The ground is spreading with fissuring vines of black and brown that seem to eat away at the cobblestones, disintegrating everything in its path. I shove the board off my body and jerk to my feet, head swiveling up at the darkening sky. Only, it’s not darkening—it’s the shadow of a timberwing flying overhead, descending toward us.
The rest of the fae soldiers drop like flies, their bodies bulging, their skin peeling, bursting like fruit that’s been left too long and gorged on by maggots to spoil.
Pruinn makes a choking gasp, eyes bugging out, and I whip my head to stare at him. I watch in horrified fascination as the whites of his eyes go jaundiced, his skin wrinkling as it shrinks.
Infected veins spread up his neck to feast on his face, just as his panicked gaze meets mine. Cold retribution solidifies in my chest and ices over my panic, filling me instead with cruel satisfaction as his eyes brim with fear and confusion.
“I’m watching,” I hiss.
A second later, he falls dead at my feet.
I look up just as the roaring timberwing lands amongst the dead, bulging corpses of the fae. My people who are still alive cry out with joy and relief, while a shocked breath shakes out of me.
“King Rot! King Rot has saved us!”
I watch as Slade Ravinger jumps down from his beast. But this man has spikes running down his arms and back, iridescent scales along his cheeks…and pointed ears.
Pointed. Like the fae.
Fear swallows me whole when his hard green eyes land on me, because this man with his lines of famed rot, is unmistakably King Ravinger…except he’s also something else. Something that chills my bones and scatters my heartbeats into useless thrums.
He has brought terrible power and terrifying wrath, and yet…he also just saved my people. Saved them, when I could not.
So I do something I never would have ever done in the past. Something that I would have been too proud for, too selfish for. Too short-sighted for.
I, Queen Malina Colier, fall to the ground andkneel.
CHAPTER 17
SLADE
I look down at thewoman at my feet.
Her body is hunched over, spine bent as her head tilts toward the ground in utter supplication. If I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed this woman would bow to anyone.
“Queen Malina.”
She picks her head up, and icy blue eyes lift to look at me. Her face is gaunt, skin so pale her blue veins are visible at her temples and neck. Pure white hair is matted and dirty. Clothes ripped and stained with smoke.
She looks nothing like the haughty queen I expected. Especially not with the haunted look in her eyes.
My beastly thirst for revenge rears its head, just as it did throughout my stops in Orea. I want to wrap my hand around her neck and rot her through. The bloodlust is strong enough that my fangs ache in my jaw.
“I should kill you.”
She trembles at my dark tone, lips cracked, frost covering her cheekbones like rouge.
“I should kill you,” I repeat, “for the way you treated Auren. For the way you fuckingallowedyour husband to treat her. For doingnothing.”
Rotted vines scourge the cobblestones at my feet. Ice slips from Malina’s shaking hands, landing in small shards that break upon the road.
“Are you fae?” she asks, tone unnerved.
My brow cocks as I jut my chin to the ice magic pouring out of her. “Areyou? Or did you just make a treacherous bargain with one?”
She glances down and fists her hands, as if only just realizing the magic she’s leaking out.
“Is it true?” I demand. “Did you somehow give your blood and fix the bridge of Lemuria?”
