She shook her head, stumbling back, tripping on a fallen branch. Crashing to the ground, she scrabbled backward. Rhain didn’t know what he was talking about. He was wrong.
“I know you don’t want to believe me, Reyna, but that’s the truth of it.” His hands hung heavily by his sides, his fingers coated in blood. “Your curse didn’t work.”
She squeezed her eyes tight. “Where are the others? Are they still fighting the cursed fae?”
“The battle is done.” He sighed heavily. “For now. I have no doubt that more will come. The others are helping the guards at the wall. There are a lot of bodies.” He winced. “A lot of dead fae, cursed and not.”
Grief consumed her as she glanced at the wall past the edge of the tree line. “I should go help them.”
“Those guards shouldn’t see you. They think you’re the enemy, remember?” Rhain said, though his voice was far more gentle than his words. “Lorcan showed up at the gates not long ago. They bowed to him, which means they’ll kill you. You’ll have to help some other way. By truly breaking that damn curse.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she said, her heart thumping. “I’ll find a way to get inside the castle and spill his blood.”
“You better do it soon, darling. Things are only getting worse.”
Together, they returned to the city walls to find the guards dragging bodies into piles along the edges of the forest. Reyna stayed hidden out of sight, frowning. At least a hundred had died, if not more. Most were cursed fae, judging from the state of them. But plenty of guards had given their lives to protect their city.
And yet, the guards had welcomed the enemy back inside, no idea their High King was the cause of all of this.
Thane stood with several of the guards, pointing at the wall where an axe had chopped clean through the wood. When the air king caught her eye, from where she hid behind the brush, he murmured one last word to the guard and trailed through the carnage to reach her.
His eyes were tired; his mouth was pinched. “Reyna, I’m glad to see you’re safe and sound. What happened in the tower? Why didn’t the curse work?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes searched the bustling fae outside the walls. “Have you seen Glencora?”
His lips flatlined. “Glencora is gone, Reyna.”
“So, you haven’t seen her.” She stepped back. “We need to go in search of her at once.”
“No need. We know where she is.” Thane turned and pointed at the Tower of Thorns on the distant cliff. “Lorcan has her.”
41
Reyna
Reyna felt as if all of her blood drained out her body in the space of a single moment. A high-pitched buzzing filled her ears, and a knife slashed right through the heart of her. She stared at Thane Selkirk, with his golden Hawthorn tattoo, and had the sudden urge to slam her fist into his nose.
“What do you mean, Lorcan has her?” she asked in a measured tone of voice that was as icy as the coldest winter day in Falias.
Thane cast his eyes to the ground. “She flew up there when the fight broke out, and she never came back. Lorcan will have reached the tower by now. If she hasn’t come out, I fear he’s trapped her there.”
Reyna let out a whistling breath. “Why did no one go after her? Why did no one try to stop her!”
“We don’t have wings, love.” Rhain gave her a gentle pat on the back. “I know you’re angry, and I know you’re scared, but none of this is the air king’s fault.”
“Well, I’m just going to have to go back now.” She turned to gaze up at the tower basking beneath the glow of the rising sun. Oranges and reds splashed against the ancient tree sprouting through the roof, highlighting the gnarled branches and twisting vines. “If he has Glencora—”
“He’ll expect you to go now,” Rhain said firmly. “He’ll set a trap for you, and you’ll step right in it. And then both of you will be caught in his web. That does nobody any good, and it certainly doesn’t take care of the curse.”
“Plus, she does have magic, Reyna,” Thane said, wincing when she shot him a glare. “She can protect herself.”
“Then why hasn’t she come out?” Reyna hissed.
“I don’t know. But stubbornly rushing into danger isn’t going to help this time, especially when he’s going to expect it from you. We need to wait for nightfall and do this right. Sneak in, spill his blood, and escape with Glencora if we need to.”
If we need to.If their backup plan didn’t work. If Lorcan still suffered form the curse even after everything.
* * *
