Page 31 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen
She shook her head, tilting her face up toward the hot water streams. That was a worry for another day, she decided. First, she had to escape from this tower if she had any hope of romance with Blár.
After her self-pitying session was pretty much over, she cleansed her body with the hard soaps sitting in the indents of the wall. They smelled nice, like spring flowers. Lavender, mostly, but with hints of other floral scents. She washed her whole body twice, scrubbing so hard she was sure her skin would peel off. It was only when she got to her back that she hissed with pain once more.
The two angry lines where her wings had been cut off burned when the water directly pebbled over them, and when she brushed her fingers over the delicate skin, she was shocked to find the scars were raised and even more vividly red than before; the skin surrounding it was irritated, uncomfortable, and bumpy.
Another sense of unease washed over her. What was happening to her body? Her back had been extremely itchy and uncomfortable back when her elf powers had first emerged all those weeks ago, but the discomfort had subsided since then. But now it was back in full force, or at least in the shower it was.
She quickly washed her body once more and stopped the water. Steam fogged up the glass walls and the mirror. She snatched one of the stacked towels from one of the shelves on the wall and wrapped her body in it. The shelf above the towels held beauty products—hair brushes, an array of soaps, bottles of glass perfumes, scented oils, and other objects she didn’t fully recognize. This reallywasn’tlike a prison cell, she thought as she touched the assortment of products.
Kolfinna pushed the door of her room open to find Aslaug right where she’d left her, sitting on her bed with a glazed look in her eyes as she stared at her book. A howling wind swept insidethe room through the slats of the barred window. Shivering, she gingerly walked over to the trunk near her bed, keeping the towel wound tightly around her body. She knelt beside it and quickly unlatched the padlock.
“What happened to your back?”
Kolfinna stiffened, not bothering to look at the woman. “Nothing.”
“You … used to have wings?”
“Yes.” She hoped her response was enough to not warrant further questions, but from the corner of her eye she noticed Aslaug watching her. She didn’t want to talk about her clipped wings with a stranger, and she definitely didn’t want to broach the subject of why her skin was so irritated. Actually, she didn’t want to talk at all. She wanted to crash into the bed and fall asleep.
Kolfinna sifted through colorful fabrics, barely glancing at the beautiful garments. She grabbed the simplest one—a soft, full sleeved powder-blue dress that didn’t attract much attention.
Aslaug continued to watch her with those sad, sad brown eyes. Finally, she resumed reading her book, her shoulders dropping. A sting of guilt jolted in Kolfinna’s chest; it was probably the first time in a long time that this woman had had anyone to talk to. A part of her wanted to step forward and offer some consolation, but the bigger part of her was too exhausted, too mentally drained and overwhelmed.
She placed her dress on the foot of the bed and, before she could change her mind, crawled underneath the covers, the towel still draped over her body. She curled into a ball and breathed in the scent of soap from her sopping hair and skin. She just wanted to rest her eyes for a few minutes, too tired to care about anything else in that moment.
10
TEN – KOLFINNA
Kolfinna dreamed of Blár—ofhis handsome smile, his snarky words, his charming laughter. She cried in her dreams, trying to race to him, trying to fall into his arms, but the more she ran, the further the distance between them grew.
She awoke to someone shaking her shoulder. When she peeled her gritty eyes open, the remnants of the dream still clinging to her, she squinted up at Astrid, who stood sheepishly beside her bed.
“Sorry to wake you,” the white-haired fae said. “It’s time for you to get ready for dinner.”
For a moment, Kolfinna was confused as to what she was talking about, but then everything slammed into her—the tower, Aslaug, dinner with Vidar—and she slowly sat upright, the towel almost falling off her shivering body. She held it close to her; her hair was still wet, and she was colder now, the dampness seeping into her bones.
“I’d rather avoid dinner,” Kolfinna said, stretching her body. She remembered the last time she’d had dinner with Vidar, and how disastrous that had been—all they had done was argue.
“Why?” Astrid plucked the powder-blue dress Kolfinna had chosen and raised it up to examine it in the firelight. Shefrowned, tossing the dress back into the open trunk, and bent down to rifle through it. “You can’t wear something so simple. This is your first appearance as the princess.”
“It’s not my first appearance.” Kolfinna glanced over at Aslaug, who was flipping through her book again. She was reading the beginning this time, and Kolfinna noted that before her nap, the poor woman had been near the end of the book. Did she … have nothing better to do? Had she been rereading the same book for the past eight years? A shiver ran down her spine at that thought.
“Well, it’s your first appearance to everyone stationed at this town.” She shrugged, pulling out a moss-colored dress with a cinched waistline, a heart-shaped neckline, and sleeves with golden leaves embroidered over them. She held it out to Kolfinna, nodding to herself. “This is perfect.”
“You people seem to obsess over the color green,” she mumbled, taking the dress from Astrid’s hands as she rose up to her feet. The previous dress she had worn had been a shade of green, too.
“We are fae—what do you expect?”
Astrid grabbed the corner of the towel and yanked it off. Kolfinna’s hands went straight to her breasts, her mouth hanging open in surprise as Astrid pooled the dress on the floor for her to step into.
“You—You can’t just do that.” Heat colored her cheeks and she quickly glanced at Aslaug, who was still reading, though Kolfinna wasn’t sure if she was forcing herself to do that to give her some privacy. “Astrid?—”
“What? We’re all women here. What’s the problem?” Astrid lifted an eyebrow and then motioned to the dress at her feet. “Come on. Step in.”
Kolfinna wanted to argue with her, but she also wanted to dress as quickly as possible, so she did as Astrid said, her cheeksstill red with embarrassment. She didn’t like being naked in front of anyone; she could just imagine what others would say about her body. She was still shaken from how the Royal Guards had treated her.
Astrid pulled the dress up, pausing to lace the back. She pushed aside Kolfinna’s still-damp hair and her fingers brushed over the raised scars. “Something strange is happening with your back.”
