A Deception of Courts (Realm of Fey Book 3) by Ben Alderson

Author:Ben Alderson [Alderson, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

The light of dawn revealed every horrific detail before me. Shards of golden light cut through the wisps of clouds and graced the mountain of rubble that stretched ahead of me. Dust clung to the air, invading my lungs and making it feel like each inhale was full of grit and dust.

I cared little of that pain compared to the sea of agony that had overtaken me.

Standing on a bolder, I looked out over the remains of Imeria Castle. I cried for Duncan until my throat bled raw. His name was a blade in my throat, scoring deep marks into it each time I shouted for him.

Rafaela didn’t stop me. Instead, she continued her search among the ocean of broken brick and dust-covered ruins as she hunted for bodies. One of the Draeic had been completely buried, but another was still visible at a distance, a single ripped wing stretching out of a mound of stone like a sail of a submerged ship.

Now and then, she would find signs of a body. A hand reaching out beneath a blood-covered stone. A face covered by a layer of dust, skin ripped, and skull shattered. Seraphine’s body was one of the few I could name. Her torso had been severed, spilling the tangled knot of innards out in a puddle of red and black gore where her legs should have been.

Her legs were never found in the chaos.

I was thankful Rafaela had run her fingers down the Asp’s grit-coated face to close her eyes. They had still gleamed with the fear she had when she died.

In another life, I may have grieved her death, the one my presence had brought to her new home. But I had no room for Seraphine or the other broken lives the castle had stolen.

There was only room for Duncan. He occupied every part of me.

Each time Rafaela found another body beneath the rumble, she would look up at me and shake her head.

As frozen tears melted down my cheeks, I wondered if she looked for Duncan to ease her guilt. The emotion was the clearest in her eyes. Unspoken but bitter. I recognised it well the moment she had returned us to the ground as we watched and waited for the fall of my castle to calm.

It took hours to truly stop.

Rafaela had not said it with words, but she carried the weight of death on her shoulders.

At some point, I noticed the thundering of hooves. Weakly, I looked over my shoulder to see a hoard of stags rushing toward us. Althea rode ahead, her poppy-red hair billowing behind her as she cantered toward us. Toward me. Following her was a formation of Cedarfall soldiers fanned out like wings across the landscape.

You’re too late.

Rafaela was airborne again, ready to fight, until she realised who had joined us.

Althea threw herself from the stag’s side, almost tripping at first, and ran toward us. She navigated over the rubble, eyes not leaving mine as she did so.

“We saw it, all of it!” Althea shouted.

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