Page 54 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen (The Heartless and the Wicked #4)

TWENTY-EIGHT – KOLFINNA

Kolfinna had been ripped away from Blár moments after the cold darkness consumed them both.

Her hand stretched out to grab him, to find him within the inky blackness surrounding her; blind panic rose within her chest, coiling and tightening over her body.

She couldn’t hear anything. See anything. Feel anything.

It was like she didn’t even exist. She was floating in absolute darkness. No sensation of existing, of being, of … anything.

And then the world snapped back in place so fast, she recoiled.

Colors sprang alive around her. Vidar’s concerned face came into view; his starlight-white hair contrasted with the darkness of his armor.

Agnarr’s confused expression. The sand beneath her feet.

The chilly wind brushing against her cheeks.

Her hair sticking to the sweat accumulating on the nape of her neck.

Kolfinna inhaled sharply, her head pounding and her stomach clenching.

The sword in her trembling hand was heavy.

It felt like days had passed while she was viewing the sword’s visions, and yet it had only been minutes, maybe.

And judging by the confused looks everyone was shooting her, she must have looked crazy.

She blinked away the fatigue, the nausea, the panic—and dropped the sword, her body shaking uncontrollably. She wanted to kick it as far away as she could, but her legs were leaden and all she could do was squeeze her eyes shut.

Breathe in. Breathe out .

Maybe it was all a lie. Maybe she had lucid dreamed the whole thing. Maybe her mind had conjured the horrible scenes to cope with her imprisonment here. Maybe?—

Her attention skated over to Blár. He was standing still, eyes haunted, with an equally confused expression that was mostly covered by the face mask; she quickly turned away. Had it been real after all?

“Kolfinna? What happened?” Vidar’s voice was quiet, and yet she still flinched, staring at him wide-eyed.

She could still remember the way he had snarled at Aesileif, how he had embraced her, how he had kissed her tears away. She shouldn’t have seen those vulnerable moments between him and Aesileif. A part of her hoped it hadn’t been real. But she needed answers.

“You married Aesileif before she became queen, didn’t you?” she whispered.

Vidar blinked slowly, surprise flashing over his face. “How did—” Then his gaze sliced to the sword, and then back to her face. Those blood-colored eyes widened, then narrowed. “What happened?”

“Answer me.”

“It’s true. Aesileif and I were mated long before we officially announced it to the empire,” he said. “How?—”

“You were there when Elin died,” she said, her head spinning. “She said cruel things to Aesileif.”

Another look passed over him; this one, she couldn’t read. “Yes.”

“And … and Aesileif … She’s dying, isn’t she? That’s why you both decided to seal her away? So that the power of the crown wouldn’t pass onto me?”

Vidar grabbed her shoulders, leveling her with a stare that, moments ago, she would have thought was shuttered, calculating, but now, she realized was desperate, needy . A feral gleam entered those sinister eyes.

“Tell me everything.”

“One second I was here with you, and the next …” Her gaze trailed to the sword and she shuddered.

“What did you see?”

Agnarr approached them and placed a hand on Vidar’s shoulder.

The breeze blew his golden hair, tousling it gently over his forehead.

“We should speak in private,” he murmured, jerking his chin toward her guards, and the curious stares from passing fae.

“We don’t need everyone knowing that our queen has always been sick. It’s bad for morale.”

Kolfinna shouldn’t have been shocked that he knew; he was Vidar’s trusted general, and most of the higher ups probably already knew, too.

Kolfinna rubbed her temples with shaking hands as Vidar spoke to Agnarr softly.

It was still hard to wrap her mind around the idea that all of these people—Agnarr, Rakel, Floki, Freyja—had known her when she was a child, had known her mother, had fought alongside her.

Vidar and Agnarr led her out of the courtyard, her guards and Blár trailing behind her.

She could feel Blár’s gaze burning onto her back, but she didn’t dare turn around and face him, even though she wanted to run into his arms and remain there.

When they entered what appeared to be an office, Vidar ordered her guards to stand in the hallway, while all three of them locked themselves within the room.

