Page 88 of The Crown of the Last Fae Queen
“And now that you can sympathize with the fae, with your parents, you think that they might be a better option than the humans?” His voice was completely neutral, and she had a hard time reading his shuttered expression, but her chest clenched together at his words. At the way he was digging at her own thinking. She didn’t want to face what he would think of her.
She stared down at her feet. “I … I really don’t know, Blár.”
It would have been so much easier to just follow the fae. To go along with Vidar. To free Aesileif.
But then she thought of all the humans she was friends with. All the humans she didn’t want to let down. Blár, the man she loved. Eyfura, who had been her first friend in a long, long time. Magni, Nollar, Herja, Inkeri, Ivar—all the people who had unexpectedly grown close to her. Eluf, Gunnar, even Fenris.
She didn’t want to think of them dying, or being imprisoned, or becoming slaves to the fae.
Her head throbbed painfully.
What was the right decision?
26
TWENTY-SIX – KOLFINNA
When they foundthe arched black doorway, relief and anticipation filled Kolfinna’s chest. She prayed that they would be sent back to reality with this door, but a secret part of her wished to see more of Aesileif and Vidar’s past. She wanted to unravel more of her own history. And a conflicted part of her wondered if there was something they could learn to use against the fae.
The instant they stepped through the door, chaos exploded all around them. A scream caught in her throat at the sights before them. They weren’t in the castle anymore. Instead, they were outside in a city, where the winter chill numbed her skin and the smell of burning flesh and charcoal pervaded the dense, ash-filled air. Women screamed, clutching their children and running as fast as they could; the elderly struggled to keep up. Fear struck the civilian’s faces. Soldiers took up every corner of the street, struggling as they fought against humans wielding the elements. Fae corpses filled the cobbled streets.
Kolfinna swayed on her feet, panic rising within her as fire arced through the sky, blazing as it exploded on one of the roofs. Fae women flew in the sky holding children in each arm, their skirts covered in blood and ash, but they were struck downwith air blasts and fire. Civilian fae men tried fighting back with swords, but they were no match against the trained soldiers.
The fae soldiers tried fighting, but their nature magic was nowhere to be found in the dead of winter. Only stone magic prevailed, but even then … it was clear they weren’t as proficient with it. The humans had the advantage.
Kolfinna clutched Blár’s arm, her body tensing as waves of nausea rolled over her. She couldn’t rip her eyes away from the horror. The children … She couldn’t bear to see their mutilated, small bodies.
She vomited on the side of the road, arms shaking, head spinning.
Blár held onto her, his own face bloodless.
She had thought she had seen war before, but this … this was something completely different. They weren’t fighting monsters, butpeople.
She watched as a fae woman tripped over a corpse; she screamed as one of the humans grabbed her by the ankles and yanked her toward a dilapidated building. He grinned evilly, and Kolfinna’s stomach dropped. She rushed over to help the woman, to fight off the cruel man, but her hands slid right through them both.
Another scream sounded from behind her, mixing with the cacophony of terror surrounding them. A man clutched the lifeless body of a woman. A woman screamed at her child’s remains. Another group cried and shouted as they were frozen with ice magic.
The scenes of horror continued endlessly.
Blár tugged on Kolfinna’s arm and led her through the streets. She could barely move, could barely speak, her body trembling.
“We need to find the queen,” Blár shouted above the yelling and booms of battle. “Kolfinna!”
A volley of arrows erupted in the sky, pinning down any fae who tried to run. The bodies slammed to the ground grotesquely; one narrowly missed Kolfinna and crashed beside her in a twisted position.
“Kolfinna!” Blár framed her face with his large, calloused hands. He stared at her until all she could see was the arctic blue of his eyes. “We need to find the queen. Remember, we’re only in a vision. This isn’t … this isn’t real.”
“But itwasreal.” Her stomach twisted again and she squeezed her eyes shut. Breathing through her nose, she tried to rid herself of the smell of death, blood, and destruction. The sounds of people dying, the guttural screams, the gurgling of blood. And the sights remained, too. The children. The women. The elderly. “This happened, Blár … All of this …”
And it had continued to happen for centuries under the humans’ rule.
“It’s not easy, I understand that, but Kolfinna, we need to move forward.” She could see the conflict flashing over his face, even as he tried to shutter his expression. Deep down, she knew they had to keep moving forward and find Aesileif, but another part of her couldn’t leave these people behind. She wanted to help, she wanted to scream for them, she wanted to … to dosomething.
She had read about it before, how the humans had fought the fae and defeated them in winter, since that was when their power was the weakest. Seeing it now made the horror even worse.
Some fae were able to use their nature power in winter;shehad been able to do it, too, with great difficulty. Most of the fae couldn’t use their powers like that, and it was killing them. Especially the civilians.
Her eyes were wet while Blár dragged her through the streets; she couldn’t stop staring, even as the images torethrough her chest. She could feel the blood drain from her face, leaving her feeling utterly cold and lifeless. A sick, twisted part of her couldn’t look away; these were her people. These were quite literally her mother’s subjects. And they were being brutally murdered.
