Fae Exile (Royals of Embermere Book 3) by Lucía Ashta

Author:Lucía Ashta [Ashta, Lucía]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lucía Ashta
Published: 2024-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

18. BACK TO THE DRAGON’S DEN, WE’VE GOT US A QUEEN TO MURDER

~ ELOWYN ~

The sun was inching toward the gnarled mass of trees that herded us into a single-file line. Finnian led the way, hacking with his machete at whatever refused to move for him, sweat coating his face from the continuous effort. Whether by an enchanted ointment he applied to the gash on his thigh, the advanced healing powers of the fae, or both, he’d been able to remove the tourniquet an hour before.

The linen of his britches was stained dark with his dried blood, and he walked with a heavy limp. Even so, he refused my offer to ride Bolt, insisting the stab wound to my heart was more grave and I needed to allow myself every grace I could to heal.

As if the Sorumbra understood anything about grace.

My weeks in its midst had taught me the animals of the Wilds only respected power. Their reigning impulse was to kill, feed, and survive. The mightiest ruled until such time as they were no longer the mightiest. Then they died, and brutally so.

My entire group of friends was depending on me to assert enough power to ward away whatever disgusting, horrid monsters decided to attack us next.

Darkness, when the worst of the beasts prowled, would engulf us within a couple of hours. Already, apprehension gnawed at my insides, the sensation much like a clawing, unsatiated hunger, except that we’d eaten not long ago. Reed had quickly learned the habits of the armacoon, both the spotted and spiked varieties, and hunted them successfully. In killing the creatures, he displayed a respect I’d never witnessed before. He insisted on using all parts of the animal he could, and he’d begun assembling plate armor from their tough shells.

Even with his hunting prowess, and with the warrior skills of the rest of us—save Saffron and Pru, who was uncharacteristically calm, given how much the queen’s constant death threats had rattled her—it wasn’t enough. In the end, it would all come down to me and whether I could glow again.

Sure, I could again repeat the unexpectedly pretty words Roan had fed me and I could even pretend I believed them despite the hollow feeling they left in their wake, but would that be sufficient this time? What about the next? Especially when the cost of my failure would be so incredibly steep?

“You’re thinking too much, Wyn,” Xeno muttered from where he walked alongside Bolt’s shoulder.

Despite the severity of his injuries, he too had refused my offer to ride Bolt. They’d all turned down the ride, even Pru and Roan, and both their legs combined didn’t add up to the length of mine. Like Finnian, they stressed I needed to recover full strength more than anybody.

Since the discovery that my ears were now tipped like all the other fae, and the assumption that I’d had a spell on me before that limited my power, they all took it as a foregone conclusion that I’d upend the queen’s rule and forge a new way of life for her many subjects.

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