“Queen Calista!” I called out.
Mother betrayed me and disappeared once we’d been knocked to the ground by the rocksshehad caused to fall.
I’ddeal with her another time. But right then, all that mattered was keeping this alliance.
Using myearthzirilium, I wielded stones out of the way, clearing a path toward where the throne had sat. I heard a faint groan once I got closeenough, andstartedattemptingto wield one of the larger chunks of stone away.
Under it, I found Queen Calista—thankfully, in one piece andnotsquished.
“Help me up, you fool,” she ordered.
Grinding my teeth, I did as she asked, wielding the rock from her throne and helping her to sit upon it.
Standing before her then, I finally noticed why she’d needed the assistance.
She had a long chunk of stone impaled all the way through her thigh. And it was bleeding heavily.
“Wait—” I said, but before I could stop her, she surged forward and simply ripped it out of her leg.
Then I watched in absolute amazement as her flesh deep within the wound began to rapidly knit itself back together, bit by bit.
Something that mortal humansdidn’tdo.
I kept my eyes on thewound,eyes glued to it as her leg righted itself. Finally, after another moment, her skin wove itself back together anddidn’tleave behind a single trace—not even a scar.
Now that I was paying more attention, I realized shedidn’thave any cuts or bruises marring her skin either.
As if shehadn’tjust been knocked to the ground and trapped by the collapse of her own throne room.
There was only one explanation—but I feared if I was right, it would rewrite history as the fae knew it.
“You’re…” I trailed off, unable to say it aloud.
“Yes, child. We all are.” She motioned toward the ruined throne room below her, and as if onqueue, her guards began to shift rocks andemergefrom the rubble—all of them alive, all of them without a scratch.
It turned out thatthe humansweren’tjust going to be the perfect allies for their knowledge.
They were also the very thing that had been wiped from thefae’shistory.
The humans wereimmortal.
Epilogue
The tears that had fallen were still wet against my skin by the time we’d made it back to our ship.
Ezra had led the way through the tunnel, Laurence bringing up the rear, with Rayven and Robyn forcing me and Viva—my little sister—farther and fartheraway from our mother.
The female I’d been searching for my entire life.
She’d slipped through my fingers like fine sand, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever fully recover.
It felt as thoughI’dleft part of my heart back in that fallen fortress.
Now, we were forcing our way through the other ships that had blocked us in on both sides, and though Viva had been trusted enough to be released, her logic winning her over, I had not.
I turned in Rayven’s arms to face him, pounding on his chest.
“Let mego! I have to goback!” I pleaded, the tears beginning to well in my eyes once again.
