Page 58 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen
When she reached the connecting doorway that led to another hall of the fortress, she seized it like a lifeline and flung it open. She stumbled forward and into the corridor. She could feel her leg—which had been hit with electric magic—begin to heal, the stinging becoming less pronounced. But her stomach wasn’t healing. Not in the slightest.
“Help!” she croaked, falling to her knees in the middle of the hall. Her fingers dug into the thick red rugs as she tried crawling. “Help!”
She could hear urgent footsteps running on the floor, but her vision was fading and she couldn’t tell if it was a fae soldier running to her aid, or an assailant. A shout sounded from behindher, and she felt the unmistakable shaking as a stone was ripped from the floor and chucked at someone.
She peeled her eyes open to find two fae soldiers kneeling beside her. One of them cursed, glanced up at something behind her, and then turned to his partner.
“Get the commander,” the female fae said.
“What about the man?”
“He’s dead, anyway. I’ll stay here and protect her.”
“Is she …?”
“She’s still breathing. Get the commander,now!”
A sigh of relief escaped from her. They were here to help her, somehow. She could hear the distant booms and shakes as Yrsa fought the assailants. How many of them were there at this point? When she had left the room there had been three. Had one of them followed her?
“Princess Kolfinna.”
The female fae slowly shifted her until she was lying on her back. She groaned as a piercing pain stung in her belly, and tears prickled her eyes with the motion.
The woman inhaled sharply, her hands brushing over Kolfinna’s wounds. “What happened?”
“Assassins.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if that would keep the pain away. “There were three of them.”
Time seemed to move agonizingly slowly as more fae warriors filled the hallway. The cold seeped into her bones, rattling her to the core. She could feel her life draining away every second that she laid there. Her head became light.
“Kolfinna.”
A trickle of warmth thawed the chill of death from her belly. Slowly, her vision righted itself and she could feel the strength returning to her weak limbs. She blinked up to find Vidar holding her gently, one hand pressed to her abdomen. Golden light glowed from his hand.
“Vidar?”
His face was twisted in a fury she had never seen before. His white eyebrows were drawn together, his jaw locked tight, and his shoulders taut like he would spring forward and kill the nearest person. Bloodlust clung to him like a second skin, and his wings were flared out behind him to their full span.
But it wasn’t her safety that he truly cared about, she thought as she blinked slowly, his anger only seeming to magnify. If she died, then all his hopes of seeing his beloved wife would vanish, too.
He brushed back a stray tear on her cheek. “Who did this?” His words came out calmly, methodically, like he was discussing something mundane. And yet the look in his eyes told another story. Cold, wintry vengeance lay in the blood-like depths of his eyes.
“They entered my room.” A bitterness sharpened her words as she stared at him accusingly. If only he hadn’t kept her locked away, magicless. “I couldn’t use my abilities. I was completely useless against them.”
His expression remained the same, unbothered by the vitriol in her tone. He turned to one of the soldiers closest to them. “Bring me their heads. All but one.”
“Yes, sir.”
A shiver ran down her spine at the ominous air that hung around him. He shifted his attention back to her, and something about the look on his face made her shrink back. “The humans you love so much attacked you.”
“We don’t know—” Her lower lip wobbled and she couldn’t say the next words. They didn’t know for sure if the attackers were on the human side. What if they were … Ragnarök members?
“You don’t know what?” Vidar lifted a white brow. “You don’t know whether or not they serve the humans?”
“Well … maybe …” Her weak defense sounded lifeless to even herself. There was no denying that the assassins worked for the humans. Did that mean that they knew who she was? That she was the key to freeing the queen? An uneasiness pulled at her chest.
“Kolfinna, you were stabbed three times.” As if to prove his point, his hands glowed more, and the pain subsided substantially. “You cannot think well of these humans when they have tried to kill you. This is not the first time someone has tried to assassinate you.”
A shock ran through her system at those words.
