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“Rise, girl,” the man said, flicking his hand. “Go about your duties.”
The muscles in my back creaked and then softened with grateful relief as I rose. Somehow, I’d kept the tray from toppling to the ground.
“My people.” Badb’s voice rang out over the room and I froze, raising my eyes. She was standing now and I could see her beautiful icy stare sweep over the gathering. “The sun is minutes from setting. It is now time for one life to set and a new life to begin.” She motioned toward the throne room doors and they opened.
The crowd parted, leaving the path between Badb and the figure standing in the doorway clear. People shifted around me and I now stood at the front of the gathering, my breathing becoming shallow.
Dagda lingered in the doorway. He wore all white and stood barefoot. His eyes held an emptiness to them that hollowed me to my core. I shivered. He moved into the room that had fallen silent. While the faces watching were solemn, I noticed the air of callus curiosity behind many of their eyes. Keelin, ever the loyal faerie knight, followed a step behind his king, shoulders tight, his jaw clenching over and over.
Badb raised her chin as he entered. A calm queenly coldness leaching from her. I felt my heart drop into my gut as I noted what she held in her hands; the metal gleamed an ossified orange in the lowlights of the room.
The scepter.Myscepter.
Keelin’s grip on his sword tightened. The tenseness in his muscles made him look ready to leap out of his skin.
Dagda’s eyes roved over Badb taking her in, taking in everyone around her. A cloaked figure hovered nearby, and from the person’s build, it wasn’t Palon.
“Where is your faerie knight, Chels?” Dagda asked.
Badb gazed coolly at Dagda. “He did not show for duty this morning,” she said. “I have soldiers searching for him.”
Fear slithered through me. Oh god. What had Badb done to Palon?
Dagda stared at Badb for a long time.
Badb’s hands tightened on the scepter. “As you see, I have protection.“ She lifted the golden rod. “Time is of the essence, Dagda. Are we to perform this ceremony today or not?” The flippancy in her voice sounded much too much like I might have said them.
He finally nodded.
The false queen stared down at the king of the faeries. “Dagda of the Wise Ones, Sacred Royal Magistrate of the Otherworld and all Faeriekind. You have come here today at your own behest to request the ceremony of falling, have you not?”
Dagda’s face held no emotion. “I have.”
“And you choose this rebirth of your own free will?”
“Yes.”
“You have your affairs in order, advised family and friends of your decisions and have left nothing of import unresolved?”
Dagda’s eyes locked onto Badb and he said softly, “To the best of my ability.”
“Who have you designated to perform this rite?”
His jaw clenched, a spark igniting in his gaze. “If you want me gone, then you do it.”
A low murmur of surprise went around the room.
The spark had grown into a fire, blazing in his eyes. A hope that his request would be too much for the woman on the throne.
Badb’s head tilted and a small smile crawled onto her face, as if amused. She descended the steps leading to the throne.
“Then kneel,” she said. She motioned to the guard. They brought forward a low bench with a divot and bucket.
The defiance on Dagda’s face crumpled, replaced by a pain and despair that cut into my soul. His shoulders hunched in defeat, and he dropped to his knees before the bench.
Nausea and horror slid through me at once. He was just going to kneel there and let Badb chop off his own damn head. I’d seen enough.
I threw my tray to the ground. The sound rang throughout the room.
