Page 41 of What did you do?

It would be almost impossible to tell which one had it until their powers came.

The horrible stench of misplaced smoke caught my senses.

“You almost did it.”

I whipped around to see the Unseelie Queen Tenebris standing mere feet behind me. Her hands were coated in black all the way up to her elbows, while the rest of her porcelain skin was covered in veins of black. Her dark, butterfly-shaped wings of smoke pulsed. Though normally pristine, she was disheveled, black streaks of blood staining her lips and eyes.

“You’re alive,” I whispered.

How could she be here? Thanes was to have killed them. News of the violent bloodshed that filled the Unseelie castle had been running rampant all evening.

Her pale eyes took in the oblivious, laughing children around the corner of the house.

“Children, Saracen?” She wrinkled her pointy nose at me with a look of disgust.

How dare the empress of darkness and evil pass judgment on me?

“Yes, Tenebris.” I smiled. “Apparently your husband and I need something significantly more powerful to kill you, as it seems our creations were unsuccessful,” I bit out.

“Unfortunately, you and Thanes are quite finished running experiments on humans. You really haven’t the need for anymore monsters. Even with no powers, you could pass as one,” she said with a smile that left her eyes hollow.

I held firm, but truthfully, doing so provoked every sense in my body to scream at me to flee. With no real powers, I stood next to her feeling weak at best.

“Seems as though they did quite a number on that bony face of yours. I can hardly see your sallow skin, covered in all of that blood. Thanes will never be happy with you. Never. He loves me,” I snarled, taking a step closer.

“Such an adorable noise. Tell me, how did you learn it, being unable to shift like the rest of the royals?” Tenebris looked at her torn black dress and arms covered in blood. “But yes, it’s true. The creatures Thanes made were quite…equipped, but you are mistaken in assuming that this is my blood.”

“Wha—”

“Mendax has killed Thanes, and I am here to finally kill you, Saracen. Something I’ve been wanting to do since you involved yourself with my king and husband.”

“No…”

Tenebris stepped into me.

My vision began to blur, and my stomach tightened into a thousand knots as her words started to sink in. “No! No! You wench. You lie, you didn’t kill him! You didn’t!” I screamed at her.

The sun filled my entire body with shimmering gold beams of light. This was about the extent of my powers—shimmering. Thankfully I had pocketed some of Aurelius’s light before I left him in the forest.

The smoke in her palms shifted into long, tentacle-like talons.

“You’re right. I didn’t. My son, Mendax, killed him,” she said with a pained look.

She waslying. There was no way Mendax would kill his father. “You lie. That child adored Thanes. He wouldneverkill him!” I shouted.

“You are correct,” she said with a pained crease of her brows. “Mendax did adore him. But he also loves me, and between Thanes and your…whatever you call them, Fallen fae creatures, I would havebeen dead had it not been for my son.” Her eyes glimmered.

“No! Noooo!” I bellowed, feeling my protest rise from the soles of my feet as I hurled one of Aurelius’s orbs of fiery light at her.

This couldn’t be happening. She had ruined everything. I had just killed my sweet, kind Felix. I had left my own son in a human forest.

“I have losteverythingbecause of you!” I screamed. “You and your son will pay for this if it’s the very last thing I ever do!”

She dodged the orb easily, pushing out a gust of smoke to repel it.

I sent every morsel of power I had collected at her, one giant ray of fiery SunTamer power after the other, butsomehow, everything I sent to her was either pushed away or absorbed with her smoke.

She effortlessly held the upper hand.

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