The Shadowed Path by Cecilia Dominic

Author:Cecilia Dominic
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781945074615
Publisher: Cecilia Dominic

22

REINE

I felt something whiz by my head, but I couldn't tell what my grandmother had thrown, or if it had been some sort of spell. A shattering sound, like that of glass, heralded a change in the air. It felt less like the crisp chill in the heart of the forest in the Gray Zone and more like the soft humidity of the lands of the light Fae.

My grandmother smiled in a way I had forgotten—with malice. "Now that we have our privacy, we can discuss important matters."

In spite of the warm air, chill bumps raised on my skin, and I resisted the urge to rub my hands over my arms. Tatiana, Queen of the Light Fae, could have that effect on people. Being in her presence always felt like standing too close to a place where lightning had just struck—electric and potentially deadly.

And not a place where one could show weakness. Now that I had shown my respect by bowing to her, I raised my chin so I could look her in her ice blue eyes. "I am glad you summoned me, Grandmother. I have traveled to Faerie to petition you."

"And you know as well as I that petitions must be made in person with witnesses to attest to the agreement of both parties, not in dreams, Granddaughter."

"Yes, but I was hoping…" For what? The softness of rules and laws that humans relied on? A loophole? I shook my head—this wasn't about me. "Why did you summon me, Grandmother?"

"I told you in our last visit that there is danger, and I thought it was in my inner circle." She sighed, and the impression of wrinkles flitted over her face before her skin smoothed to its usual youthful texture. "Whereas that may be true, I am facing something more troubling."

"What? Are you ill?" I immediately thought about all the things I could do for her, could try. Human medicine had advanced tremendously since I had been banished, and I suspected I could use my skills in Faerie.

"It's worse, Granddaughter… I'm dying." She bowed her head in uncharacteristic surrender.

I gasped. "That's not possible!"

She raised her head and again smiled, this time with wistfulness. "How old do you think I am, Reine?"

"I don't know. A thousand years?"

"And you're taking off half a millennium to be polite, aren't you?" She held out her hands, palms down, and I saw veins under thin skin—signs of an old woman underneath the surface. "I'm thankful Fae don't get liver spots. No, Granddaughter, I am two-thousand-years-old plus a few hundred years. I have been alive long enough to see the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Great Rebirth, and now the Darker Age of a humanity so drunk on its power and technology it cannot see the destruction it brings to itself and the planet. Or the repercussions here."

Considering how time didn't pass the same in Faerie and Earth, that made her more than the math she had given me, but it didn't matter.

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