Page 55 of A Kingdom of Magic and Rain

“I couldn’t agree more,” came a high female voice from the entrance to the room.

I turned my head to look at the faerie who had uttered the words. Like Thea, she was beautiful, with red hair and green eyes. Sisters? I quickly scanned the newcomer from head to toe, picking up on the similarities but also differences between the two. The Fae’s long hair was reddish brown, not ruby red like Thea’s, and her eyes were forest green, not jade green. Still, it was clear that they were related.

“My sister Cora,” Thea introduced her, confirming my suspicion. “Cora, this is Princess Emelin Clairborne.”

“Shh,” Cora shushed her before she closed the door and walked deeper into the room. “Keep it down. Our parents are not here, but there are still plenty of ears to overhear. What is she doing here?” she whispered, stopping before Thea and peering at her face. She was speaking in the old language, and it took me a moment to reset my mind and catch up to what she had said.

“We were on the border. Someone fired an arrow at the mortal king. Adrian asked me to get her out of there. Where else was I supposed to go?” Thea replied, also in Stellian.

“Not here, where she can be easily discovered. You’re harboring a mortal. A royal one at that. You don’t think they’ll come looking for her?”

“I wasn’t thinking.” Thea dragged her hands down her face. “Everything happened so fast. I didn’t know we were going to attack today. That was never the plan.”

“The plan must have changed because of the prophecy.”

“What prophecy?” I asked in the old language, looking between the two sisters.

“But the wards still hold. We can’t launch a full-scale attack,” Thea continued as if I hadn’t said anything.

“What prophecy?” I repeated the question.

“The king must have a plan. Who knows what goes on in that depraved mind of his?”

Tired of being ignored, I grabbed Thea by the elbow and forcefully spun her around to look at me. “What prophecy?” I asked for the third time, my face inches away from hers.

Her gaze grew distant as if she were reading an invisible text in front of her. “A child of light will slay the Fae king to take power from the most powerful, and the world as we know it will cease to exist.”

I let go of her and asked, my voice shrill with disbelief. “My father was attacked because of a prophecy that might never come true?!” His cry of pain right before Thea had whisked me away echoed in my mind. “I have to go back!”

“What?! No!” Thea exclaimed, shaking her head furiously. “Adrian wanted you out of there.”

“I don’t care what Adrian wanted! Take me back!” I demanded, my eyes boring into her.

“Your Highness,” Cora said calmly, grasping my shoulders to turn me away from Thea to face her. “I know this is a lot, but you need to regain some composure.”

“Composure?!” I exploded, twisting out of her hold. “I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you! I don’t trust any of you!” My gaze darted frantically between the sisters. I felt cornered, like an animal caught in a snare. “I’m going back!” I declared as I rushed past them to the bedroom door.

“Emelin, wait!” Thea shouted behind me as I yanked the door open and burst into the hallway.

I broke into a sprint as if my feet could carry me away from the situation. I wished I could leave the devastating truth I had learned behind, but it had latched onto me, weighing me down and slowing my steps. Still, I kept running, struggling to breathe through the tightness in my chest. The end of the hallway approached faster than I had expected, and I made a sharp right turn only to collide with a hard chest. Two hands gripped my arms, fingers digging into my flesh to the point of pain. It instantly became clear that I wouldn’t be able to escape the hold.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” my captor drawled, his voice eerily soft. It was the kind of softness that hid sharp and jagged edges underneath, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

I sucked in a thin breath and looked up at the one who had trapped me. His handsome face was contorted in disdain as he stared down at me.

“You are the mortal princess everyone is looking for,” the faerie said, his eyes flashing.

I tried to jerk away from him, but as I had suspected, I couldn’t break free from his vise-like grip.

“Tarn,” Thea uttered from behind me, the stir of air announcing her and her sister’s arrival.

“Theadelle,” Tarn purred, his gaze darting to her. “There had better be a good reason for why a princess of Emeraldia is wandering the halls of your home.”

When Thea didn’t respond, Tarn’s mouth stretched in a sinister smile, showing off his sharp, pointy canines, which were longer than humans.

“She wasn’t wandering the halls,” Cora chimed in. “She was running, trying to escape. Thea was going to deliver her to the king.”

My heart dropped at her words, even though what she had said didn’t make sense. If that was Thea’s plan, why had she brought me here instead of taking me straight to the king? Tarn must have been thinking the same thing as his gaze flicked between the sisters.