Page 44 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
I knew the queen had weighed this game in her favor, but I had no idea just how much. It was time to start tipping the scales. I’d cast this glamour, and I’d finally strip it if I had to. This was my kingdom, crown on my head or not, and I had a right to know what was going on in it.
Phina tried to speak, but her expression didn’t change as she struggled to save whatever secrets she’d been ordered to keep. She finally started to find the words, but I straightened, and as I moved, something in her shifted. She’d been afraid of herself before.
But now, as I rose and met her gaze, she was afraid of me.
It was as if, even before I lifted the glamour over her, she felt what I was about to do, sensed the change before it came.
“I release the glamour placed over you. Tell me, now, the truth.”
Phina’s eyes widened as the glamour lifted, and she stumbled back, almost falling over the chair behind her. She looked at me, fear etched onto her face, and I could see the panic in her eyes.
“I … I can’t,” she stuttered, taking a step back. “The queen, she ordered us not to say anything. I can’t betray her trust.”
I took a step towards her, my expression hardening.
“Her trust is not the one that should concern you. Besides, Phina … I think if you take a moment, you might realize the truth is no longer something you can keep from me.”
My tutor opened her mouth to argue, but suddenly, she stopped. Her whole body froze, standing there unmoving except for the slowly forming shock that fell over her face as the last of the glamour’s hold cleared from her mind.
Confusion replaced the shock next. She’d not been present when I arrived, not seen the magic I performed, and it was unlikely the queen or Eckhardt were so careless as to speak openly about me, even in front of the fae who were unable to understand my place thanks to the glamour I’d shrouded them with.
But doubtless, there were other things that had now begun to fall into place, memories from these last weeks that were only now beginning to make sense now that her mind was not under my spell’s control—or, just as likely, more things thatdidn’tmake sense. Phina’s eyes widened as the very last magic of the glamour dissipated. She took a step back and looked around, as if she had never seen the room before, her eyes drinking me in as if it was the first time she’d truly looked at me. She seemed disoriented, struggling too hard to regain composure that kept slipping further and further away.
“Princess!”
The word fell from her more like an accusation than anything else. Her face flickered between emotions so quickly that she looked like she was going mad. Eventually, however, despite the confusion and the madness, she had the sense to fall down to one knee, head bowed and voice dropped low.
“Your Majesty, I—”
“Don’t call me that,” I interrupted. “I’m not the princess you know, but it’s too complicated to explain now. Just tell me what’s going on here, in the Eastern Court? What’s keeping my mother so busy, and why is Shiel’s advisor sending reports directly to the queen, instead of him?”
Phina hesitated for a moment before finally speaking. She had no choice, of course, but in a way … I commended her efforts. Perhaps, one day, she could make such a loyal advisor to me, too.
“There are rumors, Your Highness,” she said, at last. “Rumors of a rebellion brewing amongst the humans of Luxia.”
“A rebellion?” I repeated. “But the humans, they’re always restless. They’ve always hated the fae.”
“Not here, in the Eastern Court,” Phina said, cringing as the answer came out all too easily. “The humans here live peacefully amongst us. Until lately.”
Her eyes widened a little, as if something suddenly made sense to her.
“What is it, Phina?”
She clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening even further. She struggled for a moment, muffled gasps choking her until she coughed out a glamour-bound reply.
“The king,” she gasped. “Something’s happened with the king.”
Panic darkened her eyes as the memory, or perhaps a harsh reminder of something she’d once known but been forced to forget, settled in.
Ah yes, my dearly departed father.
Not for the first time, a small stab of something like grief pricked inside me. I felt no lost love for him. I never knew him, and from what little I’d begun to gather, he was something of a tyrant. It was hard not to be, with this power now passed on to me.
But he was my father, and now, I’d never know him.
I’d come home, but I’d come too late.
And from what Phina was telling me now, from the rumors that had been swirling about unrest and rebellion, I might be too late for the rest of my kingdom, too. Had the glamours he’d cast in his life broken with his death? Or had he simply been losing his grip in the days leading up to his death, the aftermath only felt long after his powers to keep the peace—however forcibly—were gone.
