Page 13 of A Queen This Fierce and Deadly

He’d just learned what he’d done—that he’d killed his brother.

And his eyes…

Something had broken in the fae king. Within a single moment, he’d become a shell of a man.

And even knowing he deserved it, pity stirred within me.

Without a word, Conreth backed away, shutting the door behind him. Lorian immediately turned his attentionback to me, his gaze searching my face.

I cleared my throat. “I want to sit up.”

He shoved several pillows beneath my head while I surveyed the cabin. My stomach rumbled, and he stepped away, opening the door and speaking to someone.

“The healer will return in a few minutes,” he said. “Tell me. All of it.”

So, I did. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I told him of my desperate, stumbling gait as I’d attempted to cross the ship to get to him. I told him how he’dleftme, and the way I’d felt his presence for a single moment right next to me. I told him of the way Telean had screamed at me, warning me not to do what I’d done next. And I told him about my mother, my grandmother, the consequences they’d warned of, and the fact that I could no longer feel a single spark of my power, even with the hourglass around my neck.

By the time I finished, my voice was dead. No more tears flooded down my cheeks. Lorian looked like I’d punched him in the gut, and when he caught my chin, his hand shook.

“You… I don’t need to tell you how dangerous that was. You already know it. Any consequences, we’ll face them together. But I need you to promise me, Prisca. Promise you will never do such a thing again.”

“I don’t think I’d even be able to,” I said. I didn’t tell him how I’d been feeling tiny slivers of my soul burning to ash. That I’d felt the gods take everything I had to give and demand more. And that if my mother and grandmother hadn’t been there to give me the tiniest pieces of whatever was left of their being…

I likely wouldn’t be here either.

Part of me wondered if I had hallucinated my mother and grandmother. If coming so close to death had simply allowed my imagination to provide me with the people I had wanted to see most.

But I remembered my mother’s gentle smile. And my grandmother’s wicked eyes.

“Change the world, granddaughter. And heal our kingdom.”

Heal our kingdom.

“What happened?” I asked. “I felt the barrier come down.”

Lorian nodded. Getting up, he opened the door, gesturing for the healer to enter. She was a small woman, with dark hair almost as curly as mine. Her eyes glimmered with curiosity, but they shifted immediately into the appraising look I’d seen on Tibris’s face a thousand times over the years.

“I’m Ceri,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Fine. Weak,” I admitted when Lorian narrowed his eyes at me. “And…I can’t feel my power.”

After a few minutes of taking my pulse, checking my breathing, and examining what felt like every inch of me with her magic, she pronounced me in need of rest. I wasn’t surprised. My body had begun to tremble from fatigue.

“And my power?”

“I don’t have much understanding of power like yours,” she admitted. “But I’m assuming it is simply a burnout. It is unlike anything I have seen before, but I expect your power will return.”

“Thank you,” I told her, attempting to silence the voice that asked me what I would do if it didn’t return.

She just nodded, opening the door and waving through a young girl who carried two bowls on a tray. She took the tray and nodded to the girl.

“Thankyou,” Ceri said to me. “My grandmother’s mother had family in Myrthos. The continent to our east,” she clarified when I frowned. “I’ve dreamed of visiting them my entire life. Now, with the barrier down, I’ll be able to.” She bowed her head at both of us, placed the tray on the bedside table, and bustled away.

“So, I died,” Lorian mused. “I knew something had happened, because I saw a single glimpse of Cavis. But I’d never imagined that could be it. Because our ship exploded, and you were drowning. I couldn’t get to you.” His eyes turned haunted. “It felt like several eternities before you began breathing again.”

Cavis. My eyes stung at the thought. I’d hoped he was truly at peace.

I frowned, my mind lingering on Lorian’s other words. The ship had exploded? Of course it had, because Conreth’s power must have missed Lorian. But that meant…

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