Her breath stilled. This might be the last moment Reyna ever saw.
“Hey!” A voice boomed from behind her. “Wood king! You want a fight? Well, here we are.”
Reyna tried to push up to see who was shouting, but her vision had gone blurry. All she saw was a sea of gold. With a slight smile, she pressed her hand against her wound, and curled the other around the ice glass ring that hung from a chain around her neck.
Her gaze dropped to her side. The wound was a mess of torn flesh and flowing blood that slipped through her trembling fingers. She knew she should feel pain, but it had faded along with her sight.
She searched inside of herself for Seelie, but all she found was a gaping hole where his powers had once been. If she bled out, she did not think she would heal.
“Mother,” she whispered, holding tight to the ring. “I don’t know if you can hear me, or if there’s magic in this ring, or if we’re part-Fomorian like Rhain said. But if I don’t get help, I’m going to die. Please…”
Her eyes slipped shut. Pain drowned out the battle until there was nothing left at all.
19
Reyna
“Wake up.” A finger poked her face.
Reyna cracked open her eyes. Several bloodied faces peered down at her. Concern wrinkled their features. One of them was the air fae she’d crashed into during the battle. He must have followed her through the fight.
Memories swept through her mind. Lorcan opening the city gates. The wood king fighting her. Reyna failing to stop him from getting into Findius.
She sprang to her feet, wincing at the flare of pain in her side. “What’s happening?” She glanced down at her wound. Blood coated her entire side. There was a nasty gash in the leather armor, but her skin looked unmarked. “Where’s the king?”
The air fae’s eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Are you all right? You took a nasty blow with that crazy sword…”
He gave her side—bloodied yet healed—a purposeful look.
“I’m fine. I think. Where’s the king?” She whirled in a circle, searching the night for his familiar flowing locks of green. But he was nowhere to be seen. There were half a dozen bodies on the ground nearby, but he wasn’t among those either. She lifted her eyes toward the wall. From here, she couldn’t see the gates.
“We fought him back.” The air fae jerked his thumb toward the other warriors that surrounded him. “We managed to kill some of his guards, but more showed up. It was all chaotic for awhile. At some point, he slipped away.”
Reyna’s heart jerked. “He slipped away.”
“Headed for the gate, I’m guessing.”
“I saw him,” another fae interjected, joining the group. Blood splattered her face and braided hair, but she did not seem to notice it. “As soon as the gates opened, he was off like a dog in heat. Seemed pretty intent on getting inside that city.”
“And to that throne.” An iron fist gripped her soul, threatening to pound her into the ground. “Has anyone seen my dagger?”
“Aye. Here.” The air fae pulled it from his waistband and tossed it her way. She caught it with her right hand, relaxing when her fingers seemed to work without issue, even though she swore she’d heard her bones break. “But, princess, if I were you, I wouldn’t—”
“Find all your captains and warn them that the wood fae have been feasting on blood. They’ll be a lot harder to defeat than we thought.” The battle still raged on behind them, screams and clashing steel ringing through the night. “You need a strategy to beat them. Not an all-out battle like this. Or you need to pull back and wait for the blood magic to wear off.”
She turned to go, her eyes locking on that black stone wall. Lorcan was inside. And the wood king was going to kill him.
“Wait, princess.” The warrior reached out toward her.
But she was off, her feet pounding hard against the soot. The air fae would be fine, she told herself. There was little she could do to help them. One more fighter would make little difference, not without her Seelie powers. She had to get to Lorcan. The king was on his way to the castle. If she didn’t reach him in time…
She pumped her arms faster. Her lungs burned as she sucked in great gasping breaths of air. In the distance, the gates of Findius loomed wide, a sight that shook her bones.
Why had he done it? Why had Lorcan given up?
Didn’t he get her letter? He would have known that hope was on the way.
An alarming thought sprang up in her mind. Maybe Lorcan never got her letter. It would explain so much. If he never received it, he wouldn’t have known that help was on its way.
