Page 9 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen (The Heartless and the Wicked #4)

The fortress was warm inside, even though the bare halls and cold, stony walls gave it the opposite impression.

She took a left down the corridor and hurried along, her attention flicking from the fae walking with their wings furled out, to the elves passing through nimbly.

Where could Herja be? Would they be keeping her in the dungeons?

Or was she locked away in one of the rune marked rooms?

If she had to guess, Herja was probably going to be forced to travel with the rest of the army, since they were going to use her as leverage against Kolfinna. Wouldn’t it make sense that they would keep her somewhere where they could easily haul her off when it was time to move?

Kolfinna grasped the handle to the closest door and peeked inside.

Stacks of dusty crates, uniforms, and swords.

She shut it closed and moved to the next.

More storage, this time with shields and spears.

Kolfinna had just made it to the third door when someone grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back.

“What are you doing?” a stern, gruff voice said.

A purple-eyed fae stared down at her from a sharp, hooked nose. Giant, luminous, violet wings spread out behind him, stretching and furling with every breath he took. He raked his gaze over her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said slowly.

Panic set in over her. Her shoulders went taut and from the corner of her vision, she could see the other soldiers turning to look at her too.

Kolfinna tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible.

“I was looking around for …” She mentally cringed at the squeak in her voice.

Her mind raced toward the fae, his dark armor, and then to the other fae, and she tried to grasp on something to say. “For my things,” she blurted.

“Your things?” He didn’t look convinced and she could feel the air around him stir, his mana radiating from his hands.

“Yes, my things.” She crossed her arms over her chest and noticed the way his eyes flicked down at her cleavage and lingered there.

“I need better clothes for travel, and seeing as how I’m not dressed appropriately, my father told me he had some clothes and such for me in here. I don’t remember where it is though.”

She hoped that emphasizing the “father” would make him drop the case, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.

“Commander Alfaer told you to find your things inside?” He raised a dark eyebrow, the waves of his mana growing stronger. More ready. “Here? Of all places? Why didn’t he ask someone to retrieve them for you?”

Kolfinna’s heart sank. She twiddled her clammy hands together, her own mana tingling just below the surface of her skin. She could probably take him on, but there were at least a dozen soldiers here in this hall … There was no way she could fight them all and escape without causing a commotion.

“I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask him,” she said, her smile wobbly. She thought maybe she could act sweet and charming and sway him another way, but his dry, stoic countenance didn’t slip from his face. If anything, his expression hardened.

Inadvertently, her mana warmed at her fingers. She would have to fight, then. Her heart raced, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

She worked her mana into the stones. She’d have to use the element of surprise to her advantage, and then?—

“I don’t think you should be here.” He reached for her.

She raised her hand to fling a chunk of the stone wall at him. The blood rushed to her face and ears, and she could feel the tension tightening her neck. But before he could touch her, one of the soldiers shouted something. A name, she realized a second later.

The purple-eyed fae glanced over his shoulder.

Kolfinna backed away instantly, choosing to sprint down the hall.

“Hey!” she heard him shout from behind her.

She disappeared down a bend in the hallway and was met with a half-turned staircase, one side leading down and the other up.

She didn’t have time to think of which would be better—was Herja locked away somewhere upstairs, or stowed away in the lower levels, and why?

— but it was faster to run downstairs than up, so she leaped down, taking the steps three at a time.

Her breath came in raggedly as she rushed through a hallway, and then another, until she had escaped from the soldier.

She had even less time than before. The soldier would likely inform everyone he could that she was missing, and then everyone would search for her. And she was positive Rakel had noticed she was missing too.

Curses filled her mind as she opened the doors down the hall. All of them were either storage rooms, barracks, or some amalgamation of the two. There weren’t people down here either, so that clued her in that she was probably in the wrong place. Herja wasn’t here.

Turning at the end of the hallway, she emerged into an equally sparse section of the fortress. She hurried along the route, peeking inside the rooms as fast as she could. How much time did she have before Rakel found her? Or any of the other fae soldiers?

With her heart caught in her throat, she yanked open the doors with more vigor, her frustration spilling into bones and flesh and making her tremble. Faster, faster, faster. She didn’t have time to waste here. Where could Herja be? Where ?

She checked every door save for the one beside the staircase on the opposite end of this floor; when she pulled on that door, it budged but didn’t spring open like the others.

Kolfinna yanked harder and glanced over her shoulder quickly, half-expecting a soldier to ambush her and cart her away, but there was no one—yet.

“Come on,” she grunted, pulling with more force.

It was then that she noticed the shining rune letters at the door handle. No one can enter , it read in gold letters. She pressed her fingers over the runes and cast her mana over them, easily overpowering them. They shattered, disappearing into dust.

Kolfinna twisted the door handle and it gave way; she yanked the door open and stepped inside the dimly lit room.

