What an absolutely disgusting queen I was.
My stomach has soured, but I swallow down the bile in my throat.
The silence I’ve dropped is picked up by Dari. “Our entire street ran,” she says quietly, tone rasping, sounding parched and tired. “See that two-story building there?” she continues, gesturing forward. “Bottom floor is my house. All of us on the street ran for it. Made it down a few blocks, too, but not past that. Dommik brought me my girl and told me to go to the Pines. I tried to tell the others, but not many listened. The ones who kept going got killed.”
My eyes burn hotter. From my peripheral, I see Neira squirm, hear her whimper against her mother’s chest. Perhaps she’s recalling that day when she was injured and terrified, when she was seeing her neighbors being massacred.
Dari clears her throat, blinking like she’s remembering herself. She holds her daughter tighter. “But that place just there with the tin over its eave? Been in it plenty of times when I helped watch some little ones who lived there. That building is one of the sturdiest on the street and never did leak too bad neither. We can go in there, Majesty. Won’t be any dead left behind in it. They’re all gone.”
Her face is haunted, her tone cracking.
I stare ahead at where she’s pointing. The three-story building stands directly across from us, with a rickety staircase that leads to two other doors on the upper levels, and one lonely window with its shutter hanging off. The front door is intact however, which is more than I can say for some of the other houses.
“I’ll go first.”
Darting my eyes left and right, I lead them across the street. Every footstep that thumps just a little too loudly makes my nerves tighten. After hiding within the cover of the trees for the past weeks, being out in the open like this makes me feel vulnerable.
“Hurry,” I whisper.
We’re so close. Salvation and safety just feet away. Everyone looks ready to collapse, but so very relieved.
Almost there.
My steps are hurried, clumps of snow falling off my boots with every stride like trailing breadcrumbs. I make it to the door, and my stiff fingers wrap around the metal handle. When the latch gives way and the door opens, I glance inside the dark, empty space as if it’s a balm to my soul.
We made it.
“Okay,” I say, turning. “Everyone in—”
“What do we have here?”
Everything in me freezes. My blood stops like it’s iced over, plugging up every vein.
Jerking around, I see them file out of another shoddy building just three houses up, and my stomach plummets.
The fae have found us.
CHAPTER 16
QUEEN MALINA
My eyes land on oneof the fae. Intense anger and shame sharpen within me like the ends of an arrow as soon as I see who it is. The charming swindler who claimed he would lead me to my heart’s desire, when all he led me to was ruin.
Sir Pruinn.
His gray eyes still appear almost reflective, and his light blond hair is still shorn short to his scalp, the color making his dark brows stand out in dramatic arches. He’s dressed impeccably in a bright green velvet tunic and matching cloak. I watch his gaze cast over my filthy appearance, and his lips quirk up, showing a hint of fang.
Slick ice swells from my palms.
Pruinn stops in the street before us as six other fae fan out behind him.
“Oreans,” one of them sneers. “Scum ready to be scrubbed away.”
“Get behind me,” I tell my people, my tone firm.
Their hurried footsteps gather at my back, and Pruinn chuckles at the display. “Like chicks behind their mother hen, is that it? How quaint,” he says mockingly.
I clench my teeth together as hard as I can. “What do you want?”
