Page 42

Everly

I t was another tense day before the wolves returned.

Nevara, Soren, and I were in the courtyard when the familiar howling of a pack of wolves split through the air. I had only a few moments to feel relief before the guards began shouting down from the walls.

Nevara stiffened, her expression shuttering. She had been so closed off since our time in the library, but now she looked as if she were bracing herself for something truly terrible.

Instinct had me grabbing the dagger at my thigh as I raced toward the wall. I took the stairs two at a time up to the walkway overlooking the grounds below, my heartbeat thundering with each step.

Another howl went out, another shout, and this time I could hear the pain in the voice.

I didn’t have to search for long before seeing where the noise was coming from.

Ordinary fae were limping toward the gates, flanked by Draven’s wolves.

Villagers, by the looks of them. They were covered in blood, their clothing in tatters.

I scanned the wolves to find them in a similar state.

All four of them had blood clumping in their fur, and coating their maws?—

I counted again, only four. There was no sign of Lumen at all.

“What in the ash-driven hells happened to them?” Soren muttered.

I hadn’t even realized he’d joined me. Nevara, too, was standing next to him, her face cast in a sickly sheen.

I shook my head mutely, still scanning the road for my wolf. The guards hovered at the gate uncertainly, like they weren’t sure whether to let the villagers in. Would the wards even allow us to?

I turned to Nevara, waiting for her to speak.

She stared blankly ahead. Not like she was having a vision. Like she was ignoring me intentionally.

Right. Because she was waiting for me to act. Because I was the queen.

Where was the ever-trustworthy Lord General when I needed him? Shards, I would even take Mirelda at this point. I had hardly ever even spoken to the guards, the courtiers, or the villagers, let alone as their queen.

But sure enough, all of them, even Draven’s wolf pack, were looking directly at me. Surely the wolves wouldn’t have brought anyone who was a threat, and Nevara was a force in her own right.

I cleared my throat. What would he do if he were here?

Did I care? It wasn’t like I aspired to his particular kind of rule, or any rule. But I had to say something. Had to do something.

“Let them pass,” I said, my voice coming out too quietly to be heard.

I tried again, this time louder, and the guards began raising the portcullis. I raced back down the steps to meet the villagers.

The guards took a hesitant step aside, their hands glowing with protective sigils as they followed me.

“What happened?”

An older female stepped forward, her face covered in dirt and blood. Her hands were shaking as she glanced uneasily at my crown. “Monsters, your Majesty. They took down the whole village.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

I scanned the faces of the others, only to find the same horrified expressions, the same hastily bandaged wounds and torn garments. The claw marks that lanced through their skin and cloaks…

Hearing reports of frostbeast attacks was horrifying, in a distant sort of way. But it wasn’t at all the same as seeing the scant few survivors firsthand.

“I’m so sorry,” I said before I could help myself.

My mind raced with the next steps. I’d never been responsible for another soul—aside from Batty. I wasn’t even good at keeping plants alive.

But no one behind me said a word, their silence louder than my scattered thoughts. Were villagers allowed in the royal infirmary?

Before I could decide, the small crowd parted. Lumen appeared in their midst, a scrap of fabric in his crimson-stained mouth. No, the end of a cloak, I realized, tethered to a shivering fae child who he was all but dragging through the snow.

Once they were closer, he stepped behind her, shoving her lightly with his massive head until she was standing right in front of me. Then he looked up, his glacier-blue eyes staring straight into my soul as if to say, this is your responsibility now .

He and Nevara were feeling especially helpful today, it would seem.

I could barely make out any features under the shadowed hood, so I knelt down to better discern if the child was injured. Or rather, the girl, I amended.

She had delicate features underneath a crusting of dried blood that soaked all the way through her intricately woven braids. Her lips were ashen, her navy eyes wide with shock.

I lifted my gaze back to the villagers. There were at least thirty of them, male and female. But not a single other child.

“Where are the other children?” I asked no one in particular, dread pooling in my stomach at the answer I already knew.

Lumen whined softly and pressed his head against the girl’s side.

“I see. And her parents?” This time, I looked at the villagers.

They glanced among themselves, shaking their heads.

