Page 56 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen (The Heartless and the Wicked #4)

TWENTY-NINE – KOLFINNA

Shortly after talking to Vidar, Kolfinna was escorted to her room.

Hours passed in silence as she paced the space between her bed and the hearth over and over again until her legs trembled and her mind numbed with all her thinking.

Even bathing, eating, and dozing off for a few minutes didn’t help the anxieties coiling deep within herself, strangling her with all their might.

Had she made the right decision? Was it in her best interests to free Aesileif?

She had told Vidar she would help him, but did that mean she was cursing the entire human race by doing so?

What if Aesileif was just as bad as the rumors said?

What if everything she had seen was a lie after all? What if?—

Her mind ran in circles over the what ifs , and she couldn’t help escape the unfathomably pit of darkness that was slowly consuming her.

She was so pathetic, she thought. She couldn’t even choose a side and stick with it.

How could she say she was on the humans’ side when she didn’t entirely believe that they would help the fae?

And how could she help the fae if she didn’t align with them, either?

How could she not simply pick which side to be with? Why was she so … conflicted?

She hated how small she felt in that moment. How her insecurities and her lack of decisiveness ripped a void of darkness within her mind and sank her deeper into its clutches.

Her fingernails dug into her palms as she walked toward the window, then to the hearth at one end of the room, and then back again. A soft knock on her bedroom door snapped her from her thoughts.

Half-expecting Astrid, she tentatively pulled the door open a crack and was ready to give an excuse as to why she couldn’t talk to her—a stomachache, or maybe a headache, or maybe she’d tell her she wasn’t feeling up to anything—only to find Blár standing in her antechamber.

His dark hair was mussed, his arctic blue eyes unreadable, and half his face was covered in that black mask of his.

A jolt of shame straightened her spine and she couldn’t meet his gaze, as if he knew that she had betrayed him by agreeing to free the fae queen.

“Blár … This isn’t the right time,” she whispered, staring down at her toes, which peeked out from the plain, billowy white nightdress she wore. Truthfully, she would rather spend her time continuing to think than talk to him and face her decisions—or lack thereof.

“No,” he said. “I believe it’s the perfect time.”

“Blár—”

He didn’t listen to her and barged inside the room, giving the space a quick sweep before standing in the center of it.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to sneak in here with all those guards posted outside your door? I’m not letting this opportunity slip just because you want to wallow in your own pity. ”

That snapped her attention up.

Her eyebrows puckered together and a surge of rage rushed through her body, trembling her fingers. “What did you say? Pity ?”

“I can see you’re stressed. And knowing you, you’re probably overthinking, overanalyzing, and feeling sorry for yourself.” He crossed his lean arms over his chest and stared down at her coolly. Even through the mask, she could tell he was scowling.

“I’m not—” She stared off at the curtained window, the words dying on her lips, along with her anger, because that was exactly what she was doing.

Overthinking and pitying herself. But she was valid in her concerns.

She closed the door to her bedchambers and leaned against it.

“I have the weight of so many lives on my shoulders. My decisions affect so many people.”

“You are not solely responsible for the outcome of this war,” he said slowly. “You’re an important piece, as are many of us, but that’s about it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then help me understand.”

Kolfinna raked a hand through her hair. “I’m the supposed princess of the fae—don’t you think that means something here?

I’m the only one who can awaken the queen, and I’m a symbol of hope for the fae, but I have no idea what is right or wrong.

If I make a wrong decision …” Her head ached and she rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.

“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. ”

She didn’t want him to see her so vulnerable, but another part of her wanted to curl into his lap and forget about all her worries. It was another confusing, conflicting feeling. One that left her more drained.

Blár watched her without a word, as if expecting her to continue speaking, but her words had dried up.

The tumultuous feelings bubbling in the pit of her stomach like a cauldron continued to brew and she turned away from him, ashamed that she couldn’t be like him.

It was easy for him to make a decision. It was easy for him to think of the humans, since that was all he’d ever known, but it was different for her.

