“We were enslaved. Beaten for sport. Our women taken for enjoyment. We were nothing but playthings for your people. The rich. The powerful. They loved breaking our bones. They loved how we begged to return home. But the shackles they placed on us made us untouchable.”
She had no idea of the atrocities of which he spoke. She’d never enslaved the Unseelie. “Never!”
He dragged his armor from around his neck, exposing a thick, black band with white runes pressed into it. She read them, and her soul went cold.
Sorlisalvalkeld.
They’d spelled it out, letter by letter, to etch more pain into the flesh of those bound to them. She recognized it but didn’t want to believe it. He’d been a slave. The haunted, vile look in his eyes was pure hatred for her kind. His oppressors.
“I-I didn’t do that.”
“We cried for you, the great Queen of the Seelie. We cried and begged like our people had never done before. For your kind to have mercy, for you to free us. Instead, you ordered us killed for having bothered you.”
No! But she couldn’t answer him. Couldn’t move fast enough as he flashed to her side.
“And all we wanted was our freedom. All we wanted was to live.”
His fiery blade cut toward her face, and she sprang away. Too slow. Too slow. An inferno spread across her nose where the fire touched, spreading under her eyes and making them water. Silva blinked against the tears, forcing herself to stay on her feet and fight.
But Kieran had rage and pain behind him. She was fighting for her life, but he battled for those who’d lost theirs. Faceless souls she knew nothing about.
“Don’t punish me for another’s crime.”
“It was your seal!”
No one in the Light Palace had access to her seal. It was from her magic, straight from her soul. It kept others from being able to use her name on decrees. She’d never signed an order like that. Had she?
She combed her fractured past for the answer, and all she could remember was her blind acquiescence to whatever was put in front of her. Seraph was rich, it was growing, and the people loved her. Had one of the protocols she’d signed sealed the fate of the Unseelie held illegally in her lands?
“I didn’t know.”
“You were ignorant to the filth within your own walls. You didn’t care enough to lead. It’s why even Asherah was lost to you.”
At her sister’s name, she wailed. Yes, Asherah had disappeared, never to be seen again because she hadn’t been paying attention. She hadn’t thought to send her sister with escort when she wanted to travel to their family homelands. Who would harm her? And Asherah was nothing but a whisper of remembered laughter in the Palace long before Silva even realized she was gone.
Silva had been a horrible queen, distracted and only interested in her life and fun.
And now she would fall. Kieran was too close, his blade already poised at her breast before she could fend him off.
“I never meant it. I swear on my blood.”
The blade pierced, and Kalinda screamed.
I’m sorry.
Her heart shattered, the world fading to darkness.
I’m so sorry.
“I never would … have allowed it. I was … not a good queen. I’m … sorry.”
The blade stopped, but it didn’t matter.
Agony blew through her limbs before giving way to seeping cold.
Kalinda.
The numbness spread through her fingers, up her arms.
