Page 10 of The Fallen Fae King

He means to slaughter us all.

Did my parents know?

Then Tarquin opens his jaws, and fire rakes the tables covered in honeyed oatcakes and roast beef, the dancing fae, and the wooden roundhouses decorated in ribbons.

Screams, ash, and seared feathers fill the air, where before there had been laughter and dancing.

Wren flinches, when the Druids are burned to ash, attempting to shield a huddled group of dancers.

The Sacred Blossom Tree is set alight like a woman with burning hair. The embers of the petals float through the air like burning snow.

My hair is coated in their ash, along with the ash of the people who I was meant to govern.

I am a King of ash.

King of a fallen kingdom.

King of the dead.

Elatha and Ciara are coated in ash as they run back to me; their eyes are wild.

They are screaming at me, but I can’t hear them. They try to tug me away from the Mound, but I refuse to leave Da.

Who else can protect him?

The world around me is aflame.

Am I burning?

Is this hell?

Then Ma is there, thrusting something small and wailing into my arms.

I stare numbly at the Beta baby with ladybug wings.

“You are all he has now,” Ma says simply.

What happened to the bard, his da?

My stomach sinks because I know.

Ma’s left wing is singed. Her robe is ripped.

She settles in the throne next to Da, gently taking his hand in hers like they are at a formal state occasion, and our world isn’t being burned around us.

Her eyes are red-rimmed, but she has never looked as beautiful as she does now.

She tilts up her chin, defiantly. “Take the secret tunnel through the Mound and underneath the labyrinth.”

“I won’t leave you.” I step forward.

“Save the kids and babes,” she screams.

I freeze.

She has never yelled at me before.

I turn, holding the baby to my chest, and run toward the group of kids.