I couldn’t stop thinking about what Trissa said. Take the activation from the Spring Tree and weaken the Queen in her already weakened state? I just couldn’t conceive of that. What if it killed her? It would help to know what was even wrong with her. If she’d fallen into a restorative sleep after putting too much energy into saving Faerie and the protection domes, like Indra said, or something else… I just couldn’t believe anything Indra said anymore. There was only one way to find out. Reaching out, I grabbed the book I’d placed Indra’s hair in and walked back to my room, leaving everyone else to sit there in silence.
The time of my tiptoeing around Indra and hoping the Queen would awaken and deal with her had passed.
I was the only one right now with the authority to deal with this. I had to put on my big girl panties and face the truth, deliver the consequences. Because if Indra really had done all the shit my mother said she had in her journal, there would be consequences, and I had no reason to doubt my mother. But I felt, to be a just Queen, I had to see for myself.
I was a pro at the memory spell by now. Mixing the paste, grinding the mortar and pestle, it had a soothing quality to it. When I split open the book and pulled the long, orange hair from its pages, the first tremors of anxiety rolled through me.
What if she had done things even more horrible than I’d originally thought?
With a shaky breath, I lay back in my bed… her bed… and rubbed the paste over my eyelids, thinking instantly of my mother and wanting to pull a memory with her.
Instead… I saw blackness.
What the fae?
I thought of the Queen and, for a slight second, felt a pull but then hit blackness as well.
Indra… she’d… hidden her memories?
Anger surged through me at the thought. Just how powerful was she? I’d have to ask Jasper how this was possible. She was less like a regular powerful Summer fae and more like a…
“Witch,” I hissed into the open room. Now that I’d said it out loud, the realization dawned on me, and it felt like I’d been struck with lightning.
Indra was afuckingfae witch. Witch fae were pale, tattooed, had a certain look, and not usually allowed this close to royalty for fear of betrayal. Jasper advising me was one thing. Indra posing as an elder of our people, the right hand of the Queen, making policy, was another. How did she hide her true nature so that she looked like the rest of us?
Magic.
The anger started to pulse through me, causing light to emanate out of my palms. I could see it lighting up my room from behind my closed eyelids.
How fuckingdareshe. How dare she mask herself as a common Summer fae and worm her way into the Queen’s inner circle. The light pulsed harder until it consumed me. Warmth spread across my skin, burning up my anger and Indra’s blocking spell right along with it. Because the second I thought of the poor Queen trusting this woman for so long, I was pulled into a memory, and the light behind my eyes ceased to glow.
The Queen was runningdown the small lane from the farmer’s land and toward the river. She stopped when she reached the river’s edge and looked into the water as it slowly turned from blue to black. The darkness was coming. I was inside Indra’s body, chasing the Queen, and I looked over her shoulder into the water. A fierce expression shone in the Queen’s eyes, and then I saw my reflection. Indra’s reflection since I was her.
Holy mother…
Indra. Even though she was a darker-skinned woman, there was a paleness to her skin, a tilt to her ears, a tattoo on her neck of a harpy. She was a dark witch…
A snapping twig brought both of their attention to the other side of the river.
An army of dark creatures stood there, ready to take on our small village. All that was left. Fae ran screaming and shrank back away from the waters, hiding in their houses. I recognized the house I lived in with my mother but not the old woman who slipped inside behind the doors. It made me wonder what happened to her…
The ground shook, and the Queen cast a look over her shoulder at Indra.
“Where’s my sister?!” the Queen growled at her, thick disgust in her voice.
Whoa…
Indra pointed to the blue door. “She’s gone after the crystals. Your daughter is safe inside with Trissa.”
My sister? Your daughter? I’d been taken to a time when this was common knowledge, and it punched me in the gut.
Arrows sailed through the air then, snapping on the rocks at the Queen’s feet.
Where were the warriors? Where was her backup?
I knew the answer, and it made me sick.
They were all dead.