It was a small room with a table, a few chairs, and walls lined with bookshelves.

Vidar leaned against the table and crossed his arms over his chest, his fingers curling and uncurling.

She could read the impatience in him so easily.

Agnarr stood by the window, his attention drifting to the clouds and then back to her.

“What happened?” Vidar asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

This time, she told them everything. She told them about Aesileif’s first meeting with Vidar, the brutal attack that killed her family and forced her to become the fae queen, Harald’s attack on the city—she recounted everything.

By the end of it, her cheeks were wet and she was exhausted—both mentally and physically.

Vidar watched her carefully, and his lips pursed. “What are you thinking, Kolfinna?”

He wasn’t actually asking about what she was thinking, she could tell that much.

He was asking about her stance on all of this.

He could see how emotional she was becoming when talking about her mother, when only days ago she would have condemned her.

Had things changed that much? Had seeing a hint of Aesileif’s past shifted her thoughts on the war?

But it wasn’t just Aesileif that had her questioning things—it was also the assassination attempt made on her life by Hilda’s goons.

It was also the fact that humans despised her people.

“Do you still think the humans will give the fae equality? Freedom? Coexistence?” Agnarr snarled.

His words were clipped, blunt, and to the point.

He didn’t try being delicate about the matter—no, he ripped into her.

“At no time in history, ever, have the oppressed begged the oppressor for freedom and been granted it. No—time and time again, the oppressed have had to fight for their freedom, for their right to live.”

“The fae are oppressed now,” she said. “But do you really think you were oppressed back in Aesileif’s time? You were the oppressor, then.”

Agnarr scoffed. “You speak like you know what it was like back then.”

“I know that the fae have treated the humans badly in the past. During your time, you were not the oppressed. You were simply tamping down human rebellions. Don’t talk like you know what oppression is.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “We lived side by side with the humans. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than the current state of the fae.

Keep in mind that we weren’t the ones who murdered their people and forced them into hiding for centuries.

They were the ones that did that to our people when we lost the war.

When we were in charge, they thrived, but when they took charge?

” He made a low sound in the back of his throat, waving his hand at the window vaguely.

“Well, you know better than I do how they treated the fae for centuries.”

Kolfinna couldn’t even deny it. The fae had their problems, she was sure, but the humans had done far worse from what she knew.

She could still remember the fear she had constantly lived with— would the humans catch her?

Would she be killed? Would she have to run again?

And constantly shifting from city to city, new town to town, just so no one could become suspicious of her. She had always been running.

She stared down at her hands. They were shaking again. “But I know people who don’t think like that. Who want to coexist with the fae.”

It was such a weak argument. It didn’t matter if she knew people. It didn’t matter if her friends thought differently. If the entire kingdom thought she was the enemy, what a handful of people said didn’t matter.

“We can all agree that in current affairs, the fae are oppressed,” Vidar said flatly.

“I do not think that the fae were oppressed during my time, because they were not, but I also do not think they were, as a whole, the oppressor. As a half-elf, I’ve dealt with prejudice my entire life by the fae, similar to how humans were treated, but that was a societal issue that could have been dealt with accordingly.

Destroying our entire nation, massacring our people, and forcing them out of existence was not the answer to human equality among the fae. ”

Rakel’s earlier words came to mind. Elves are seen as lesser beings than the fae, so most half-elves hate to be seen as half-elf, and would rather be seen as mostly -fae.

“Why would the oppressor give the oppressed freedom without a fight? Without a reason?” Vidar’s voice dropped.

He narrowed his eyes at her, but it was as if he wasn’t looking at her, but was staring into something deeper—something far out of his reach.

“If the humans are as good as you think they are, why did they not give our people freedom a year ago? A hundred years ago? It will always be in the best interest of the oppressor to keep the oppressed down, Kolfinna. And history has shown that in the past thousand years since Aesileif reigned, the humans have not given the fae anything. No hope. No freedom. No future .”

Kolfinna flinched and couldn’t meet his gaze.

She couldn’t refute any of it, and it frustrated her.

“What … what is the power of the crown?”