More cursed fae appeared, and a few more guards, but the woods were mostly still and silent. Frowning, she paused, hovering in the air with the light flap of her wings.
It hadn’t been that long ago that her sister had gone missing. Glencora couldn’t have gone far unless she’d been flying, but Reyna would have spotted the white and silver of her wings against the darkness of the sky.
Wingallock swooped up beside her and blinked his bulbous eyes.
“You didn’t find her,” Reyna said.
Wingallock hooted sadly.
“Dammit,” Reyna growled as she tried to hold the panic at bay. Glencora couldn’t have just vanished into thin air. She had to be somewhere! She gazed across the expanse, and then glanced over her shoulder at the distant wall. If Glencora had been fleeing an enemy, she wouldn’t have gone any further than this. She had to be somewhere closer to the city. Maybe she was hiding in some bushes, and the dense woods had refused to reveal her location.
Reyna spun back toward the city, whistling for Wingallock to stay by her side. She dropped lower toward the trees, and the tips of her boots skimmed along the surface of the canopy. Her pulse raced as she searched for her sister. If she had to go through every last inch of these woods, she would. She couldn’t abandon her sister alone out here like this. Glencora had never seen battle until now. A true, bloody battle with fear and death and rage. She would be terrified.
Up ahead, she spotted a familiar head of dark, wavy hair through the trees. Her heart leapt into her throat. With a smile, she spun toward him. He rushed through the woods at an impossible speed. Had he gotten word of the attack? Was he searching for her? If the curse had really worked, he’d want to find her as soon as he could.
Dropping to the ground behind him, she opened her mouth to call out his name. A guard jumped out from the thick brush and swung his sword, stopping only a second too soon once he saw who he faced. Face ashen, he dropped his weapon. The steel clattered against the ground.
“Apologies, Your Highness.” The guard knelt before Lorcan, bending his head toward the ground. “I thought you were one of the creatures attacking our city. They’re everywhere, Your Highness.”
Reyna took another step toward him. He might not understand the words spilling from his guard’s mouth. There was no telling how much he remembered, how much he’d seen with his own eyes. Would he even know what the cursed fae were?
A deep, grating chuckle scraped from Lorcan’s throat, a sound that was horribly familiar to Reyna’s ears. Shock crashed down on top of her and pinned her to the spot. Lorcan had never sounded like that, not until he’d been cursed.
“No,” she breathed, stumbling toward him. She’d heard wrong. The distant clamor of clashing steel had twisted his laugh into something wrong. She’d destroyed the curse. It would no longer have a hold on him.
Lorcan was back. He had to be.
Lorcan reached down and snapped the guard’s neck. He lifted the body to his mouth, ripping into his neck. Horror bubbled up in her throat. Tears in her eyes, she stumbled back. Slowly, she shook her head, scarcely believing the sight in front of her.
This was the same monster who had banished her from court. The creature who had stalked her through the woods and tried to kill her at the falls. He wasn’t Lorcan at all. The curse hadn’t worked.
With a frustrated growl, Reyna twisted on her heels and ran. Branches slapped her arms and legs, but she didn’t feel the sting of them. Images of his face drowned out everything else. His real face. The one that had gazed at her with adoration in his eyes. Strong and steady. Brave.Good.
The Urisks had been wrong. She’d even tried to warn them that it wouldn’t work, and yet she’d still held on to the impossible hope in her heart. The Dryads had told her the truth. The only way to undo the curse was to spill Lorcan’s blood.
She shook her head, charging through the forest. The others were still battling the cursed fae, and Glencora was lost. Hopelessness tore through her, a great, vast pit with slick walls and zero footholds. She might not be able to claw her way out of it this time.
She saw Rhain through the trees. He stood over a dozen broken bodies, bending over and grabbing his knees as he took in deep gulps of air. She crashed into him as she reached him and threw her arms around his neck, hugging tight.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she breathed into his cheek. “Things have gone horribly, terribly wrong.”
“Aye, Reyna. I know.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Tunkin was just here. He brought word from his caves.”
“Tunkin?” Reyna pulled back. “Why was he here?”
“He was fleeing from death.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her heart growing cold.
“Reyna.” Rhain gripped her hands in his and shuddered. “It was Lorcan. He slaughtered the Urisks. Every single one of them, except Tunkin, is dead. He left none of them alive.”
Her eyes swam as she stumbled back a step, shaking her head. She couldn’t have heard him right. Rhain was wrong. Whatever he’d seen, it had been a trick of the eyes. The Urisks just wanted to live their lives in peace. Sure, they hadn’t gone about it the right way, but desperation was a hard foe to fight.
“He wouldn’t do that to them,” she whispered, trying to block out the image of Lorcan snapping the guard’s neck, and then ripping through his flesh. “He wouldn’t murder an entire village.”
“Lorcanwouldn’t,” Rhain insisted. “But he’s not Lorcan anymore. You have to see that, Reyna. You can’t keep holding out hope that he’s going to turn back into the male you fell in love with. He’s gone. The curse killed him. Whoever is left in there is someone else. Someone who follows Unseelie, someone just like Ulaid Molt.”
“No,” she breathed.
