Page 87 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen
Kolfinna turned away as Aesileif cried against his chest once more. He reassured her with sweet words, but she could hear the grief in his voice as well. It made everything all the harder. It made more sense, too, why Aesileif had been pregnant too early in the prior vision—she had likely lost that baby. How many years had passed since then?
Suddenly, Kolfinna’s hands grew clammy and nausea rolled in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to be here, witnessing this. It was too private a moment.
Somehow, she could see Aesileif lose her entire family, and although it had shaken her to her core, it hadn’t bothered her more than witnessing this. Becausethismade her birth, and her subsequent betrayal of her parents’ values, all the more bitter.
They had truly longed for Kolfinna.
Did it break Vidar’s heart to see her align with the humans who had taken everything from them?
The thought shattered something in her heart more than the idea of her parents using her as a tool for the war, because this wasn’t a scene of a brutal, wicked woman trying to create an heir for her own purposes. This was the broken moment of a woman desperately wanting her baby.
“Kolfinna?” Blár tentatively touched her elbow and she flinched from the contact.
“I’m fine,” she bit out. She felt like she was saying that a lot lately.
“Are you really?” He didn’t sound convinced, and when he waved toward Aesileif and Vidar, something on his face told her that he understood what she was feeling. “Does this change anything for you? Because this might be what they want. Do we have any proof that any of this is real?”
“I don’t know.” Her lower lip wobbled. “I don’t know, Blár. It could be fake—all of this. But what if it isn’t? What if?—”
“If it is real, does it change anything for you?” There was a challenge in his voice. An intonation that told her it didn’t change anything for him. And why should it? Even villains had their moments of weakness.
But these weren’t just any people—these were herparents. She couldn’t ignore all of this and pretend that she didn’t see it all, didn’t feel the grief, the horror, the devastation that this war had caused for them. Aesileif had been such a simple, sweet girl who hadn’t wanted power, but had silly girlish dreams of falling in love with a handsome prince and attending fancy balls. But the brutal murder of her family had forced her to wear the heavy crown of the fae.
Had Aesileif even wanted any of this? Something told herno.
If any of this was even real, did it really change how Kolfinna felt about the war? She didn’t know anymore. Because on one hand, she wanted to free her people from oppression, and she had thought that dream would grow through working harmoniously with the humans and showing them that there was a future with both peoples together. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if the fae could achieve what the humans hadn’t been able to do in centuries?
Aesileif wasn’t evil. She could see that much. And Vidar … he wasn’t entirely villainous either.
Kolfinna’s head began to pound and when the image of Aesileif and Vidar faded and they were left alone in the room,she was more than eager to search for the arched doorway that would lead them out of here. Hopefully, for good.
“Kolfinna.” Blár grabbed her hand when they were in the middle of the hallway, searching for a way out. “We need to talk.”
“I’m not in the mood?—”
“Are you serious?”
She turned to him sharply. “Yes?—”
“That’s your defense mechanism. Run, hide, andavoid.” He folded his muscular arms over his chest, and she hated how smug he sounded—like he could read her completely. “This is why you couldn’t tell me who you were from the beginning, because you still can’t trust me completely. You want to keep everything to yourself to protect yourself. You don’t want to rely on me, or anyone else.”
Her creeping headache only grew worse. She gritted her teeth together until her jaw hurt. “I can trust you, Blár, but I’m just not in the mood to talk about any of this.”
“You don’t have to talk to me if you’re not ready, but I don’t want you to hide your emotions until you finally explode. You grow anxious easily, and it eats away at you. Do you think I wouldn’t notice?”
“Then give me space.” She didn’t even know what she wanted, but talking would only make everything worse. She didn’t want to think of her parents, being the heir, and all of this. She didn’t want to navigate her warring emotions, her conflicting thoughts. The way her view was swaying.
“I’ll give it to you,” he said, eyeing her as if she would crumble at any second. “But we’re finally alone, here, Kolfinna. We have this entire …” He looked around himself, eyebrows drawn. “… whatever this place is, to ourselves. We don’t have to worry about the half-elf coming here and listening, or the others. We can talk without restraint.”
Silence filled the space between them as they rounded a corner, then another. She snapped open doors, looked inside the darkness, then snapped them shut. Over and over, her mind becoming numb and her thoughts becoming restless. Finally, when she couldn’t hold it in anymore, she whispered, “I don’t know what to think about any of this.”
Blár glanced down at her; his blue eyes appeared sharper than usual. “It must be difficult to see all of this.”
“It was easier to fight them when they were monsters in my mind,” she said thickly. “When they didn’t have emotions, or when they were just an idea. And I’m not just talking about Vidar and Aesileif. I mean the fae army in general. They’re all fighting for a place in this land. A place where the fae can live freely.”
“And where do humans stand in it?”
“I don’t know, but what I do know is that the fae don’t belong in the human’s ideal world,” she said with barely concealed fury. “No matter how hard I fight, I know that the humans … will never truly accept me. People like Hilda will always exist, and she will always try to erase me and my people.”
