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“You’re going to jump,” I ordered myself. “There’s no honor in hesitating.”
I took a few steps back. Then, with a short run, I flung myself into the open air.
The wind whipped at my face, tearing my hair across my cheeks as I screamed. I pressed my eyes shut and tried to steady myself while twisting in circles, struggling to discern which direction was up and which was down. The fae realm shot away as black blanketed everything, but somehow the blasted mask didn’t waver from my face. The air rushed through my fingertips and over my arms as the dread of what I’d just done overtook me.
I clutched Antonio and gulped down my scream. With great difficulty, I pulled my knees into my chest and prayed to the fae that I’d land in trees. The fall was endless. Each second lasted a hundred minutes, each minute only a second. I searched for a light like my sun, something to guide me back home, but everything was distorted. Time, direction, my logic. I’d lost all three.
Fool. I was such a fool. A brave, dead fool.
Something grabbed my waist and yanked me upward. My back slammed into something hard, and the stars stopped spinning. I choked on air. The next moment, I shot up toward the faded lights of the fae islands, held in a chariot by someone’s hand.
“No!” I screamed. “I have to leave.”
My logic hadn’t returned yet. I clawed to the edge of the chariot to throw myself down again. I had to get home.
A hand seized me. “I won’t save you twice.”
Bastian stood in the chariot behind me, his warm brown skin lit by the golden rails and his dark eyes inexpressible behind the sharp words. “If you care to die”—he released me—“jump.”
I stilled. He held out his hand. “You don’t want to try again?”
“I need to get home.” My words sounded childish to my ears.
Bastian’s mouth opened slightly. “You were trying to return to your realm?”
I nodded, leaning over the edge of the chariot to peer down in hopes of catching a glimpse of the five islands. As always, only stars greeted me.
Bastian held my arm, steadying me.
“I’m not going to jump.” I sighed.
He motioned to the chariot with a flick of his wrist, and we drifted up toward the island of the Mortal Queens, to my beautiful prison.
The relief of survival was not as great as the sting of failure.
“There is one way out of our realm, my Queen.” Bastian steered the chariot, while I tried not to notice the lovely way he said my Queen. His accent rolled the vowels and made the phrase sound endearing instead of dutiful. “And that is not it. You would have fallen for eternity. Long after you stopped breathing, your body would have continued tumbling through the stars until it was nothing but fire and ash.”
I shivered. “That’s not what I wanted.”
“What did you think would happen?” He adjusted the thin gold band around his forehead and leaned against the rails. “Even had you been transported to your realm, you would have landed with such a force that you’d be nothing more than a hole in the ground.”
I turned away. “It made sense at first.”
“How?” Amusement plated his tone. “I truly want to know how you arrived at that conclusion.”
“I’m to die anyway.” I whirled back around to face him. “At least I tried to find a way home.”
He held no pity for me. “I’m guessing there are a few other things you could have tried first.”
We flew closer to the fae realm, and each moment broke my spirit a little bit more. “One way out of this realm,” I pondered. “The ambassadors?”
“There are three ambassadors, so you may look at it as three ways out.”
The six earrings in his ear were like golden orbs, reminding me he was a king. A great fae king who had to bow to a mortal girl. He could have let me die, then killed Gaia, and he’d bow to no one.
They needed us Mortal Queens for something. The fae were dependent upon us. But why?
I cared more about getting home than uncovering what purpose they had for mortals.
