My father’s eyes find me as I enter, and he gestures to the remaining empty chair near the foot of the table.
“Alleria. Good, you’re here. Please sit down.”
I take the chair. Across from me, Lord Vessen glances over, then looks away. He hasn’t spoken to me since my outburst. It’s no great loss. I hope he never will again.
“I’ve gathered you all here because we’ve received concerning news from Huntsman Dell.” The room goes silent at my father’s words. “Maester Sharok, the Dell’s mage, arrived at the palace an hour ago.”
He nods toward a man seated to his right, who rises to his feet, and my eyes move over the dust-stained robes he’s wearing, anddrop to the hands clasped at his front, shaking visibly. When he speaks, his voice cracks on the first word, and he has to start again.
“Three days ago, I fled Huntsman Dell.”
Every eye in the room fixes on him.
He licks his lips, eyes darting from face to face, then they land on me. My heart gives a weird little jolt, and starts racing.
“It came back.” He doesn’t look away from me. “The fae that escaped. It came back to the Dell, and it broke through the wards. I felt … I felt them shatter. Then the collars started breaking, one after the other.” He takes in a shuddering breath. “By the time I understood what was happening, it was already too late to stop it. I didn’t wait to see what it was going to do next. I ran.”
My fingers curl around the wooden arms of the chair, knuckles turning white.
I think about what Cairn did in the forest. The way he pressed my palm against his collar, how he licked at the blood, and broke the wards on the forest.
You carry my blood.And now it seems you are tied to me.
No. No no no.
“How is that possible?” Lord Ashworth’s voice is sharp. “The wards at the Dell have held for centuries.”
“I don’t know.” The mage shakes his head, still not looking away from me. “There was something about this one. I’ve never felt anything like it. The power it used to break the collars. It shouldn’t have been possible. Not from a fae that has been contained by iron for so long.”
“How many collars broke?” My father’s voice is calm.
“A dozen before I realized what was happening. The rest once I’d fled. By the time I was a few miles away, they’d all broken. Your Majesty, every fae in the Dell is free. I knew if I stayed—” His tongue comes out to wet his lips again.
“Why did it take you so long to get here? The Dell is only afew hours ride.”
“I hid in the forest for a day, hoping to gather information but … Majesty, everyone who worked there … the fae slaughtered them all. I heard the screams of the guards. I only survived because I ran before it found me.”
The chamber erupts. Voices shout over each other in demands for information, calls for retaliation, questions about how it could have happened. And through it all, I sit frozen, my eyes locked onto the mage’s.
He went back. He broke the collars.
The dream … the nightmare I had. Cowen’s head mounted on the trophy wall dripping blood. The satisfaction that curled through me like smoke.
Forty-four.
Oh god, was it a nightmare?
My stomach lurches, and I grip the chair harder, fighting the urge to be sick right there in the council chamber.
It was real.All of it. It wasn’t a nightmare conjured from fear and exhaustion. I’dwatchedhim kill Cowen. I wasthere, somehow seeing through his eyes and feeling his rage as though it were my own. He tortured the huntmaster for information, and then he mounted his head on a wall like he was another trophy.
And I felt his satisfaction when he did it.
“We need to send men to the Dell immediately.” Lord Vessen is on his feet, his voice carrying over the crowd.
“I agree, but we need to handle it carefully. We don’t know what we’re walking into. If the fae are still there … if they’re waiting …” another lord shouts.
“Then we go in force! Hunt them down and?—”