She didn’t trust the humans completely, but she didn’t trust the fae either.

It made the decision on who to choose all the more difficult.

Kolfinna picked at her nails distractedly, her body moving on its own as she continued her pacing. Blár stopped in front of her, his large hands gripping her shoulders to prevent her from walking. He leveled her with an unreadable stare.

“Tell me everything that’s bothering you.”

“No, I?—”

“Stop.” He steered her toward the bed and forced her to sit on the edge of the soft mattress.

He dropped down to his knees in front of her, taking her hands within his.

The blue of his eyes reminded her of a winter’s storm; cold, violent, and all encompassing.

And yet there was only tenderness veiled beneath the fury she saw there.

“You need to stop holding everything in. You don’t tell me anything about what worries you.

You didn’t tell me about your father, or this whole situation about you being the heir, and even though you apologized, you’re still doing it again.

Is this a defense mechanism of yours? To keep everything to yourself, and to slowly wither as your anxieties eat you away? ”

“You don’t understand.” Her words were barely a whisper.

Tears welled in her eyes and she was so incredibly drained.

All the memories she had witnessed in the sword-dimension, all of her anxieties about which side to choose, her predicament with being imprisoned—all of it culminated into a bone-deep exhaustion that made her freeze.

“What don’t I understand?”

“I … I …”

“Kolfinna, don’t you trust me?” He tried to keep his tone neutral—she knew it, she knew him so well at this point that every little inflection in his voice was readable to her—but she could hear the small tremor.

The fury that he barely kept in check. And she knew that he wasn’t angry at her , but at the fact that she couldn’t trust him with her thoughts. That he wasn’t privy to that.

She didn’t want to tell him everything. The stubborn, fearful part of her wanted to keep it to herself, like he had said. But she wanted to trust him. If there was anyone in the world that she could trust—it was him.

Blár was the only one she could bare herself to, and he wouldn’t judge her.

He wouldn’t hate her for thinking what she did.

He would stay by her side. He had proven it time and time again.

Even now, instead of running off and fighting in this war, he was here in the fae fortress with her, trying to help her escape.

“I … I don’t know,” she continued, squeezing her eyes shut. “I don’t know which side to choose.”

He stilled, and she couldn’t bear to face him.

Kolfinna released a shuddered breath. “I don’t know which side to choose, Blár.

I like the humans, I do, but I don’t trust them.

They want to kill me. They’ve shown me hundreds of times that they don’t want me, or the fae, on their side.

They don’t wish for a world where the fae and the humans coexist. I can’t trust them to protect the fae once this war is over.

If I suddenly join them now, I think the first thing the humans will do is execute me for being a fae, for being the princess of the fae, and for being the only one capable of freeing the fae queen.

” The words rushed out of her without restraint.

Her hands trembled in his, and she spared a glance his way.

She couldn’t read the emotions in his stare, but the fact that he didn’t immediately condemn her made her speak more.

The whole reason she had kept her lineage a secret from the humans was because she knew they would execute her if they knew who she really was. She knew they would kill her for being the key to awakening Vidar and Aesileif. She’d always known that she could never trust the humans.

“The fae,” she continued, “aren’t great, either.

I know that. I know that they have a reputation of being brutal.

I know that they use humans as mana slaves.

I know that they have their faults, but I belong with them.

They understand me, and I can see why they were pushed into this position.

If I didn’t care for the humans, then the fae side is the obvious choice.

There are good people in the fae army.” She thought about Astrid, who’d been kind to her even when she didn’t need to be.

“I know that the humans will have a hard time with the fae above them, but I don’t think the intent of the fae army is to completely eradicate the human race or to completely enslave them either.

But I can’t trust them to not do some of that, and that’s why I’m conflicted with them. ”

Blár nodded and pulled himself up to sit beside Kolfinna. Tears streamed down her face and she clamped her eyes shut, trying to keep her voice level.