“I don’t see how anyone could have survived that,” said a male with a voice like gravel.

“We would have been dead, too, but we were on the outskirts. The wolves—” he paused, looking like he was nearly as terrified of his giant canine saviors as the monsters who slaughtered his village.

“They killed the ones that came for us.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat, turning back to the little girl. Her moonlight locks were long and thick. Arranging it so artfully would have been no easy feat.

Had her mother braided it, or her sister? Had they sung songs the way that my mother had to me as she painstakingly separated each section of hair?

Were those same patient hands coated in blood now, slowly turning blue from an icy grave because I couldn’t access my storms-damned mana to help control whatever the hells was going wrong with this kingdom?

I got to my feet in a single burst of motion. No, I couldn’t use my mana, and I couldn’t fight their monsters, but I was their queen. I did not have to be useless.

I turned to one of the guards. “Escort them to the infirmary.”

To another, I said, “Go prepare the healer, and gather as many servants as possible to help him with whatever he needs.”

Whether they were allowed or not was no longer my concern. If Draven had a problem with it, he could damned well take it up with me when he returned.

The guards nodded, one sprinting toward the castle to sound the warning while the other motioned for the villagers to follow him.

They all did save for the child, who stared up at me with wide, unblinking eyes like she was waiting for something.

I eyed her uncertainly. I didn’t share my sister’s disdain for tiny fae, but neither had I interacted with them much over the past decade.

“You could start by asking her name,” Soren muttered behind me.

Shards, I had nearly forgotten they were here. Though he had infused his words with a remnant of his usual levity, the advice was sound, all the same.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She didn’t answer but instead looked down at the broken doll in her arms like it might have the answer.

“Serelith,” Nevara offered.

The girl’s eyes snapped up, focusing on the Visionary.

“Serelith,” I echoed gently. “I need you to come with me to see the healer, to make sure you aren’t hurt. Can you do that for me?”

She blinked mutely, then nodded, holding out her hand. I took it, ignoring the way it was sticky with blood.

I glanced up at the soldiers on the wall, then to the few still lingering in the courtyard.

One by one, I gave orders—unsure where they were coming from or how I even knew what needed doing. Just hoping it was enough.

One guard ran to fetch the Beastmender for the wolves. Another hurried off to summon the Lord General to the infirmary. Since Draven was traveling by ice, Eryx had stayed behind, which was a small mercy.

I gave the rest of the guards an unnecessary order to stay alert and keep an eye out for any more survivors. Then I turned and marched toward the infirmary with the blood-covered child in tow. This was all I knew to do.

It would have to be enough.

Midnight came and went before I reached my rooms.

By the time I returned, I was too tired to look at the books. I only paused long enough to set Batty near the tray of food Mirelda had left, then went straight to the basin of water to scrub the blood off my hands.

She hadn’t left pajamas out, so I strode to the closet, looking for something comfortable and easy. It made a half-hearted attempt to give me something frilly, but with the dozens of bloody villagers playing through my mind, I was in no mood.

“Don’t even think about it,” I growled.

A flannel nightgown fluttered meekly to my feet. I nodded my acceptance, grabbing the garment before trudging back to my bed.

A few more villagers had trickled in, each more bloodied and broken than the last. But no more children. That knowledge tore at something inside me, scraped against my bones, and made me feel well and truly hollow.

The worst part was, the monsters weren’t even some of the strongest. It was a skulk of Brakhounds. But not only had they also defied the laws of mana and attacked during the day, they had waited until the guards shifted their patrol during a village festival to attack…

Were they getting smarter now, on top of everything?

Though I despised myself for it, I wished Draven were here, even though pulling answers from him was like pulling teeth from an angry, pregnant ice-dragon. Still, it would have been something. Some…comfort, as ridiculous as that sounded.

But there was no sign of him.

Throughout the night, my ring burned cold against my finger, each time lasting a little longer than the one before. But whatever it was trying to tell me was lost to all the things I didn’t know.

Eventually, exhaustion dragged me under.

The next few days passed in a blur of reports from the Lord General and arguments with the nobles about letting peasants stay in the palace and trying not to beat my head against a wall.