The Fair Queen: A Young Adult Fantasy (The Fair Chronicles Book 1) by Lyndsey Hall

Author:Lyndsey Hall [Hall, Lyndsey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Aria finished washing her hair in the stream and squeezed out the excess water, humming a tune she had heard at the festival. Her mind wandered back to the party, before the banshee attack. How she and Xander had danced, the way he had looked at her. The feeling of intoxication from the mead and the wine and the masculine, leather-and-soap scent of him.

Her face heated at the memory.

She couldn't work him out, one minute he was hot—well, lukewarm—and the next he was ice cold. He said he wanted to protect her, but he didn't want her to know about her Celeste mother or her abilities. He said they were taking her to her real father, but he wouldn't give her any details. He was so secretive, so guarded.

Their argument still stung and she’d barely spoken to him since.

A few days had passed since Rainer had told her about her true heritage and burgeoning aether abilities, they’d been training for an hour every day while Xander slept and Coulter took watch. Nothing had happened yet, but she was exhausted just from trying. Sacrificing an hour of sleep to work on her abilities, and riding all day were really taking a toll. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep or a proper meal in days, and this was her first bath since Hitherham. If you could call an ice-cold stream a bath.

Something moved in the shadows behind the tree line and her heart stopped. She had kept her underwear on while she bathed, just in case, but she still didn't want anyone to see her.

"Quade?" She called out. Maybe he had been sent to fetch her.

It wasn't Quade. A hunched figure appeared, stepping out of the shadow of the trees. Aria's pulse beat a rhythm like a marching band, but she exhaled sharply when she saw it was an old woman, dressed in a tattered cloak and hood, hobbling towards the stream.

"Did I frighten you, my dear?" She chuckled softly, and Aria felt ridiculous for having been afraid.

"Sorry. I thought you were someone else." Aria climbed out of the stream and started to pull on her t-shirt and jeans.

"Oh, but I know exactly who you are," the woman said, taking her hood down. "Princess."

Aria balked. "It's you, from the fayre. The fortune teller."

Her hair was bone white and she looked even older without the heavy makeup, but it was definitely her. Divina. And she had called Aria ‘Princess’…

"Wait, how do you know me?"

"I know a lot of things, my dear." Her face crinkled in a wry smile, wrinkles deepening into trenches around her sunken black eyes. She looked to the heavens, turning her palms up. “When kingdoms unite and flame and aether collide, the Fair Queen shall return. She shall bring forth the fall of a false king and usher in a time of peace.”

The prophecy. In that instant, Aria was back in that colourful tent, warmed by the flames of a dozen candles, goose bumps rising along her arms despite the heat.

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