Page 16 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen (Curse of the Fae #4)
Ravenous
DEVI
B y Eros… I hold my breath, my fingers digging deep in the armrests of the chair. I’d heard of the resemblance, of course, but I wasn’t prepared for Elio’s new wife to be an exact, carbon copy of my Iris.
She’s exactly like her—but younger, untouched by the burdens of time, the sadness of being stuck in an arranged marriage, and the weight of her mother’s expectations.
The same luminous brown skin, the same elegant arch of her brow, the same graceful, slender figure.
The way she carries herself is familiar, yet not.
Her posture is more fluid, her movements more assured, and her clear gray eyes are joyful.
She holds my gaze like few others have ever done upon first meeting me, as if we’re already well-acquainted. “I can’t believe I finally get to meet the famous Devi Eros. It’s an honor.” She extends her hand, which tells me she was raised in the new world.
I stand and shake it with the faintest hesitation, half-expecting my fingers to pass through air. But Lori isn’t cold or translucent or untouchable. She’s warm and solid. Flesh and bone.
A strange wave of nostalgia crashes over me, tangled with a sharp pang of loss. It feels like I’m staring into a twisted, phantom mirror of the past. This girl is alive and unscarred, while Iris is dead and I’m just a shadow of who I used to be.
My jaw falls open, but I quickly shut it. In one glance, I can tell the heart of this stranger is hopelessly devoted to Elio, but there’s a shadow hovering over it.
A dark soul—a leech—eels its way through the woman’s spine, curling itself around the delicate fibers of her spinal cord.
The silent intruder feeds on the connection between her mind and her body, and the way it nestles there turns my stomach.
I can’t admit to seeing it in front of Seth, not without revealing my darkest secret.
I swallow, forcing my mouth shut to hide my turmoil. This woman is not only a copy of Iris. She carries her battered soul within.
“You were close with Iris, yes?” Lori asks.
“Yes,” I answer, my voice thick with tears.
Fuck.
Iris’s soul fled after her death, and I hunted it for years , taking incredible risks and visiting parts of Faerie that chilled me to the core. I had to give up the search not to kill myself in the process.
Why is it here now? How? It’s buried deep in Lori—too deep for me to extract. I need to speak with the newlyweds alone.
Seth clears his throat, stepping into our intense tête-à-tête. “Hey, Lori.”
He kisses her cheeks like they’re old friends, and my gut cramps. Does he know about Iris’s soul? What in the seven hells?
Before I betray my emotions, the window closest to us ripples with the arrival of a Faeling.
Dressed in a tight-fitting navy tuxedo, with slicked-back hair and round glasses, he carries an air of snobbery I’m all too familiar with.
I refrain from rolling my eyes, a grunt threatening to rise in my throat.
Byron almost drops his precious clipboard at the sight of us. “By Thanatos.” He swallows hard, hovering high in the air with his iridescent wings beating furiously at his back. “Percival Batten. How dare you show your face here?” he squeaks.
Percy lets go of my injured arm. “Hello, Byron.”
Byron hikes his tiny round glasses up his severe nose. “Well…you don’t look good, I dare say.”
The Faelings stare each other down like they’re about to duel, and Percy tips his chin in defiance. “Still bitter, I see.”
Byron clutches his clipboard to his chest. “ Me ? Bitter?”
“Precisely,” Percy huffs. “I was just doing my job.”
“Sure felt personal.”
Seth leans in and whispers, “What’s with them?”
“Byron and Percy used to date,” I explain.
Seth’s jaw slacks, but he quickly schools his gaze back to neutral.
“Did you cross paths with a nightmare on your way over?” Lori asks, settling into the armchair previously occupied by Sara. We all return to our seats, leaving the ex-lovers to squabble over old grudges.
"Yes, a wolf, and it wasn’t very friendly. The first step in taking control of the continent is isolating us from one another, and populating the sceawere with nightmares is an efficient way to go about it,” I say, rubbing my face down.
Percy’s high emotions tug at the link between us, bringing on a ginormous headache.
The corners of Seth’s mouth curl down. "Wolves are Luther’s thing. He must be the one weaving them."
Lori clutches her side. "I bet Morrigan taught him how to weave nightmares. Lucky we have her in custody, or we’d be dealing with venomous spiders on top of everything."
I arch a brow at the easy admission that Rye is indeed here in Wintermere, at their mercy and yet alive, when plenty of time has passed since I learned of her capture.
Enough time for a trial to be held, and for a guilty sentence to be carried out.
