“Destroying the note will not help you, Imogen,” Aengus said. “All of my good warriors here have already seen it. Several courtiers have as well. The ones still alive. There is nothing you can do to weasel your way out of this one. You have been caught. You conspired against the king. Both kings. By sending a letter to your sister, the Sea Court bitch who is second-in-line to take the throne there. Ourenemy. That is treason, whether you were once High Queen or not.”
Imogen rose from the floor, her entire body shaking. “Youconspired with me. You helped me carry it out!”
Mariel frowned. This did not look good for Imogen. There was proof she’d conspired to remove her husband from the throne. Mariel couldn’t care less about that.Good riddance, she thought. But she doubted the Air Court would let her get away with it. She was a sea fae. An outsider. They would turn on her as easily as they’d turned their backs on Mariel’s family.
“Did I? Or did you merely assume that I helped just because I stood by your side?”
Imogen narrowed her eyes. “You’re behind all of this, aren’t you? The assassination attempts. The wood fae in the hills. The slaughter at Thane’s coronation.”
Aengus tsked, and thumbed the hilt of his rapier. “I’m afraid I can’t take credit for that one. But I will take credit for ridding this court of your traitorous arse. I was just waiting for the right moment to play my hand. This letter has been burning a hole in my pocket for quite some time now.”
The Queen Mother’s mouth fell open. She shook her head, snapping it shut. “You cannot do this, Aengus.”
“I can. And I have.” He motioned to the guards who quickly surrounded the queen. “Unfortunately, I fear this is quite bad timing for the Selkirk family. Your son is missing, which means the Air Court has been left without a king. The rules of the court state that in a king’s absence, the Grand Alderman will sit on the throne and rule in his stead. Seeing as the High King has not yet assigned the role of Grand Alderman, that leaves the throne to me. Enjoy your time in the dungeons, Imogen.”
Mariel watched as the Queen Mother was quickly surrounded by guards. They handled her roughly, clasping iron chains around her wrists tightly behind her back. The scent of burning flesh filled the air. Imogen fumed, though there was a hint of terror in her eyes. She was no doubt calculating a way out of this, but couldn’t find one.
Imogen’s gaze swept through the Great Hall before landing on Mariel’s face. Aengus and the warriors seemed to have forgotten about her presence. She inched slowly toward the back corner where she could scurry back up into the rafters, never to be seen again. As strong as Mariel was, she could not take on this many trained guards at once. She would die for many things, but not for this queen.
That did not mean she would abandon her to the dungeons and let this wicked male take the crown. There was a time and a place. This was neither of those.
Imogen’s eyes widened ever slightly, as if trying to wordlessly communicate with Mariel. Mariel pressed her lips together, slightly nodding.
Don’t worry, she tried to say with her eyes.I will get you out of this.
And then, while the guards were distracted, she stepped further into the shadows and launched up into the rafters above. She frowned down as the warriors dragged Imogen out of the room, her head hung low in defeat. Aengus stood in the center of the floor, watching his old lover be taken away. Then, he turned and strode up to the throne.
With a smile, he settled into the vines.
52
Reyna
Reyna screamed and instinctively yanked Wingallock out of the path of the arrow with her mind. Her familiar’s wings suddenly faltered, and he fell hard and fast toward the ground, his body tumbling in the whistling wind. The arrow streamed overhead, its sharp point thudding into the dirt just behind her.
“Wingallock,” she cried out, clinging tight to Enbarr’s mane. “Here, to me!”
The owl’s snowy wings stretched wide, and he caught his fall just before his body hit the ground. Hands trembling, Reyna pulled her horse to a stop. Her owl flew back to her and settled onto her shoulder, talons piercing her skin. Her heart beat in time with his, like two frightened animals pounding their feet against the ground.
Breath puffing out before her, she stared ahead at the vanishing specks. The enemy had her sister, and they knew she was in pursuit. And they were willing to shoot down her owl in order to lose her. Fury boiled in her veins. They might have slowed her down, but they wouldneverstop her.
With a flick of the reins, she urged Enbarr forward once again. However, this time, she kept Wingallock by her side. That had been far too close a call. She would have to catch up to them some other way.
* * *
Several days had passed in pursuit, and Reyna’s entire body ached. She’d barely slept, stopping only long enough to nap in the deepest parts of the night, giving both Enbarr and Wingallock much-needed rest. Both animals were far stronger than most, but they were growing weary, same as she. Every time she had been close to closing in on the abductors, they had launched arrows in her direction and then fled.
They must be as exhausted as Reyna, but they pushed forward still. She was hot on their trail, but that wasn’t good enough. Once they reached the boundary between the Air and Wood Courts, she would find herself stuck. The wood fae would never allow her across the border. In fact, they would likely kill her on sight.
With a heavy sigh, she leaned forward to stroke Enbarr’s coarse mane, murmuring words of encouragement into her ear. They had slowed to a walk, Wingallock circling lazily over their heads. Through his eyes, she could see another village in the distance. They had passed three others on their way, all abandoned, empty, or burned to the ground. She’d managed to pilfer enough food to keep herself from collapsing from hunger, but it had brought on a stunning revelation.
The Air Court’s lands were far more ravaged by war than she’d thought. She had not seen a single living fae since leaving Tairngire. She did not doubt they were out there, likely watching her from a distance as she passed through their lands. They would not trust an ice fae amongst them, even if they knew of the alliance between their realms.
It had been years since a full-out battle, but the effects of the war had not diminished. These villages she passed had once been right in the line of attack, along the Crown’s Road from the Mistmoor Mountains up to Tairngire. The Air Court had managed to stop any attack on Tairngire itself, but so many lives had been lost. Including those of innocent villagers, slaughtered merely for being in the way.
As she approached the next village, she noted that this one seemed in better shape than the ones she’d passed before. The buildings were still dilapidated, as if they’d been struck by a terrible force and then haphazardly put together again. Roofs were made of leather scraps and straw that rattled in the fierce wind, twisting and turning like limbs in the sky.
“Wingallock,” she whispered. Her owl suddenly stopped circling and came to land on her shoulder instead. After the incident with the arrow, she refused to take any more chances with her familiar.
