Page 13 of The Kingdom of Flames and Ash

I had to get back to Lira. For all we knew, the dragons were coming back for her, or my own people were trying to capture her to use against me since she was my onetrueweakness.

I couldn’t survive without her.

Apart from a handful of people, I wasn’t sure who in my kingdom I could trust anymore. All the loyalty I’d thought they had shown me for the past twelve years had merely been them feeling as if they didn’t have a choice.

Lira had been right all along. I hadn’t fostered respect but fear, and the first chance they’d had to dethrone me, they hadn’t hesitated.

My icy chest could shatter at any moment. Everything I’d believed to be fact had been shredded before my eyes in less than twelve hours. Not only had my people turned on me, but the Seelie hadn’t murdered my parents. My father had taken both my mother’s and his own life.

I would never have believed it possible, but Lira’s adoptive mom hadn’t minced words or tried to be vague to make us assume anything. She’d been direct and had spoken with something haunting in her eyes.

When I made the turn that would lead me back to the castle entrance, I smelled Lira’s wild rose, mist, and vanilla scent, and my heart thawed. It was like coming home.

I should’ve known that she’d find a way to follow me, but I hadn’t expected her to catch up so quickly with her injured wings.

When my gaze landed on her standing between her mom and dad, I realized one of them must have carried her. The concern and fear swirling from her had me flying up behind her.

Fates, no.

The Unseelie weren’t trying to free Eldrin. A group of about twenty of them were hovering over the jagged mountaintop, firing arrows with volcanic rock arrowheads and slinging pieces at the Seelie guards.

Then, the Unseelie nearby were using their frost and illusions magic against the “enemy” guards. Even though my own magic was low, I could sense it around them.

The Seelie fae had clearly been caught off guard, a few lying still on the damaged stone streets, golden blood pooling underneath them.

“We have to do something,” Hestia rasped, darting out the window to join the fight.

“Mom,” Lira shouted, but her dad blew out the window, following his wife. “Dammit.” Her terror sank its claws into our bond, making my chest even tighter.

“We must stop them.” I turned to Struan and the three guards who always seemed to be with him. “Our people attacked when I told them not to.”

Struan nodded. “Uaine, go alert the other guards. The three of us will detain the twenty on the mountaintop while the rest of the guards stop our people from fighting in the streets.”

“Yes, sir.” Uaine spun toward the prison area once again with his silver wings beating so fast it could pass for one movement.

“The rest of you, follow me.” Struan flew down the hall in the direction of the insurgent Unseelie with the two guards close on his wings.

A part of me wanted to stay here and protect Lira, but she wasn’t the one in peril… at least, not this second. “The Unseelie are focused on the guards who organized our journey to this ruined place after my parents died.”

One thing I’d learned from Lira’s actions was that I couldn’t expect my people to do something that I wouldn’t do myself, so I followed Struan and linked to Lira,Go to our bedchamber, lock the door, and stay there until I tell you it’s safe to exit once again.

As I flew out the last window, a bitter laugh sounded behind me, and I didn’t have to turn around to know it came from her. I waited for her to threaten or yell at me, but when our bond remained silent, a shiver ran down my spine.

I glanced back where she’d been standing, but she was gone.

She had to be up to something. Something she wouldn’t inform me of, which meant I had to resolve the situation quickly.

The ten Unseelie, who had bows and arrows, nocked in tandem and released. The arrows shot toward the base of the castle stairs where most of the higher-ranking Seelie guards were protecting the king and the queen. A few of the Seelie guards lifted their hands, directing the wind, and the weapons hit behind the village. Still, a few arrows made impact, and two different blasts rocked the castle, the village around it, and even the area behind the village close to the cave where we grew mushrooms.

Blast, no.

Several Seelie screamed, but the ones in the back where the attack hadn’t been aimed had made it to the center of the village, using their powers and weapons to fight my kind.

This had to stop now before more perished. I couldn’t fathom how my people could be so asinine as to target our enemy when we were at our weakest and fighting among ourselves, let alone against an army that had about the same number of guards here as there were Unseelie alive.

I connected to the trickle of magic I had to amplify my voice and commanded, “Put down your weaponsnow. The Seelie aren’t here to threaten us.”

Half my people obeyed, stepping back to the edges of the stone path. The others didn’t seem to register that I’d said a blasted thing. They didn’t pause in their fighting, including the ones with the volcanic rock that was devastating the village below.

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