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A stag.

At the head of the hall, where I’d stood minutes before with my travel companions, stood a large white stag. Its hooves were caked with the red dirt that blanketed the kingdom of the elemental fae, but its coat was pristine.

The moon white creature gleamed, its coat the same color as Veyka’s hair, I thought absently. The same color as my—

Before I could finish the thought, the creature lifted its magnificent head and bellowed, the sound loud enough to echo through the throne room without any magic at all.

The stag exuded a magic all its own. I counted thirteen points on its impressive rack, that instead of brown or tawny, glowed bright gold. As if it had been gilded by the Ancestors themselves.

To my right, the priestess began muttering some sort of incantation.

Veyka took a step toward it, her hand brushing against mine.

Heat exploded up my arm, as if a hot poker had been shoved in through that already healed over cut. I jerked my hand away, shaking it out, trying to dislodge the sensation.

The stag’s bellow filled the space again, drawing my eyes back.

It reared up on its hind legs, taller than the tallest fae in the room—me.

When it landed, everyone in the room took a collective breath in.

Then it charged.

I did not think. Not about my own life, or the strange heat that Veyka’s touch had sent ricocheting through me. I thought of Annwyn. Of peace. Of my mother.

I threw my body against Veyka’s, catching her around the waist and dragging her out of harm’s way. We shoved past the priestess, knocking her to the ground. She could be trampled. I did not care. But not Veyka.

Chaos took the hall. Magic surged, twirls of water and strong winds trying to corral the animal. The stag appeared impervious to it all, a true being of legend. A being that needed to die. I saw Gwen a second before she shifted.

Sword drawn, she was halfway across the hall but struggling to get through the moving mass of elementals. She dropped her sword to the goldstone floor, her dark skin gleaming in the evening sunlight, and shifted.

Her roar filled the throne room. Elementals fell back, aiming their magic in her direction, not understanding what was happening. They were as unused to us as we were to them.

But Gwen was the best of my warriors. She dodged the blasts of water and flame, her sinuous feline form weaving between bodies until she found her prey.

“What the—” Veyka shoved me aside, a knife in each hand, struggling to her feet as she tracked Gwen.

As Veyka watched, the lion launched herself across the room, soaring over the heads of her courtiers and catching the stag’s throat in her jaws, tearing it out in one motion. Bright red blood, thin and viscous, sprayed across the hall, covering the courtiers nearby.

The hall went absolutely silent.

The lion shook her massive head, black mane flowing around her as she turned to face us, the future High King and Queen of Annwyn, her maw dripping blood.

Veyka’s hand closed around my arm, tight as steel but without any of that otherworldly heat.

“Let’s go.”

Before I could process her words, she was dragging me across the throne room, past the crowd, and through a cleverly camouflaged golden door set right into the goldstone itself. As the door closed behind us, pandemonium erupted.

17

VEYKA

“I do not understand,” he growled, refusing to move away from the door even if he had allowed me to shut it.

“She killed it!” I shook my head, the golden rings dangling from my ears chiming, mocking me with their melodious song.

He gnashed his teeth. “As if you elementals would not have done the same—and hoped it was a terrestrial as you did. How did a deer even get into your precious goldstone palace?”