Page 34 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen (The Heartless and the Wicked #4)

SEVENTEEN – KOLFINNA

That evening, Kolfinna waited for Blár, but he didn’t show up.

Then she was dragged into the dining hall to have dinner with Vidar, which ended up being awkward, since neither of them spoke the entire time.

She was supposed to gather information on him, but she found it hard to say anything—not with the memory of his grief-stricken expression and the longing in his eyes as he stared at the painting of his wife burned in her mind.

When she was back in her room for the night, she remained bundled in her blanket, lying sideways and staring at the window intently.

Finally, when her eyes grew heavy and the night deepened, she heard the sound of someone vaulting through her window and landing on the floor. A grin spread on her face and she propped herself on her elbow.

“What took you so long?” she whispered, making out Blár’s outline against the window. She pushed the blankets off her body and swung her legs around. Her feet had just touched the ice-cold stone floor when a crackle of electricity sounded in the room and blue-white light shot at her.

Instinctively, she lurched to the side, rolling on the floor. The spot above her bed was scorched, her bedding bursting into flames from the wayward electric sparks. The realization struck her instantly.

This wasn’t Blár.

She called her mana forth, but the stones didn’t move, the earth didn’t shift, and her shadows didn’t rise from within her.

A cold, dark feeling stirred in her chest as she dove to the side from another electric attack.

The runes in the room kept her from using magic.

She would have to fight with her bare hands—a thought that sent razors down her spine, because close combat without her powers was her weakness.

“Who are you?” she gritted out, eyes darting from the man to the rest of the room. She didn’t spot anything that she could use as a weapon.

He didn’t answer, only circled her, electricity sparking on his fingertips.

He was shorter than Blár, which should have been her first indication that it wasn’t him, but her giddy excitement had clouded her judgement.

She scanned his face—dark eyes, mop of blonde hair, mid-thirties—for any familiarity, but he was a stranger.

The man shot electricity at her in quick succession, his hands moving in a blur as white-blue magic burst from him.

Kolfinna ran to the side of the room, ducking and rolling.

Pain exploded on her leg and she bit back a cry, skidding over the floor as adrenaline rushed through her veins.

The smell of her burning flesh stung her nostrils.

Another burst of electricity struck the space beside her head, and she rolled on the floor with trembling legs.

He lunged at her, his hands swarming with bright light, and Kolfinna wrapped her hands around a metal candelabra sitting on one of the nightstands and swung it at his face.

He fell to the side, clutching his cheek as blood rushed from his nose.

She smacked it into him again, the metal bending with impact.

She raised her arms to attack him again, when someone crashed into her. She fell to the floor in a heap as a blade jammed into her stomach. The impact made her gasp, a hot, piercing pain overriding all of her senses.

He’d stabbed her .

Her eyes widened at the sight of the new intruder.

This one had dark hair and even darker eyes, his lips twisted into a hateful sneer.

She didn’t recognize him, but she recognized the hatred that burned in his eyes.

A hunter? Or maybe someone who knew who she was and what she meant to the fae.

She had been so intent on beating the first assailant that she hadn’t even noticed when two more had snuck inside.

The other assailant was checking on the one she had attacked.

Warmth bloomed in her stomach and the man pulled back to stab her again.

She tried pushing him off her, but all her hands did was leave sticky, bloodied streaks across his chest. The blade sank into her belly again, and a bloodcurdling, guttural scream ripped from her throat as she tried to fend him off.

Was this how she was going to die?

Magicless and powerless? At the hands of strangers who hated her?

She pushed him back with quivering, weak arms. She could feel the blood rushing from her wounds, and with it, her body heat. She was growing colder by the second.

The man pulled back to strike her again, but the door to the room flew open and a ball of fire surged in the room like an inferno. He scrambled off her in a split second, raising his hands to form an icy shield, but the fire struck his shoulder before he could finish.

“Kolfinna!” Yrsa ran in the room, fire glowing from her hands.

She struggled up to her knees as the three men attacked Yrsa with a barrage of magic—ice, electricity, and fire. Kolfinna’s attention was drawn to the door and she clamped down on her wounds with her hands, her fingers immediately becoming drenched in bright red.

Why wasn’t she healing?

Was it the runes in the tower that were holding her healing powers back?

“Kolfinna, run!” Yrsa shouted above the crackle of electricity and the roar of fire.

The room quickly became engulfed in flames, ice, electricity, and smoke.

Her feet slipped on the frost-touched floors, her surroundings spinning.

The adrenaline was keeping the pain at bay, she was sure, but it couldn’t stop the tremors running through her body, nor the cold, cold feeling stretching deep within her, dragging clawed, skeletal fingers across her soul.

She had been on death’s doorstep several times before, but never like this. Never this powerless.

She lurched through the threshold of the door and willed her legs to move faster. Her hands left bloodied prints along the railing of the stairs. She was moving painfully slowly, the walls distorting, her breathing labored and her body nearly collapsing.

When she reached the connecting doorway that led to another hall of the fortress, she seized it like a lifeline and flung it open.

She stumbled forward and into the corridor.

She could feel her leg—which had been hit with electric magic—begin to heal, the stinging becoming less pronounced.

But her stomach wasn’t healing. Not in the slightest.

“Help!” she croaked, falling to her knees in the middle of the hall. Her fingers dug into the thick red rugs as she tried crawling. “Help!”

