Page 71 of The Longing

I consider making a run for it, but I’m right in the midst of more Faerie than I think any human has ever seen, who are very clearly hostile towards me.

I don’t think I’d get far before I was turned into a frog.

The queen motions to him and he hands her my chain. She uses it to pull me towards her violently, causing me to fall to my knees. I cry out in pain and hate myself for it because it causes another wave of amusement among the Faerie throng.

“What we have here is the human who went with the Wyrm,” the queen announces to the room.

There are audible gasps followed by disgusted muttering. I don’t want to look, my face flaming, not because I’m embarrassed about Fenrother, but because I hate being on my fucking knees in front of this horrible queen.

“And she will bear the next generation,” she adds.

I lift my head. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” She glares down at me. “I suppose you want somethinghumanlike ascientific testto prove what I am saying, rather than believing nature. Because science has served you humans so well.” The queen sneers.

“It’s served you. Science kept us alive for a long time before you had to intervene,” I retort.

She laughs. It sounds like killer bells tinkling to warn of coming doom.

“The humans think we saved them,” she hisses at me. “We did not. We enslaved you instead.”

My blood halts in my veins. “You did what?”

“Faerie need humans,” she says dismissively, sitting back on her throne. “You were at risk of forgetting your place on the earth. Those we banished to the Night Lands might havedisagreed, but we know what the real threat is…a wave of humans taking over.”

“The virus…it was you?” As the realisation of what I’m being told slams into me, I see red. “You killed my parents.” I rise from my knees, glaring at her, my vision narrowed down.

“I did?” She doesn’t even bother to meet my heated gaze. “Then they weren’t worth saving.”

I manage to take two steps, my hands outstretched because I want to kill her, rage boiling within me, but the chain takes on a life of its own, wrapping around me until I fall again, but this time like a felled tree, all the air expelling from me as I hit the ground.

“Now, now.” The queen stands over me. “You don’t want to damage your young, do you?”

“Fuck you.”

“An ugly mouth on an ugly creature.” The male Faerie who was slobbering over the queen’s hand earlier moves into my eye line. “Put her in the dungeons.”

The queen gives him a sharp look, and I suspect he may have spoilt his chances of whatever it was he had hoped for.

“I want the Wyrm to be mine,” she announces. “So, his mate will be extended the courtesy of good quarters and good food, provided she gestates quietly.” The queen, glares coldly down at me. “For she wants to honour the memory of the Wyrm, after all.”

“Bitch,” I hiss. “What have you done to him? What have you done to Fenrother?”

“He brought his fate on himself,” she says imperiously. “Because no one disobeys me. Not even the Lambton Wyrm. He knows what he needs to do to ensure your survival, even if it means he loses his fight.”

“You already cursed him. What more do you want?”

This time she leans in to me, her face contorting to the one I saw on the top of Fenrother’s castle that night so long ago.

“His kind brought the curse on themselves. He deserves it, and he will pay for the crimes of his ancestors.”

She pushes me with her foot, and I roll twice before landing at Yarain’s feet. He looks down at me and curls his lip in what has become a familiar sign of disgust from a Faerie.

As I blink, I’m back in the prison room at the top of the tower. Only this time the window shutters are open. The chain uncoils from me, attaching itself back to the wall before I can stop it. I run at the opening, my arm at full stretch as I reach it, the fingertips of my free hand only just reaching the sill.

Outside the sky is an unnatural blue, too bright to be real, and as I crane my neck, I see what’s laid out below me, over the many undulating hills are mile after mile of low lying palaces, set around courtyards filled with magical plants, the artificial scents choking, the colours all wrong.

Without Fenrother, I am a mere human. And now I’m the Faerie queen’s prisoner, condemned to the tower until I give her what she wants.

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