Page 26 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
Now I understood why he’d demanded I glamour him. If it weren’t for the bonds of the glamour I still felt stretching so taut between us, I wouldn’t have believed him. Not for a second.
Even with the glamour, I was struggling.
“How?” I asked. “And … why? I thought you wanted power.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “And that’s why, to fix it, I’m going to take the throne and end the rule of the tyrannical Eastern Court for good.”
At least that answer, I believed.
“And how do you plan to do that?”
His eyes focused in on me for a moment. “By ridding this kingdom of all four courts. It’s one kingdom. We should be united.”
I swallowed hard, trying to process the weight of his words. He wanted to rid Luxia of its courts? He was bound to tell the truth, but it sounded like he was lying to himself more than anything. What would ridding the kingdom of the courts do except give whoever still ruled over it absolute power?
Oh.
“My court is the perfect example for why you shouldn’t be divided,” Icarus continued, as understanding dawned on me. “All the houses should be abolished and the fae, and our powers, intermingle. The death of the king and the return of the glamour was a sign that the old rein has ended, and it’s time a new one began. We’ll be stronger this way.”
My lips parted, but I struggled to find an answer to what he said.
Not because I didn’t believe him, but because I did. I almost believedinhim.
Almost.
“And my part in this?”
His face softened slightly as his eyes once more shifted to see me, and not the invisible dream beyond. “It was always just as I told you,” he said. “I’d hoped to teach you the ways of the new glamour before it was too late. Before you took up the mantle of your father, and in doing so …”
He trailed off, and for the first time, I saw a slight flicker of a struggle in his eyes.
But whatever he’d been trying to keep from me, it tumbled out of him, prodded by the glamour that had wrapped around his tongue.
“In doing so, you made yourself my enemy.”
You made yourself my enemy.
“I’m sorry, My Storm, but there’s no place for you in my new reality. Not as queen, the other courts wouldn’t stand for that.”
“No one else will bow to you, Icarus,” I said. “I’ve seen how the other fae fear you.”
How they hate you.
That, at least, I kept to myself. Unlike Icarus, I was not bound by the glamour to speak the whole truth as it came to my mind. Not that I needed to. From the way Icarus’ eyes darkened, he’d inferred it on his own.
“They do fear me,” he said, “but they fear their Lords and Ladies, more. If faced with a choice, withmychoice I intend to offer them, they will choose to follow me. I’m sure of it.”
“And how are you so sure?”
The questions came too easily, now. Some of the charm had started to wear off. I felt less like I was seeking answers, and more and more like I was leading an interrogation.
Some of that heat that had flooded between us earlier had begun to cool off. It was slowly dawning on me what Icarus was truly saying, what he intended to do, and what that might mean for me—let alone all of Luxia, the kingdom I’d only recently began to discover my responsibility to take care of.
“Because commoners, human and fae, do love an underdog—especially once I reveal the deep corruption at the heart of this kingdom, we’ll see who’s side they take in the war.”
“The war?”
“You heard the Oracle speak. You saw the vision, as did I,” he continued. “It doesn’t matter which one. One thing is true of any kingdom, war is always on their doorstep if they know where to look for it.”
