After tomorrow, when she hears the cries of those who lost their loved ones? When she realises death is not the happy, orgy-fuelled celebration she was raised to believe?
Or after nineteen days, when she’s crowned queen and is forced to deal with the darkest parts of our world? The wars, the executions…
Myworldwillbreak her.
The urge to claw at my own skin, to rip away my crimes causes my fingers to flex subconsciously. I flatten my palms against my thighs and force my eyes away from the library.
Looking at the Vylian I kicked in the balls, I say, “You will be taken to the castle and healed. Then you’ll be given an escort back to Vyla. Any wares you’ve lost, you will be paid double for.”
“What about Gnomonmylongdiclykahungreehipoh and N?” he asks, his golden eyes burning with the same need for vengeance as my people. Razian, Vylian – they are the samedespite all their differences. “They’re dead! Will we get a fist’s share too?”
I nod. “If you wish to.” That might be one plus side to this. Nothing brings fighting sides together better than a common enemy.
Seeing the healer arrive with another group of guards, I spread my wings and take to the air. We break up every fight we find. Sometimes we make it before there are any deaths; other times we’re too late. I find King Dravr choking out one of my guards. Blood pours down the side of his face. Echo stands beside him, giving him her silent approval. The mob around them is angry as hel, but no one dares to stand against the head of my Royal Guard.
As soon as the woman sags in King Dravr’s arms, he tosses her out of the tree. She’ll regain consciousness almost immediately. If she’s able to orientate herself fast enough, she’ll survive. If not, she’ll splatter across the ground. After a glance at me, a silent way to say she’ll find me later, Echo dives off the branch after her charge. If the woman survives, she’ll quickly wish she hadn’t. Echo follows the old ways of the fairies. You do not break the Laws of Hospitality. If you do, you will pay with the breakage of all your bones three times over, and Echo has a tendency to forget how to count.
“Is Queen Loreli safe?” I ask as I land.
“Where is safe in the heart of one’s enemy?”
“We are not enemies.”
“No?” The crowd shouts and surges in anger even as my guards move in front of them.
“No. The attack today is very different to the atrocities that occurred on our front lines.”
His lips tighten. “Perhaps. But good Vylians died today. Innocents, not soldiers.”
“As did Razians. But let us end this here. Come back to the castle with me. Let us show them that the unity between our kingdoms has not been shaken.”
He wipes a hand over his eye, smearing the blood into his silver hair. He stares at me for a moment, and I see all his doubt and paranoia. If he goes for a knife, I will have to kill him. He must know that it would be suicide with all my guards surrounding him. His are also here, but they are vastly outnumbered.
“Vyla’s queen is already there,” he finally says.
I nod, relieved that I am not starting our peace talks over from zero. But then, where else could she have gone? If they had flown fast back to Vyla, anyone who had seen them would’ve assumed they were fleeing some great crime and attacked them.
“Let us pray she is still alive,” he says.
“She will be.”
Echo would have left trusted people watching her. Even if someone in the Court is behind the attack, they wouldn’t have made it past her guards.
Unless Evangeline’s in on it too.
Telling myself the head of the Fairy Intelligence is still in Gretadal on assignment, I spread my wings. But just as I’m about to lift off, Echo lands back on the branch. The roar of the crowd instantly quiets.
She slings the guard’s body onto the ground. The woman is screaming and begging for mercy, but she doesn’t fight back as Echo breaks each bone in her legs one by one. Then she starts in on her arms. “She stays here tonight,” she says once she’s finished.
No one argues.
Looking at us, she says, “Turn.”
“E–” I cut myself off and look at King Dravr. “She needs you to turn.”
He looks at me warily but does as she says. Then I spread my wings, and he follows me back to the castle.
“What was that about?” he asks.
