Page 48 of Tale of the Heart Queen

“Cyan!” Rion shouts from below. “I’ve come only for the girl. Hand her over to me, and your people need not suffer.”

Cyan isn’t buying that, is he?

“You don’t really think he’s just going to turn around and leave once he has me, do you?” I ask, trying to pull my arm out of his hold.

“Well, I know he won’t leave if I don’t give you up.”

Okay, good point.

“You won’t be able to live with yourself if you do this,” I say. “I can see that you’re a good king and a good man. You really wouldn’t hand over an innocent woman into the clutches of her abuser, would you?”

A conflicted waver flickers in his eyes—it’s true that he’s a good king. He’s just protecting his people.

“Don’t listen to her!” Linden hisses. “She fills your ears with poison. You think she didn’t do the same to my brother?”

I grit my teeth and resist the urge to lash out. “I’m not,” I hiss.

“Your Majesty!” Rion calls from below, and we all turn to face him.

I stare down at the Aurora King, hating everything. He looks too much like Nadir but nothing like him at all. He is the sum total of so much misery in my life. Exacting my revenge has always been a desire that sits in the center of my heart like a pellet of jagged iron, and gods, the vicious things I’d do to him if I ever got the chance. It would break both of us, but I’d consider every moment worth the price.

“Give her to me, and then we’ll be out of your way. This girl is nothing to you. Or to anyone, really. Just an heir to a broken queendom that, soon enough, everyone will forget about for good.”

Those words touch some deep, insecure part of me because he’s right, isn’t he? If we had never left Nostraza, none of this would be happening. The last drops of Heart magic would die with me, and that would be it.

But the people of Heart are counting on me. I can’t let them die. It’s been almost three hundred years and they waited, never losing faith. I refuse to let them down.

But Cyan won’t care about any of that.

“I’m sorry,” Cyan says, and my chest deflates. “But I have no choice.”

He starts to drag me away from the railing, and I don’t think. I forget all my earlier reservations. I don’t consider what I’m doing. I just react.

My hand flies out, and I explode.

Lightning bursts out of me, bleeding across the sky in rough crimson streaks.

My ears fill with the unbearable sound of terrified screams and the crack of crumbling stone, and then . . . I’m falling.

CHAPTER 18

The balcony gives out, cracking and shattering as Cyan’s grip falters, and we tumble to the earth in a shower of dust and wreckage. Pain digs into my body as time seems to slow before I strike the hard rock and even harder ground. My vision blurs as blood drips in my eyes and I’m pelted and crushed by debris. Covering my head, I try to stem the worst of the damage as chaos rains from above.

It takes a moment for my head to stop spinning. A haze of dust surrounds me, and I can’t see more than a few feet through it. Slowly, I sit up, wincing at the ache in my limbs. I touch my head, my fingers coming away red. Screams and the sound of everything splitting and breaking fill the air. I seek out Cyan, Anemone, or Linden, but they’re currently beyond my sight.

I almost killed myself, but it created the distraction I needed.

This is my chance.

I stumble to my feet, rocks sliding out from under me, and it’s then I notice the rain has finally let up. Thank Zerra for small miracles. I shake my head. Not Zerra. Fuck that bitch.

I need to find the Alluvion ark and then I’ll run as fast as my feet will take me.

Coughing up dust from my lungs, I stagger on a throbbing ankle. How long does it take for this Fae healing thing to kick in? It’s been so long I hardly remember how it works. I pass the bodies of guards and palace servants. Some are still breathing, only knocked out, but some are clearly never waking up.

Guilt twists in my chest, because I did this. Am I any better than my grandmother, taking what I want and failing to acknowledge the consequences?

I swore I’d raze the palace to the ground if I had to. If Cyan had just listened to me, I wouldn’t have had to resort to such drastic measures. But none of that quiets the nagging shame that burns at the back of my throat.