess the power of the king.
“It’s a good thing you woke when you did,” Finch said, his feet once more taking up their familiar restless shuffle beneath him. “Rumors might spread slower now, between closed doors, but even locking an entire castle in their rooms doesn’t stop them entirely.”
“Finch isn’t the only one who’s grown restless,” Shiel said. “The queen has to be restless too. She’s had too much time to plot and plan in silence. Whatever move she’s about to make, rest assured, it willnotbe in your best interest.”
I didn’t need Shiel to tell me that.
At least, I liked to believe I didn’t need Shiel to tell me that.
Very little in my life had actually been done to me in the name of my interests, to say nothing of mybestinterests. I’d been a pawn since birth, a tool used to give others what they desired. Even these fae before me—Shiel, Zev, Finch—who I’d come to view as the closest thing to family that I’d ever had, hadn’t acted solely formefrom the beginning. Even now, sworn to me as they were, I wasn’t able to shake the feeling that it wouldn’t take much of a shift in this world to make them reconsider.
Shiel was a lord, after all. He could claim all he wanted that he was willing to give up his court, even, but until he was faced with just that, it was only that. A claim. Pretty words meant to satiate me, to get me here, to this place, where I now faced the greatest challenge of my life, yet.
It was a challenge that, according to the hurried glances Shiel kept casting towards the door, I had little time to prepare for.
“The queen won’t leave us alone for long. We only have a minute now, so we best make the most of it.”
I opened my mouth to respond, only to feel whatever I was about to say die as Shiel bowed his head, for just a second, out of a sort of reverence. All three of them knelt for a second, their hands reaching to touch the hilt of their swords.
