Page 95 of The Ruins of the Heartless Fae

But where was he going with this? What did he mean Order of Queen Aesileif? And why was everyone pinned to the wall? Kolfinna didn’t want the answer to all those questions, because it was already clear to her.

“What about that monster?” Kolfinna whispered. She willed herself to move forward, to run into the hallway where she could use magic, and maybe attack Revna and Mímir, but her body refused to believe what her mind said was true.

“Monster?” He threw his head back and laughed, while Revna chuckled softly in the background as she inspected the coffins. “She was no monster! She was the last one to fight for your people’s freedom! It’s a shame that you don’t even know that much about your own history.”

Revna paused to stare into one of the coffins. “It’s a shame those wretched traitors cut our beautiful wings off and trapped us here for so many centuries.” Her tone softened and she reached into the coffin to touch the woman inside. “A shame indeed.”

Blár tried shimmying his way out of the grip of the stones, but they didn’t budge. Just like Kolfinna. Who couldn’t think, or move.

Revna cleared her throat. “What’s the status of Her Majesty?”

“The queen and her trusted inner circle are sealed away. The status of the commander and his army is unknown.” Mímir straightened once more and placed a hand on his heart. “The Order is doing everything in their power to break the seal and free Her Majesty. It’s … a bit embarrassing to say, but freeing you is the biggest breakthrough we’ve had in centuries.”

“You’ll have to fill me in on all the details.” Revna glanced at Kolfinna. “Dear, will you be joining us?”

“Joining you for what?” Kolfinna still couldn’t move, and it was impossible to ignore the ever more frantic movements of Blár, Truda, Magni, and Eyfura against the stone bindings. “I still don’t understand what’s going on. What are you going to do with them? Why restrain them?”

“I told you not to trust humans, didn’t I?”

“Revna, please tell me what’s going on,” Kolfinna begged. She didn’t want to believe what was happening right now. This betrayal cut deeper, made worse by the fact that Kolfinna didn’t know what to believe. Queen Aesileif was evil, but Kolfinna couldn’t prove that. And neither could she disprove it.

“Revna is from the time when the humans and the fae fought,” Mímir said with an eye roll. His voice was deeper, darker, and had a richer baritone. As if the light, easy way he had spoken had all been a lie—and maybe it was. He also stood taller, as if more confident, and every time he glanced at Revna, awe glittered in his eyes. It made Kolfinna sick to the stomach.

He continued, “There were also some traitorous fae who chose to side with the humans. The human side won, and Revna’s side was either killed, sealed away like this, or sealed away with Queen Aesileif. The Order wishes to revive the old fae and the old world.”

“W-Why? Mímir, you’re not even a fae!” Kolfinna tried to draw forth the mana deep within her, but it only slightly fizzled at her fingertips.

“You don’t need to be a fae to follow Ragnarök, but if you must know, my grandmother was a fae, and her parents before her, and their parents before them. But, as you can see, I wasn’t blessed with strong fae blood and instead am mostly human. Blame that on my parents, I suppose.” He raked a hand through his hair, and the black bruise on his eye stood out against the cuts on his hands. “But that’s fine because it makes it easier to infiltrate when you’re more human than fae because unlike you, who was blessed with mostly fae blood and who’s gifted with fae abilities, all my attributes are human. You should join us, Kolfinna! We’ll create a new world.”

Mímir tucked theGenfødsel Knivinto the waistband of his pants, and the Royal Guard uniform suddenly looked wrong on him. The red of the cape reminded her of blood, and she wondered if he had knowingly marched everyone to their deaths this whole time.

Revna came to stand beside Mímir and put her hand on his shoulder. “Exactly! We will create a world where our kind can use magic freely. Why help the humans when they’ve done nothing but ruin you? Where you don’t have to be persecuted for being who you are. Where you can be free. Think about it.Imagine it.” Revna waved at the mist and fog spread above the ravine, as if her mind too was traveling to her picture-perfect world. “In this world, this beautiful world we wish to create, Katla could’ve been alive. She wouldn’t have had to die. That’s the kind of world we want to create. A world where our people are safe. Isn’t that everything you’ve wanted your whole life?”

That was exactly what Kolfinna had always wanted. It was the unattainable fantasy dream of every fae: to live normally. To not have to fear whether she would die tomorrow because someone found out who she was. To not have to be scared of what people would think of her. To be truly free.

Tears stung her eyes.

“But what’s the price?” Kolfinna asked, voice wobbly. “That the humans are enslaved beneath us? How does that create a better world? It’ll just reverse the roles. I want to live in a world”—her eyes met Blár’s, and for a moment, she remembered back when they were in the desert and she had smiled and joked with him. And how her heart had raced being so close to him—“where we can live together freely. Where we can look past our differences.”

Revna’s smile faded. “How can you love the oppressors? Your sister would be so disappointed, as well as your parents.”

Kolfinna thought of her parents, living happily in their countryside cottage deep in the woods. Her memories were foggy, and Katla had filled in the gaps for what she couldn’t remember. But she remembered that they had been happy, always. Even if she couldn’t remember everything, she had felt the warmth of their love.

She couldn’t even remember if they had been fully fae or not, but it didn’t matter.

“No,” she said softly. “They would’ve wanted the same.” Her voice grew stronger as she held onto the fragments she had left of them. “I want that world, Revna, but there are other ways we can achieve that. We can do it—”

“Humans are meant to be beneath us,” Revna snapped. “They’re a pathetic race that’s centuries behind us. They’ll never catch up and they’ll do everything to eradicate us. How can you side with them?”

“I can’t do what they’ve done to us,” she said.

“How disappointing.”

Revna flicked her wrist and stones smashed into Kolfinna’s chest, knocking the wind out of her. She fell backward, just as more stones wrapped around her body, keeping her stuck in place on the floor.The weight of the stones crushed her chest, sitting on her like a boulder.

“R-Revna, let me go!” Kolfinna tried pushing the stones to no avail. The stone embrace only tightened until breathing became difficult.

“I’m more worn out than I thought.” Revna rubbed her trembling hands. “All my mana is wasted already.”

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