“I’m surprised you let her live. Damian must have demanded her head on a stick. ”
The Winter Queen’s expression twists into a pensive frown. “It’s complicated. Do you want to see her?”
My nose wrinkles at the notion. “Never.”
“She might have usable intel. Can’t you rekindle your friendship for the sake of the realm?” Elio suggests.
“Rye knows me well enough to see through any attempt at manipulation on my part. Besides, the only Fae who has any real power over her is the Shadow King, and maybe her grandmother…” I search Elio’s gaze, almost certain I’m missing a vital piece of information, some reason why Rye is still alive.
If the rumors are true, she should have been put to death for her involvement with the rebels and the attacks she carried out on the Winter and Shadow Courts.
Reading between the lines, I’d say they need to pick her brain about some grand scheme.
“Have you thought of asking Mabel for help?”
“Mabel has helped us quite a lot already, but I’m wary of asking her to betray her own granddaughter,” Elio says. “And she doesn’t want to come back to Faerie.”
“Have you tried saying please ?” I quip, well-aware that Mabel could not refuse her grandson’s pleas if he put some heart into it.
Elio’s gaze drops to the ground. Some things are contagious, I guess—like stubbornness.
Sara returns with the healer in tow, cutting off our conversation.
Her eyes widen at the sight of Percy and Byron bickering, and she winces, shaking her head.
Our eyes meet, and I know from that one glance she’s just as worried as I am about them rekindling their courtship, considering how the last round ended.
The young brown-haired healer hurries to my side, her oversized burgundy robes hanging from her gaunt frame. Her gaze falls to my injured arm, but she hesitates. “Hi, I’m Leona.”
“Thank you for coming to my rescue, Leona. I’m Devi.”
“Devi Eros, I know.” Her cheeks flush a deep shade of red. “Can I take a look?”
“Go ahead.” I gesture for her to proceed.
She kneels beside me, setting her healer’s bag on the ground with a soft clatter. Her fingers move quickly as she rummages through its compartments, pulling out a pair of scissors to cut off my torn sleeve.
“What kind of creature bit you?” she asks.
Percy hovers in the air above her head, lips pursed with worry. “A nightmarish wolf.”
Leona uses a small bottle filled with a blue-tinged liquid to wet a bunch of white gauze and cleans the wound, her touch gentle despite the sting.
The bite marks beneath the clots become visible, and she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth.
"This might fester if it’s not properly cleaned.
" Her hands move swiftly, wrapping the wound with cling wrap, concealing it from view, and securing the temporary bandage with a metallic pin. "You’ll need to come with me to Tundra’s sanctuary.
I’ll also need every detail you have on this wolf. "
Seth rises from his seat. “I’ll come with you, witch.”
“Do you want to meet us for dinner afterward?” Lori asks.
I rub my hands down my thighs, trying to push the exhaustion away. “It’s late for us. Can we pick this up tomorrow morning?”
Lori nods. “Of course.”
“I’ll prepare two guest rooms in the East Wing,” Sara adds.
Seth looks like he’s about to say something, one corner of his mouth curled in an impish smile. I cut him off before he finds the gall to ask for only one room. “That works, thanks.”
“And here,” Sara picks a winter fur coat from the rack beside the door. “Wear this.”
It’s one of those enchanted garments that completely repels the cold.
“What about me? Am I to freeze to death?” Seth says.
Sara rolls her eyes and hands him a dark wool blanket.
I slip on the coat and head for the door, my heart pounding in my chest. Back home, I’d convinced myself it would be easy to sell everyone on the idea of Seth and me being in an actual relationship, but I hadn’t anticipated that everyone would be so well acquainted with my fiancé .
He’s exactly my type—Nemesis aside—but I don’t do relationships. I hadn’t expected my emotions to be so volatile around him, or for his wit and mischievous grins to get under my skin so easily.
Percy cowers in the large inside pocket of my coat once we step outside Sara’s office, and I let the healer take the lead as I fall into step beside Seth.
“How do you know the castle so well? Or Sara and Byron, for that matter?” I ask, my tone slightly dry, wondering what else he forgot to mention.
“I stayed here every year for a few weeks during the Yule pageant as the Spring seeds’ sponsor.”
“Oh.”
Seth’s casual mention of sponsoring the Spring seeds during the Yule pageant sets a chill down my spine.
That age-old barbaric tradition of parading young women like trophies, to judge their worth based on lavish gowns and pretty faces, never sat right with me.
If he’s so comfortably woven into that world, it doesn’t bode well for how he truly views women or marriage.