Page 66 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen (The Heartless and the Wicked #4)

They both leaped forward, their blades clashing with one another.

Blár’s body fell into rhythm; strike here, duck, roll, pivot, parry.

Agnarr was taller than him, and almost twice as muscled, but Blár kept up with the fae male.

They circled each other, and Blár began erecting pillars at least twelve feet away from them in a circle.

Agnarr didn’t notice. Or maybe he did, but he didn’t care.

Agnarr slipped and Blár took the opportunity and shot forward, his sword aimed at the fae male’s neck, but it was a feint; he realized it the second Agnarr turned his body and his hand nearly grazed Blár’s cheek. The runes on his palms glowed.

Damn it.

Blár tried pulling away, but it was too late.

An explosion went off. His ears rang and he jerked backward, his eyes barely adjusting to the fading flash.

He tried putting distance between himself and Agnarr as his body regulated to the shock.

Blood poured out of his face and gushed onto the ground, painting every step he took, but he didn’t feel the pain. At least not yet.

His hands flew to his eyes, and then his nose, and lips. Still intact.

But the instant he touched his cheek, he yanked his fingers back. His face stung, and he had no doubt that something was very wrong. His mask was in tatters and hung around his neck in ribbons.

“I thought you wore a mask to cover up scars or something, like our commander,” Agnarr said, but the words barely registered to Blár through his ruptured eardrum—the side where the explosion had gone off.

“It was pretty crafty of you to hide your face. You knew we wouldn’t have made you unmask because we’re so used to seeing it.

Many fae cover up their scars. We’re rather vain that way, you know?

You must have known. Well, now, you actually have a reason to wear that mask. ”

Blár breathed out deeply, his mana cooling his body further. He glared at the fae male and raised his ice sword. In his peripheral vision, his ice pillars were erected in place. Maybe this was the perfect diversion. Much to his bitter dismay.

“Being around you people has taught me a lot,” he said smoothly, circling the fae. “You’re right about the vain thing. Even your commander cares a lot about his pretty face.”

It was a taunt meant to piss off the male, but it didn’t do anything. In fact, it only made him grin.

In his peripheral, Blár could make out his ice walls slowly rising from the ground and connecting with the pillars. He needed a bigger distraction if he wanted to cage the fae before he noticed.

“I also learned quite a bit about you,” he continued.

Agnarr lifted a blonde eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Did you know? About General Freyja, I mean.”

That piqued Agnarr’s interest, and he lowered his sword just a fraction. Blár shot forward and struck him, but he dodged it with ease. They exchanged a few more strikes, and a guarded, lethal expression covered the male’s face.

“What are you talking about?” Agnarr asked.

It was just like Kolfinna had said; he seemed to care about the female general—maybe even love her. They were mates, after all, even if they seemed to argue all the time. Even if they gave off the impression that they loathed one another.

Blár stared at him. He hoped this was enough to distract him.

“She’s carrying your child.”

Agnarr’s eyebrows came together. “What did you say?”

In the split second that his guard was down, Blár dove backward, his ice crackling through the air instantly.

It connected with the other pillars and he created a ceiling within the next second.

Agnarr flew up at breakneck speed, but it was too late: the ice caged him in.

Blár backed away until he was against one of the ice walls.

Agnarr struck the ice ceiling with his fist, the runes exploding on impact, but the ice remained intact.

Blár touched the ice wall and walked right through it, the ice wall repairing itself once he was on the other side.

Agnarr turned sharply to him. The bluish-white ice walls made him appear even more ominous. He struck the ice again and again with the rune explosions, and a tiny crack formed on one of the walls. Blár stared at it in astonishment, but then his expression darkened.

He was a powerful fae if he could crack Blár’s ice.

This room would only keep him for an hour at most, but that was all the time Blár needed to find the king and Kolfinna and get them both out of here.

As much as he would have loved to turn the tide of the battle, the capital was completely overrun with fae and they didn’t stand a chance at the moment.

They needed to regroup with the king and Fenris, and then create a plan.

The capital was lost.

Blár began running in the direction of the castle.

His gaze flicked over the destruction in the streets.

The fae fought the dwindling guards, but more of them were beginning to flee.

They all seemed to know that the battle was lost. That only urged him to go faster.

If the half-elf was engaging with Fenris in battle, then the king must have been safe somewhere.

So long as Leiknir lived, they could figure something out. They didn’t need a civil war or a fight for power at this time. They needed a king, even if that king was otherwise useless.

His face stung as he ran, and now that the thrill of battle was fading, his cheek throbbed painfully. He still couldn’t hear properly from his left ear.

He needed to find Kolfinna. Just thinking about her made his chest tighten. Was she safe? He hated having to leave her with the half-elf. He hated having to be forced into battle rather than rushing to her side. He hated being apart from her.

