Page 115 of The Faceless Queen

I blinked, looking up as he raced toward me from his moonstag, his boots kicking up dust from the dirt, his blue cape flying behind his shoulders. Golden thread shone in the sun.

What were we doing here?

He held my hands in his, and he felt warm and steady and solid. “Hey, Olivay,” he said. “Olivay?” His thumbs rubbed soft circles over my skin.

“W-What?” I asked, my chest heaved suddenly, only letting me know then that I’d stopped breathing. What the fuck? What had just happened? “Who-Who …”

“Hey now,” he said. “Shhh. It’s okay. I’m right here.”

I looked into his eyes. Green. So green, like emeralds. Beautiful and blazing.

“What happened to her?” A man asked. He was bustling through a crowd of people to reach Brennan and me. Servants. Staff from Eskalon. From Lafir Castle.

“Is she all right? Is she hurt?” a woman asked, her voice anxious. There was a sense of love and worry emanating from everyone around me, pouring into me. And something inside was awake and feeding.

“Olivay?” Brennan asked. “Tell me what’s wrong, what happened?”

“She needs water,” a man said. He was ancient. A witch. The Hermit. “Go,” he yelled, ordering a girl who gawked nearby. “Princess Olivay will be all right. It was a long journey, and we’re on elevated ground. She just needs some water and a nap, and she’ll be fine. Won’t you, Princess?” His voice was pointed.

It all came back to me. I was Princess Olivay. The Hermit was Lord Brandon, and the man and woman were her parents, the King and Queen of Spartva.

And Brennan was—he was … mine, said something inside me. But he wasn’t mine. He could never be mine.

He will die.

Like my mother had within these very woods. My fault. It was always my fault.

Abigail approached with a glass of water in her hand. Brennan took it and held it up to my lips. “Take a drink for me, Olivay,” he said. “It’s all right.”

I opened my lips, and he tilted the cup, slowly letting the cold water slide down my throat.

“There you go. Good girl.”

More energy came in. Brennan’s. King Dairen’s. Queen Noemay’s. No. No. But I straightened, feeling energetic again, feeling strong.

Gods. I panicked. I thought I could handle being here. I’d passed through here already with the Hermit. But it was different this time. We weren’t just riding through. We were staying. And again I had someone to protect, someone I … someone I was falling in love with. Someone whose life was going to end because of me.

I was ushered inside the lodge soon after, into a long one-story building that stretched the length of the clearing. Two walls of trees stood on either side. Built of brick and stone, it was surprisingly dreary and plain for a king, despite the presence of a great hall and enough rooms to allow the entire council an overnight visit. The lodge also boasted a small throne room, and a library filled with a private collection said to have been amassed by Tirian’s late wife, Brennan’s mother.

Brennan laid me down on my bed and took a seat in the chair beside it, stroking my forehead. The guilt was going to eat me alive. I had to do something, find a way to stop this, to end it.

But every thought I had of telling him the truth, of pushing him away, ended with a burning sensation in my wrist. Between the fiery pain shooting up my arm and the way my stomach twisted, I was in agony. I turned away from Brennan, burrowed deep into the blankets, and feigned sleep until he left. I had dinner alone in my room, and soon after I fell into actual sleep.

Without much to contribute to the hunt the following day, especially once the scouts returned, reporting the latest sighting of the wild boar, I kept to my room with a borrowed library book. Every now and then I looked through the window, watching the knights confer, sharpen their weapons, or practice riding their moonstags above the trees.

I only emerged that day for dinner. And while Brennan watched me intently from across the room, his attention was taken by all the planning that had to be set for his departure in the morning.

When the time came, we all gathered outside to wish the knights a bountiful hunt and to send prayers to Kavrir that they remained safe as they triumphed over the boar.

They all sat atop their moonstags, their camping gear strapped to the saddles, their swords brandished in excitement.

Brennan rode Aurick over to me and descended to say a personal goodbye.

“I’m going to miss you,” he said.

“And I you,” I replied, hoping to keep it brief. I needed him strong, needed him energized as he rode out. But every second he spent with me, I was draining him, hurting him.

“Olivay,” he said carefully, “Do you feel …” He leaned in closer. “Have I upset you at all?”