Page 30 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
I couldn’t think about what Icarus had told me, what he’d revealed under the influence of my glamour, without thinking about what had happened after—so I forced it from my mind before it could consume me again. Shiel had gone back to writing, his face intent as he was lost in thought. I watched him in silence, taking in the shape of him outlined against that afternoon sun.
I moved towards Shiel, careful not to step on any of the papers that had fallen onto the floor. I grabbed a chair from his bedside and pulled it over to the table and took a seat, resting my head in my hands as I looked up at him, still completely oblivious to me.
As I sat there, watching him work, I couldn’t help but admire the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he was deep in thought or the way his pen moved effortlessly across the paper. I’d never asked Shiel how he felt about his role as Lord. He always seemed to fit into that role so effortlessly, but here, in the quiet with him, it was anything but effortless. His work was tireless, and though it didn’t exactly look like heenjoyedit, he seemed suited for it.
I’d learned a few things in my lessons.
I knew that though fae healed quickly, they only lived a little longer than humans. They kept to themselves for the most part. The only court where humans and fae resided together was here, in the Eastern Court. It was the court that we first conquered when we arrived on these shores. The rest we built ourselves.
Ourselves.
Not for the first time since arriving here in the Eastern Court, I marveled a little at how quickly I’d switched sides. All my life I’d believed myself a human, bound myself to their stories, their traditions, and their beliefs. But it had only taken a couple of months for that to shift.
It mightn’t have been so easy if my experience with humans had been anything other than wretched.
I forced my thoughts away from that past, so recent, still, but already feeling like it was an entire lifetime ago. There was no point in being bitter. I was safe now. My sister was, if not safe, at leastawayfrom that same past that had threatened to destroy us both, eventually. She’d never faced the same abuse that I had, but her life hadn’t been a happy one. I’d tried to shield her, but in the end, she suffered right beside me.
And now, she suffered still, because of me.
I felt those dark thoughts rise up in me again, the ones that I was trying so desperately to run from, and felt myself reaching out for something, anything, to distract myself again. I found it this time in the distant sound of clanging steel coming from somewhere far down below in the courtyard.
I made my way over to the window and looked out at the courtyard below while Shiel continued to work, unbothered. I probably could have hurled a book—or even myself—from that window, and he wouldn’t have even noticed.
A few of the guards were on their break and had congregated into a rough circle around a pair that were sparring in the middle. As I peered closer, I noticed Zev among them. What was Zev doing, training with the guard? Was that how he’d chosen to occupy his time? Was that what he’d been ordered to do? And Finch?
I’d been surprised he hadn’t found a way to see me. He’d tried so desperately in the past. Perhaps he was being kept as busy as I was, assigned his own tasks meant to keep him from making any trouble. If the queen hadn’t, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Shiel had stepped in and done it himself.
Down below, most of Zev’s clothes had been cast aside to give him mobility, so he was left wearing only his trousers. He wielded a sword with an easy grace, backpedaling on nimble feet while exchanging lightning-fast strikes with his opponent. Sweat coated his chest and glistened under the sun, but it wasn’t his incredible physique that caught my breath.
Even from so high up, I could make out the smooth, unmarked surface of his skin.
His tattoos. They were gone.
A deep stabbing pain dug between my ribs.
That did explain why he hadn’t come looking for me the moment I was left alone with Icarus this time. He hadn’t been able to feel the beating of my own heart beside his own.
That realization stung like salt poured into an open wound. It cut into me, bruised me, left me bleeding.
But it was my own fault. I’d been so wrapped up in my studies, so consumed with trying to prove to my mother that I could fall into line and earn my place on the throne, that I’d neglected the fae who’d brought me here to begin with.
The fae that I’d come to know as my family, the ones that actually wanted me. In doing so, even in that short period of time, I’d already lost something.
That stabbing pain deepened, turning into a throb that refused to go away. It was a buoy, the harder I tried to push it down, the faster and higher it rose as soon as I let go. It clouded every other thought from my mind, darkening the outer corners of my vision as I peered down at Zev below in the courtyard, until all I could see was the distant golden glow of his unmarked skin.
What a mess I’d made.
How long ago was it that Shiel had come for me? How long since he’d told me his suspicions, since he’d dragged me from an old life that felt so hazy now.
Not long enough, not enough for me to have entangled this new life so thoroughly that I couldn’t see my own way out of it. I was both the spider and the web, both the predator and my own prey.
That stabbing pain grew and deepened and grew and deepened until it was a gnawing chasm inside me. It spread outward, taking hold of my body, wrapping tight, grimy fingers around my throat until it threatened to choke me. I fought against it, but the harder I resisted, the tighter it squeezed, the more it burned and spread until my vision blurred with the hot sting of tears.
I was drowning, and not for the first time.
But this time, try as I could to swim, I only sank deeper.
I would have continued to sink, to flounder and flail into the depths of this mess I’d made for myself, if it weren’t for the voice that reached out for me, offering a way out of the dark, a hand to lift me from the darkness.
