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He’d begged her to become more engaged in the war effort against Margetta. In vague terms, she’d told him that the mist she sustained required her constant vigilance and that the same mist kept Margetta from gaining access to a kind of power in Ferrenden Peace that would enable the Ancient Fae to take over the Nine Realms.
He’d stared at her with lips that turned down and such terrible disdain that color had risen on her cheeks. “I don’t believe you. What power?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.” And she hadn’t been. Davido had forbidden her to ever discuss the true, elf-lord nature of the power that resided in her kingdom. The elf-lords that had once conquered the Nine Realms had created a terrible stretch of realm history, something horrendous in the ancient documents. To even use the term ‘elf-lord’ was to strike fear into the heart of all Realm-folk.
He’d lowered his chin and flared his nostrils. He’d looked like a powerful bull ready to tear into her. But he’d held his temper in check. “Here’s the deal, my Queen, I can sense the innate power that you possess and I know in my gut that if you’d made a push, we’d have had Margetta on her heels by now. That’s what I know.” He’d hit his chest with his fist. “I know it here. You’ve held back and thousands of Realm-folk have died because of it.”
When he’d left, she’d wept for nights. He’d been wrong, but she’d found no words to persuade him otherwise.
Now he was holding her in his arms, only it wasn’t really ‘Rosamunde’, but Aralynn whom he trusted and valued.
When she drew back, he looked at her, frowning. “Why the tears?”
“I was remembering something, but it doesn’t matter.”
He caught her chin. “It al
ways matters. Have I hurt you?”
The warm compassion on his face made her chest ache all over again. “You couldn’t hurt me, Stone. You always act from a place of truth and honesty, from your devotion to Tannisford. There’s nothing you could do that could harm me in any way.”
He tilted his head slightly, mossy-green eyes narrowed. “That’s the way you see me?”
“It is.” But as the words left her mouth, a new frequency hit her, striking deep in her brain, one that felt horribly familiar.
Margetta.
“Stone, we’ve got to get out of here. The Ancient Fae is coming toward the mine. Sweet Goddess, how fast can you fly?”
He gripped her arms, staring into her eyes. “You should leave. Teleport now. I’ll escape somehow.”
“I’m not leaving you. No. Way. Stone, she’s gunning for you. I can feel it.”
“Okay, then.” He didn’t ask permission or give her the smallest warning. Instead, he caught her up in his arms, levitated, then flew straight out of the mouth of the mine and headed into the air.
But a terrible gold wind already filled the dark, starry sky. Margetta’s signature.
Rosamunde had seen it once before, the night her mother had died.
Her first instinct was to teleport, but she couldn’t leave Stone. Though she’d learned a lot over the past few weeks while serving beside him, she didn’t know what to do or even what she could do.
Stone spun them in a circle. “She’s surrounded us.”
Margetta’s gold wind tossed them in the air. If she caught them, Rosamunde knew she would die. But she knew something else as well: Margetta didn’t want Stone dead, she wanted him for herself. But why?
Rosamunde had to act quickly. She had only seconds to get herself and Stone away from Margetta.
The Ancient Fae appeared, beautiful in a long purple velvet gown and blond ringlets dangling past her shoulders. She had a softly-pointed fae chin, arched brows and looked like a princess.
“Mastyr Stone, what do we have here? A wolf?”
“What do you want?” Stone’s voice reverberated through the air.
“Why, you of course, but I must say you could do better than a wolf.” She snorted and wrinkled up her nose.
Rosamunde closed her eyes and focused on the elf-lord power. She wasn’t in Ferrenden Peace, but she remembered that her mother had accessed the power outside of the kingdom’s boundaries. Maybe she could as well.
Just like that, the elf-lord power began to stream into her, causing the muscles of her legs to seize.
