AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Here I could only live a half-life. But it was all I had left now. It was what I had chosen.
“When you disappeared, Mina flew to Ireland,” Nellie said. “She tried to go through the portal to join you. But the Chimera wouldn’t let her through.”
Unlike Dagda or the bog witch, Mina, and most other faeries, could only travel to the Otherworld through a portal in Ireland. And she’d gone all the way there for me.
“She was just doing her duty,” I muttered.
“I don’t think so. I mean, that’s part of it, but she seemed genuinely worried about you.”
The word genuine didn’t fit in the same sentence with me and Mina. Had she really been concerned about me?
Gasping, Mina lifted her hand from the mystical, and jumped to her feet. She raised alarmed eyes to meet ours. “We have a problem. Illya can’t reach Dagda.”
“Of course he can,” I said. “All he has to do is send a note.”
“Badb has taken over, pretending to be you, Chels. She’s monitoring all communication in or out of the castle.”
My dread returned with a vengeance. “Dagda wouldn’t allow that. He—”
“Dagda,” Mina said quietly, holding my gaze. “Is scheduled to fall and be reborn. Tomorrow. At sundown.”
Chapter 35
Anicybreezeblewin from the open doorway into our living room, causing a shiver to run through me.
“What do you mean, scheduled?” I demanded. “One doesn’t schedule themselves to fall. It's something that happens, right?”
“Unless it's like an execution,” Nellie suggested.
I stared at her, the blood leaching from my face. I turned to Mina. “Not even the queen can schedule the king’s fall against his will. It's unthinkable, it's…”
Dagda’s offer spiraled through me.Yes, if you want to rule beside me as my wife. Or no, if you would rather I step down and let you rule alone.
You can’t step down. You said it's not possible,I’d responded.
The look in his eyes when he’d said,There is one way.
A queasiness roiled my stomach. I jerked to my feet, my hands in my hair. “This was hisplan? Is he insane?”
Mina and Nellie stared at me, confused.
I turned to them. “He said he’d step down, that he’d let me rule if I wanted. All I needed to say was yes or no when I came out of the bog. He didn’t say his solution to letting me rule on my own was himfalling.”
“Illya said it's called a Falling Ceremony,” Mina said. “Apparently faeries can hold one if they get the approval of the king or queen…” She grimaced at her own words.
When Badb walked out of the bog, she’d pretended to be me and said no. Now all she had to do was wait while Dagda took upon himself torestarthimself, come back to life as an innocent baby, and the throne was hers.
And then she’d end him for good. A harsh pain gripped my chest.
“She’s going to kill him,” I whispered.
The expressions of dread on Mina and Nellie’s faces told me that they’d reached the same conclusion. Badb was monitoring every message that came in and out of the palace, so anyone already within the palace was off limits.
My eyes flashed to Mina’s. “What about Lugh? Can we send him?” I asked, referring to Morrigan and Dagda’s last remaining son from another life.
“Illya said Lugh is also too far away to offer any help.”
I thought about Roisin. But no, she was a member of the court now. She’d be at the palace, too.
