Page 1 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
CHAPTERONE
If there was evenan ounce of the glamour left in me—the one I inherited or otherwise—blood would have been shed in that instant.
I don’t know whose blood, as likely my own as any other, but it would have painted the walls of my uncle’s study that uniquely crimson color. I would have made for myself a nightmare I’d never be able to forget, if only to make sure that what I stood in the midst of wasn’t a dream.
I’d fought too hard, too long, to get here, to my court, my crown, my family—only to feel as if all of that was further out of my reach than ever. It was so close I could literally reach out and touch it, tilt back my head and taste the scent of it on my tongue, but still, now, it only felt so utterly, heart wrenchingly, unreal.
The tips of my blackened fingertips weren’t the only thing that turned numb the minute I laid eyes on my sister, Ada. She was transformed, a version of herself I’d never dared to even hope I’d have the chance to lay eyes on. This was not the child I left behind. This was a woman, a creature now at least appearing to be my peer in both body and mind. She’d changed, transformed completely—and still, I’d have known her anywhere.
Any time. Any place. Any form.
Icarus didn’t have to tell me who she was for me to know this creature intimately before me … even if she couldn’t say the same.
I hadn’t yet had the chance to see how much my own appearance had changed with the lifting of my mother’s glamour, but even if I hadn’t changed at all, I knew Ada still wouldn’t have recognized me. I’d made sure of that when I used my powers for the first time. The powers that would now, if I had any access to them, perhaps tilt the scales of fate in my favor.
For once.
But as usual, try as I might to fight it, I’d once again found myself on the wrong side of fate.
I couldn’t tell if the study had fallen into silence, or if I was just unable to hear anything other than the loud beating of my own heart. Behind me, I felt the presence of Shiel, Zev, and Finch, their bodies as rigid as my own felt. Their hands still grazed the metal of the swords strapped to their hips, not because of Ada, however, but because of the presence of the dark fae lord we’d thought broken. Here he stood before me now, however, whole, no sign of the injury that had left him a hollow shell of himself only days before. All of him towered over me, smirking down from barely the distance it would take to reach out and touch him, too.
For a second, the smallest of shivers raced down my spine at the thought. His touch would be all too familiar to me. I had memories of touching Icarus that were far from holy, but the unholiness of my current thoughts had taken a far different turn. My current desire was not to touch Icarus with the blackened, numb tips of my fingers, but rather with the pointed tip of sharpened steel.
I and the fae I’d brought into my court were not the only ones, it seemed—for when the silence was broken by my flaming-haired uncle, Eckhardt, it was with one of his own hands already wrapped, white-knuckled, around the hilt of his sword.
“What kind of farce is this?”
His ire, however, when I turned to look at him, was not fixed on me.
He looked, instead, between the queen and Icarus, his eyes narrowing by the second even as his fingers tightened their grip.
“There’s no need for swords, anyone,” the queen said, though from the look on her own face as she once more glanced over me, ifshehad one at her side, she’d be reaching for it too. “We’re all friends here.”
Friends.
The very idea was so laughable that if I hadn’t been so completely numbed, I would have burst out like the madwoman I was well on my way to becoming.
At least, it seemed, I wasn’t the only one.
Eckhardt’s lip curled up in disgust as his eyes once more took in the shape of Icarus, standing above us all with the imposing curl of those horns twisting even higher than his already impressive form.
“Forgive me if I’m shaken by the appearance of one changeling in this court today,” he half growled, “but has all the rest of this world lost its mind as well? Since when was the dark fae allowed to enter the gates of this city at all, let alone walk as a guest amongst the palace halls?”
Icarus’ gaze drifted ever so lazily over towards my uncle, with only a single twitch of the muscle of his jaw to reveal the captain’s words had any effect on him.
That single twitch was enough, however.
I heard the slight grate of steel as three sets of hands tightened on their own hilts, too, behind me, the blades itching to be fully freed. I was sure if I looked at them, their knuckles would match those of my uncle, still struggling not to draw his own blade.
Unsurprisingly, the only figure present that actually seemed completely oblivious to the tension coursing beneath the surface of our exchange was Ada. My sister stood looking only slightly bored as the fates of three faerie courts hung in the balance before her—and in extension, all of Luxia.
I myself was torn, pulled in so many directions all at once that I hardly retained the capacity to breathe. I desperately wanted to demand of Icarus what this latest game of his was, how he’d created this golem of my sister—for that was what she had to be—but I found myself unable to ask it in front of her, even as I tried to convince myself that this creature, this version of her, couldn’t really beher.
Could it?
Though I couldn’t bring myself to believe my eyes, I couldn’t bring myself not to believe them, either.
Ada might not remember me in any way, in any form, but the last thing I desired was to make her distrust me now that we had the chance to become reacquainted.
