Page 18 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen
I am no coward, Haakon signed, staring straight at Blár.
Blár lifted an eyebrow.
The lightning elemental made a few more signs, his fingers stiff and his movements jerky with barely constrained frustration.I will save Herja, even if none of you do.
It was a challenge. A bait. Something Blár wouldn’t have taken seriously, but there had been fire coursing through his frozen veins ever since Kolfinna was taken. The temperature inthe room dropped again, and he pursed his lips to keep from snarling an insult at the man. He wouldn’t have understood half of it anyway.
Blár had promised he would save Kolfinna, that he would free her from the fae’s clutches, but he didn’t have the faintest clue where to start. If it was up to him, he would storm the fortress and defeat every last person who’d caged her. But he needed to be strategic with his plan. If he failed, they both would die.
He shifted his attention to Hilda, who impatiently looked between the two of them, as if waiting for someone to translate. He frowned again—he was doing that a lot lately. “Do you have anything new to report? Or will we continue to wring our hands together uselessly?”
“We spoke of this during our last meeting. Do you remember, at the palace? There is an heir who will free the queen, and my proposed plan—” she began, turning her head to speak and glance at every member of the room.
“Was to exterminate all the fae in the country,” Blár spat with a wave. The genocidal notion had been insulting and insane to him back then, and was even more so on hearing it again.
Hilda’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t agree with me? If we had gone with my plan, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”
“You don’t know that,” he snapped, ice spreading from his fingers inadvertently and crackling over the surface of the table.
Gunnar, who had his hands splayed on the surface, quickly straightened and tucked his hands under his armpits.
Blár continued, “All you would have accomplished is strengthening the fae’s cause and causing more distrust, disruption, and chaos to society. Not to mention it’s morally wrong.” He waved a hand again, as if he could push away her absurd belief. “You make me sick.”
“You sound like a fae-lover.” She raised her chin to peer down at him from her sharp nose.
Blár’s lips curled into a dark scowl.This woman.
“Do you have anything new to share with us, or not?” Ivar interjected, turning his dagger in Hilda’s direction.
She glared at the dagger, her mouth trembling with anger. “Careful where you point that thing. Do youngsters these days simply have no manners? I have never felt so disrespected before. All I care about is protecting our country and our denizens! How I’m vilified for such a noble cause, I will never understand.”
A muscle on Ivar’s jaw ticked. “Do old hags who are past their prime care that they’re genocidal freaks?”
“Careful, boy.” Hilda narrowed her eyes to slits; her crinkled hands turned white with pressure as she clenched them over the table.
She was an Enhancer, but she was pushing retirement, and Blár was positive Ivar could take her on if it came down to it. He, like Herja and Haakon, was a candidate for a black rank. But with a mysterious fae and elf army looming on their border, stealing their territories, the last thing they needed was infighting, so Blár clapped his hands together to bring everyone’s attention to him.
“Get to the point, Hilda. Why did you ask us to come here? Is it to keep beating around the bush, never getting to your point? If you don’t have anything new to add, then I’m going to gather as many men as I can and break into that fortress myself.” And he meant it. If there was no plan to rescue Kolfinna or figure out the fae army’s weakness, then there was no reason for him to waste his time here. It had already been a week since the battle and he had waited, impatiently, for news—for a plan to be formed—and all that amounted to wasnothing.
“I see patience isn’t your virtue,” she said snidely, before gesturing to one of her men. The man leaned forward and murmured something in her ear, and she bobbed her head. He then nodded and left. Hilda folded her hands over the table once more and pinned a delicate smile on her face.
Blár tapped his finger on the table, the sound forming a consistent staccato in the tense room. The air was tense and electrifying surrounding Haakon, Ivar had ceased sharpening his dagger and was instead shifting it in the firelight to better see the edge, and everyone else shifted on their feet. Blár stared at Hilda, trying to gauge what she was feeling and what she was hiding. She must have known something, he decided, judging by that pompous smirk on her face.
Right when Blár’s patience was running thin, the flaps to the tent burst open and Hilda’s man returned, yanking on a chain as he did. Almost immediately, the stench of piss, shit, and sweat infiltrated the room. A man limped forward, his head hanging long and his long, stringy black hair curtaining his face. His clothes were torn and bloodied and every inch of his skin was bruised, cut, and caked with dried blood or mud.
Hilda’s man kicked the prisoner forward and he collapsed on the floor. Blár’s teeth ground together at the sight; the man had clearly been tortured and he was reminded of when Kolfinna had been whisked away by Hilda, and how she had undergone similar treatment. The thought sent razored talons over his spine, chilling the room further.
Was this man innocent like Kolfinna had been, or was he truly deserving of it?
“Who is this?” Ivar asked, crinkling his nose. “A fae?”
“No.” Hilda didn’t look at the man. She was instead staring straight at Blár. “You’ve worked with this man before.”
Blár glanced over at the man. He didn’t recognize him. “I’ve worked with hundreds of thousands of new faces. Who is he?”
Being a black rank, he oftentimes didn’t have time to get to know every single person he went on missions with. Usually, there were dozens of people involved in whatever he was tasked to do, and most of the time he couldn’t chat with every single one. Not that he wanted to, either.
It was something Hilda should have realized.