But he was close to the castle now. He was close to her?—

The castle began to glow gold.

Blár’s eyes widened. Runes?

An ominous chill reverberated through his bones and he knew that something was very, very wrong.

He picked up his pace and his breathing grew labored, his gaze never straying from the castle. Kolfinna was in there. He needed to find her and get her the hell away from here. He didn’t trust the half-elf enough to keep her safe.

“Blár Vilulf!” a royal guard was running toward him. “Blár Vilulf!”

Blár slowed in his steps. “Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Kolfinna! The fae?—”

The guard shook his head. “Captain Asulf is fighting the half-elf right now! He saw Princess Aslaug during the battle.”

“What? Who?” Blár’s mind was running a mile a minute, and he glanced back at the castle. Aslaug. That was his mother’s name, but he hadn’t known there was a princess named Aslaug too. Wasn’t the king’s daughter’s name something else? He couldn’t remember it.

“Princess Aslaug! The king’s sister!”

“What?” Blár didn’t have time for this. He was about to pull away from the guard—he didn’t seem to have any answers about Kolfinna, anyway—but the man grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him.

“You don’t understand! It’s your mother! Your mother!”

A sharpness spread through his chest and he stared at the guard dumbfounded.

His mother? She was alive? It was suddenly hard to breathe.

A war of emotions stabbed through him. Joy, relief, guilt, but mostly confusion.

How did they know his mother was alive? And what did they mean by the king’s sister? His mother wasn’t a royal.

“What are you—” he began.

“They killed the king and all of his children,” the man said rapidly. “Captain Asulf told me to find you and take you away!”

“What?” The king was dead?

“You’re the next in line.”

The guard tried pulling him away from the castle, but Blár shook the man off. He was lying. He didn’t know why this guard was spewing all this nonsense, but clearly, he was either insane or siding with the enemy. Maybe they wanted to confuse him.

He needed to find Kolfinna. He didn’t have time for this.

“All the remaining guards have been given orders to protect you and take you out of the capital,” the guard was saying. “We need to leave?—”

“I’m not leaving,” Blár snapped. The guard tried grabbing his shoulder again, but he shoved the man away, even as more royal guards appeared.

Most of them were haggard from battle, their capes torn and their usually pristine uniforms stained with blood and soot.

He glanced at the others. “What—what are you all doing?”

“We need to get you out of the capital, Your Highness,” another guard said. “You’re … you’re the next?—”

“Get away from me.” Blár pushed the guard away and began jogging toward the castle.

They all had lost their minds. His mother wasn’t related to the king, and she wasn’t here right now.

How did they even know her name? His mind became tangled the more he tried to think about it, so he pushed it all away. Nonsense. That was all it was.

“We can’t let you go in there.” One of the guards stepped forward.

“The Royal Guards protect the people and the king at all costs. You … you are the next king whether you like it or not, Blár Vilulf, and we need to get you out of this capital. If you die, then all of the Royal Guards fall apart, and this kingdom will fall into further chaos. We need to regroup and we need you as a king. You’re the only legitimate heir left. ”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Blár wanted to push them all away, but their numbers seemed to have increased. “If Fenris is fighting the half-elf, then I should join him and even the odds?—”

Just as he said that, the castle glowed even more. Before any of them could even blink, it exploded.

Someone tackled him, and the sky flashed gold, bits of debris and dust and dirt filling the air. His ears rang even more and he coughed, his senses fuzzy for a moment.

“Protect the king!”

A chorus erupted around him, and screams filled the air. He turned toward the castle, eyes wide.

Kolfinna … She was in there.

He rose up to his feet unsteadily.

Plumes of dust rose from the castle, a haze covering the building so he couldn’t make out the outline of it.

He didn’t know how much of it remained and how much had been destroyed.

But it didn’t matter, because he needed to get there as fast as possible.

There was no way that Kolfinna had been caught up in the blast. There was no way she was dead.

His heart ached and his legs grew leaden. He clutched his heart as a pain jolted through his body. A liquid heat scorched his veins and he fell to his knees, his mana growing wild. Every part of him stung and it felt like something had been severed inside of him.

He bit back a scream, squeezing his eyes shut as more pain shredded through his body. The guards scrambled around him, but he could barely hear what they were saying.

He stared at the castle, his vision blurring. Every fiber of his being screamed and white-hot pain drenched his body, cracking every bone, destroying every part of him.

Was this because of the fae mating bond? Had something happened to Kolfinna? Did it mean …?

No .

He collapsed on the ground. His vision waned.

Kolfinna couldn’t die. There was absolutely no way.

It was his last thought before darkness swallowed him whole.