Page 19 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
This time, the net I was instructed to cast didn’t need to fall over the entire court—just those residing in the castle. Just those that might have seen, or even heard, of the appearance of Princess Fauna’s double.
By the time the courtiers were spilling from their rooms, the quarantine lifted, there was no memory of the strange girl wearing the princess’ face that had ridden into the castle gates at dawn. No one would notice now that two of us roamed the halls, even though we still shared the same face. Even if we stood beside one another, I’d commanded the court not to be bothered, and what I commanded, they obeyed without question.
Just as my mother, the queen, taught me as my first lesson.
More than all that, more than protecting me, however, there were no more whispers of the king’s death.
Quite the opposite.
My mother and I had made sure of that, next.
By the time the next week had passed, all rumors of the king’s health had been dispelled. His health had improved and soon was expected to once again hold court.
It wouldn’t last forever, this glamour I’d cast with words that drained me once again … but it didn’t have to. It just had to last one more week.
If the queen kept that end of the bargain, of course.
I had no doubt this plan was a guise of some kind, but I had no choice but to accept.
And in my heart, deep down, I wanted to.
I’d already fought so hard to get here, to justbehere, I didn’t want to fight anymore. Not yet, not at least until I’d gained the knowledge I was promised. Knowledge was power, and with the king dead, the queen was one of the only fae I could trust to teach me about the power I possessed.
Not that I could trust her at all.
Not that I could really trust any of the fae I now found myself facing day by day.
Only the queen, Eckhardt, and the fae that had traveled with me were supposed to be spared the veil of the glamour. But there were two others I spared, two others I dared not enchant. My sister, because I’d already caused her to forget me once.
And Icarus … because something inside me couldn’t bear the thought of him forgetting me, too.
If I’d known what was in store for me, however, I might have turned down the queen’s proposal in favor of bloodshed after all.
A voice that had become as familiar as the sound of my own breath—though a thousand times as grating—echoed through the room, too loud to be ignored. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to hear her exact words, but I knew it had something to do with the Eastern Court’s established right to rule. I knew that, at least, when the silence fell and the only sound that fell in its place was that of Phina, my tutor, as she cleared her throat. She stared me down as she waited for some kind of response.
Unfortunately, the only thing the practiced propaganda did for me was cause the palms of my hands to itch for a blade—this time to end myself, if only to end this misery, too.
At my ankles, one of the castle cats let out a mew as it wound around my legs. It was the only company I’d had in days aside from those of my tutor—whenever one of them managed to slip inside during the brief moments the doors were opened for more lessons or meals.
Most of my lessons were like this, so dry and scripted, it sounded like it came straight from the queen herself, some strange attempt to either bore me to death or make sure that by the time I ascended the throne I’d gone through such heavy indoctrination that I was prepared to be her next puppet.
The queen might have been subtle, but the fae—with their thoughts already clouded by the glamour I’m put over them—were not. I caught glimpses of them struggling against it sometimes, flickers of their faces as they found themselves not able to reach for the truth of something they felt dancing just outside their grasp. It was worst for the tutor, Phina. The glamour I’d cast over the fae here was supposed to make them ignore the fact that I looked like the princess they’d come to know their whole lives, but occasionally, I saw the flicker of confusion as their brains tried to recognize me.
If it weren’t for the queen’s promise—and my own crippling exhaustion after casting my last glamour—I would have given up halfway through my first lesson, citing cruel and unusual punishment. But however hollow that promise now rang in my ears some days after it had been made, I still got up each morning with the rising of the sun and studied well past its setting.
In fact, I’d done nothing but study for seven days now.
I’d not left my rooms once, not received one visitor, not been called back to the queen’s side. I’d only just recovered enough for that to bother me, however—a fact I was quickly starting to realize was probably just another part of my mother’s plan.
Phina coughed sharply again, jolting me from my contemplation. It sounded almost as if she was fighting an illness, or even perhaps that her own lessons were boring her body to death.
From the slow, methodical way she shuffled through the next couple pages of the book in her hands, I decided it was the latter.
I leaned back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling, wishing that I could be anywhere else but this room.
They were rooms fit for a princess, sure, not the near-sterile ones I’d slept in my first week—but despite their splendor and comforts, it was practically a prison. I’d only been conscious in my old rooms for a few minutes, but at least, in those minutes, I hadn’t been alone.
Now, here, in all its beauty, the only company I kept was that of Phina making her own slow suffocating attempt on my life. The queen hadn’t dared lock me up like a prisoner in the traditional sense, but she might as well have.
