Page 31 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
“Aurra?”
It still took me a moment for the voice to register, and then a moment longer for the dark corners of my vision to recede even as I turned to face the fae now looking up at me, concern deepening the line between his brows.
Shiel’s hair had grown considerably longer in the months since we first locked eyes that fateful day at the market. The sun kissed curls fell over his forehead, just too short for the wayward locks to be tucked behind his ears. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked at Shiel,reallylooked at him, not like this—not with the reflected light of the western sun illuminating him with a halo of golden light so that he seemed to glow from somewhere within.
He wore only soft leather breeches and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up past the rounded muscle of his forearms, now frozen halfway through reaching for another stack of yet-unwritten letters. He was ink smudged and wrinkled, the buttons of his shirt done too hastily, and still, despite all that, he looked as regal as he had the day we met. More, even, now that I knew him for who he was. For what he was.
“Aurra … are you alright?”
Shiel’s voice once again pierced through the fog that had enveloped my mind.
This time when he asked the question, there was none of the annoyance that had tinged his voice earlier. Again, however, when I tried to respond to him, I found the answer catching in my throat.
Alright?
I was far from it, far from anything other than even vaguely resembledalright.
But as I looked into the concerned eyes of the fae before me, I felt a warmth spread through my chest, melting away some of the cold that had taken root there. It was as if his very presence had the power to soothe me, to calm the raging storm inside of me.
Not entirely, but enough to loosen the knot that had formed so solidly at the back of my throat.
“I don’t know,” I finally managed to choke out. “I feel like … like I’ve lost something.”
It was worse than that, really, but I didn’t know how to tell him. How was I supposed to say that what I’d lost was only the beginning, that I felt like whatever that was, whatever it was I was losing, I was just going to keep losing parts of it, parts of me, until there was nothing left.
I couldn’t say it, but it seemed I didn’t have to.
Shiel’s expression softened further as he set the stack of letters down on the table beside him and stood, his eyes never leaving mine. He crossed the room to me in a few quick strides, taking my hand in his. The moment our skin touched, something fluttered back to life deep inside me.
His hands were rough, too rough, the kind of rough that made mine feel soft. As if on instinct, as if reading my thoughts, Shiel turned my hands over, both our eyes dropping to examine the soft, smooth skin of my palms. Once, not too long ago, these hands of mine were scarred and calloused from years working at my parent’s mill. I’d thought nothing of it, like the rest of my lot in life, hands as hard and cracked as untreated leather were just another facet of the life I’d been dealt. Compared to the cruelties of the rest of it, callouses and cracks were a kindness.
But now my hands were as smooth and soft as silk, the skin so new and untouched that the palms hardly creased. The magic my mother had used to hide me, to disguise my powers and my position, had protected me, too.
I started to pull away, but Shiel’s hands tightened over mine. His eyes drew my back up to look at him, and in them I saw a spark I’d almost forgotten once existed between us. This fae, this Lord of the Western Court, had spent so long trying to protect me, not just from the evils of this world, but from myself.
This was the fae that had rescued me from my father’s lashings, that man’s hand on me the last thing I was sure to ever see if he hadn’t.
This was the fae that had saved me from the vile man my parents had betrothed me to, who had even then followed my wishes and still somehow dealt that monster a fate like no other, one only befitting a man who’d murdered his previous wives and seemed determined to do the same to me.
This was the fae that had saved me from Icarus.
Icarus.
A deep, core-shaking shudder rumbled up through me.
I’d been blinded by that dark fae from the very beginning, but it wasn’t Icarus who first dragged me into the world of the fae, into my destiny.
It was Shiel. This golden-haired creature before me with eyes as bright and blinding as the setting sun itself, this was the fae, the male, the man who—despite a stubbornness even greater than my own—had held me all night in that tent after he’d torn my betrothal papers to shreds. The same one that swore his allegiance to me even if it cost him the court he so desperately tried now to save. This was the fae that had brought himself to the brink of death for me time and time again.
Not Icarus.
It wasn’t until I felt the soft scratch of Shiel’s stubble beneath my fingers that I realized what I was doing. I cupped the side of the fae lord’s face in one hand, his own still cradling mine, our bodies now a hair’s breadth away from each other since I’d stepped up closer to reach him.
Not for the first time, something bloomed within me. Between us.
More than bloomed. This thing, it had been growing, unfurling, blossoming for months, from the moment I laid eyes on this glittering gold fae. Even in the weeks we were apart, even in the moments when hate and anger were the only feelings the sight of him dragged up in me, this thing had been steadily strengthening.
“My dearest Aurra …” Shiel whispered. “It’s okay to lose things. Losing something doesn’t have to mean it’s lost forever. It just means you have to find it again.”
