The humming grew louder as I reached for it. When my hand skimmed the surface it only grew louder.
The light was blinding as it swallowed me.
I fell into Nythrel.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
ASHLYN
Dirt slipped from my palms, but I didn’t rise.
I waited for him to follow me—for him to step through.
But he didn’t.
I reached toward the glittering light, desperate for him. But I heard his plea in my mind as if he had just given it.
I would keep my promise, even if it broke me.
He didn’t need me making it harder for him to cross.
I would wait.
Fyn would come for me.
Amber fragments of early morning light washed down on me where I sat in the grass near the divide. I couldn’t leave it.
A droplet rained down on me, and then another.
“Please, let him cross,” I cried as the rain seeped into my cloak. Water pooled down onto my cheeks from where the hood hung over my forehead.
The divide let me cross.
I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing and the key that hung around my neck.
I didn’t want to think about what any of that meant.
Hooves pounded the pebbled path that ran behind me.
“Ma’am, are you hurt?” A voice cried.
I wished it was Fyn’s. “I’ve lost…” Everything.
Everything I ever wanted was taken from me.
A fae male ran toward me. He wiped streaks of grease onto the tan apron that hung at an angle around his waist. “It’s you. You were with the fae lord. He was holding you. And you were?—”
I looked up at him. “Lord Fyn? You know him?”
“Yes, the Chancellor. Have you been separated from him?”
“Yes.” Nothing had ever been more painful to say.
He extended his hand, but dropped it. “My name is Noam. I’d offer you my hand to help you rise, but I’d only dirty you,” he said. “Can I help you find your way to where you need to go?”
I was a princess who had run away from the human realm twice. There was nowhere I belonged.
I loved a fae lord who may be in prison in Estlen.