Her eyes adjusted in seconds. At least two dozen people wearing Rosain military uniforms were crammed into the small room, their wrists bound in chains and hooked onto the walls.

Half of them were slumped against the walls or the floors, completely unconscious— they would have appeared dead, if not for the subtle rise and fall in their chests.

“Kolfinna!” Herja lifted her head. She was bound like the others, but whereas everyone else was stuck to one of the walls, she was alone on the opposite side. Probably to distinguish that she had more mana than them, if Kolfinna had to guess.

It took her a split second to realize, in horror, that these were all prisoners of war from their last battle. She recognized a few of them in passing, though she didn’t know their names.

“Herja!” Kolfinna crossed the distance between them and scanned the runes on the wall behind her. No human can use magic in this room , it read in bold, glittering letters. “Are you hurt?”

Herja’s eyes widened when Kolfinna dropped down beside her. She inhaled sharply, appearing so shocked that Kolfinna turned to the door quickly. There was no fae there, or anyone yet.

“Your … Your ears .”

“Oh—” She touched her earlobe for a moment, almost having forgotten about it altogether. She didn’t like the questions swirling in Herja’s eyes as she looked over her whole body. At her dress, the lack of chains binding her, or how uninjured she was.

“Are you hurt?” Kolfinna pressed.

Herja shook her head. “No, but none of us can use magic in this room. The fae and those white-haired ones keep coming here and draining us until we’re half-dead.” She shivered and turned toward one of the prisoners who looked hauntingly still. “She still hasn’t woken up.”

Kolfinna followed her gaze to a sallow, petite brunette woman who sagged against the wall with her head tilted to the side precariously. A shiver ran down her spine at the sight.

“W-We have to get out of here,” Kolfinna said. “I came to rescue you.”

“How did you get out?”

“It’s a long story, but my … guard, I guess you can call her, got distracted so I slipped away,” she said in a rush as she yanked on the chain attached to the wall.

Herja stared at Kolfinna’s outfit again, confusion passing over her features. “What are you wearing?”

She could read the underlying message. Why are you wearing that ? Because they were both prisoners here, but Kolfinna had clearly got the better treatment. Her own prison room, a new outfit, and she wasn’t a mana slave like the others. They were all probably thinking the same.

“Never mind that.” Kolfinna created a small stone dagger with her mana, leaving a fist-sized crater on the ground. She smashed the stone weapon against the chains, wincing as the force reverberated up her wrist and elbow. “We don’t have much time?—”

“Free me too!” one of the soldiers said, his chain pulled taut as he leaned forward.

“And me!” another called.

Soon, they all began clamoring for Kolfinna to help them.

She raised her hand to shush them, but they were too desperate, too loud.

They had likely never been held captive before; lately, in the time of peace, the military mostly took care of preventative war actions and monster hunting, neither of which were particularly useful for actual war.

But Kolfinna knew what it was like to hide, to run, to be cornered and imprisoned. Most fae knew the feeling.

“Shh! We have to keep quiet and we have to hurry—” Kolfinna began, smashing the dagger onto Herja’s chains, but the stone crumbled and her palm jammed against the hard metal. She sucked in a deep breath, tears pricking the back of her eyes. “Everyone, please?—”

They all began tugging on their chains, whisper-shouting at her to undo them.

She didn’t have time for this.

“Kolfinna.” Herja tugged at her skirt with her clasped hands. There was an urgency in her voice that betrayed her calm expression. “Calm down and use your stone magic to break the base of the chains from the wall. I can drag them with me, it’s fine.”

She was so stupid. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

Kolfinna pressed her hand to the wall where the chain was hooked, and broke apart the stones surrounding the base of it. The chains fell off the wall with a loud clank . Herja rose to her feet quickly and the chains dragged behind her as she rushed over to the unconscious brunette across from her.

“She’s dead,” Herja murmured, while Kolfinna went over to another soldier to free him.

She shuddered, remembering when Eyfura had been in a similar state back in the Eventyrslot ruins.

“We’ll have to leave her body behind,” she found herself saying.

Even to her own ears she sounded detached, and that’s what she needed to be—completely separated from the woman so she wouldn’t feel guilt.

That she wouldn’t think about how this woman’s death was her fault, because Kolfinna had been the one to inadvertently awaken Vidar and his army.

Because she was the one who had started all of this.

One of the slumped soldiers raised her head and cracked her eyes open. “Save me, please.”

“I’ll—” Kolfinna started just when the door burst open.

A flock of shadows swarmed the room instantly.

Someone screamed. Kolfinna whirled around, but her whole world was swamped in black.

White-hot pain shot over her arms as shadows writhed over her body, consuming her flesh in ink.

Her panic flared, and she stumbled backward, flailing her arms to free herself from the searing heat and chilling cold of the magic.

“You really are too predictable,” a familiar, barely controlled voice hissed.

Rakel .

Her stomach dropped. She was too late.