She could hear urgent footsteps running on the floor, but her vision was fading and she couldn’t tell if it was a fae soldier running to her aid, or an assailant. A shout sounded from behind her, and she felt the unmistakable shaking as a stone was ripped from the floor and chucked at someone.

She peeled her eyes open to find two fae soldiers kneeling beside her. One of them cursed, glanced up at something behind her, and then turned to his partner.

“Get the commander,” the female fae said.

“What about the man?”

“He’s dead, anyway. I’ll stay here and protect her.”

“Is she …?”

“She’s still breathing. Get the commander, now !”

A sigh of relief escaped from her. They were here to help her, somehow. She could hear the distant booms and shakes as Yrsa fought the assailants. How many of them were there at this point? When she had left the room there had been three. Had one of them followed her?

“Princess Kolfinna.”

The female fae slowly shifted her until she was lying on her back. She groaned as a piercing pain stung in her belly, and tears prickled her eyes with the motion.

The woman inhaled sharply, her hands brushing over Kolfinna’s wounds. “What happened?”

“Assassins.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if that would keep the pain away. “There were three of them.”

Time seemed to move agonizingly slowly as more fae warriors filled the hallway. The cold seeped into her bones, rattling her to the core. She could feel her life draining away every second that she laid there. Her head became light.

“ Kolfinna .”

A trickle of warmth thawed the chill of death from her belly. Slowly, her vision righted itself and she could feel the strength returning to her weak limbs. She blinked up to find Vidar holding her gently, one hand pressed to her abdomen. Golden light glowed from his hand.

“Vidar?”

His face was twisted in a fury she had never seen before.

His white eyebrows were drawn together, his jaw locked tight, and his shoulders taut like he would spring forward and kill the nearest person.

Bloodlust clung to him like a second skin, and his wings were flared out behind him to their full span.

But it wasn’t her safety that he truly cared about, she thought as she blinked slowly, his anger only seeming to magnify. If she died, then all his hopes of seeing his beloved wife would vanish, too.

He brushed back a stray tear on her cheek. “Who did this?” His words came out calmly, methodically, like he was discussing something mundane. And yet the look in his eyes told another story. Cold, wintry vengeance lay in the blood-like depths of his eyes.

“They entered my room.” A bitterness sharpened her words as she stared at him accusingly. If only he hadn’t kept her locked away, magicless. “I couldn’t use my abilities. I was completely useless against them.”

His expression remained the same, unbothered by the vitriol in her tone. He turned to one of the soldiers closest to them. “Bring me their heads. All but one.”

“Yes, sir.”

A shiver ran down her spine at the ominous air that hung around him. He shifted his attention back to her, and something about the look on his face made her shrink back. “The humans you love so much attacked you.”

“We don’t know—” Her lower lip wobbled and she couldn’t say the next words. They didn’t know for sure if the attackers were on the human side. What if they were … Ragnarok members?

“You don’t know what?” Vidar lifted a white brow. “You don’t know whether or not they serve the humans?”

“Well … maybe …” Her weak defense sounded lifeless to even herself. There was no denying that the assassins worked for the humans. Did that mean that they knew who she was? That she was the key to freeing the queen? An uneasiness pulled at her chest.

“Kolfinna, you were stabbed three times.” As if to prove his point, his hands glowed more, and the pain subsided substantially. “You cannot think well of these humans when they have tried to kill you. This is not the first time someone has tried to assassinate you.”

A shock ran through her system at those words.

An amused smirk twisted his lips. “You have always been our greatest weakness. Do you not think our enemies would try to kill you? You pose a threat to them. Your very existence angers them.”

“Stop,” she whispered weakly. Her head began to throb and the pressure behind her eyes built to the point that she wanted to weep, or scream, or do something. But she could barely move, and her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, and her traitorous eyes burned.

“They tried to kill you when you were still in Aesileif’s womb.” His voice grew distant, detached, and she could see the thinly veiled fury in his red eyes. “And again when you were a few days old, and then again, and again.”

“Stop it.”

“It angers you, doesn’t it? To realize that these humans do not value you. You scare them.”

The corners of her vision began to darken and she blinked through the sudden drowsiness. Her anger sharpened her tongue as she whisper-shouted, “You know nothing?—”

“I know you wish to escape,” he murmured.

“I know you wish to rejoin your humans. But let me ask you this, Kolfinna. If you do manage to escape, do you think the humans would even accept you? Aesileif has always been their greatest threat, and the fact that you are the key to freeing her makes you a liability. You are more useful to us than you will ever be to them. In fact, if I was a human commander, I would order your death, even if you were loyal, because you are the key to destroying the human armies.”

Her head throbbed painfully, his even-toned words breaking through her greatest fears.

She had been avoiding those points ever since she had been captured here.

She knew, deep down, that she held more value to the humans dead than she did alive.

But she had hoped that Blár would change things.

That there was a possibility that she could live among them all, that there could be peace among their peoples.

“Why …” Her throat closed up and she tried again. “Why are my wounds not healing?” She attempted to keep her voice level and free of the panic springing in her chest, but it came out as a strangled half-sob.

“They used Elven steel.”

“Elven steel?”

“Yes.” He must have seen the questions on her face but he didn’t elaborate.

She opened her mouth to ask him about it, but her eyes began to droop and she found it hard to stay awake. His magic warmed her stomach and slowly, she fell into a dreamless slumber.