Page 158 of Faeling
Whatever Leita did to her, Ravenna felt herself scooped out and laid bare. Her innards were spread across the floor, every bone and nerve and secret exposed. Her wings trembled against her back, shuddering as if they wished to curl up beneath hershoulder blades and hide.
But there could be no hiding.
When the magic pressed against her lips and nose, Ravenna let it. She held Leita’s awful gaze, and it was like looking at the sizzling white energy of a lightning bolt. It burned her from head to toe, but Ravenna wouldn’t look away.
She let Leita see it. Everything. She stared down the inferno of a wildfire, a scared little orphan girl. That was all she was. All she’d ever been was a halfling girl who wished for a different life. A scared little girl who, for a brief, wonderful moment, had had everything she wanted—a mate who loved her, a life worth living.
But scared little girls could hurt people, and that’s what she’d done. In her need for vengeance, she’d allowed herazaito be put in danger. Her hurts had become the hurts of others, and it was a wound she could never heal from.
But at least she could lance the poison.
“Do you swear it?” Leita asked, her voice gone deeper, as though it was some other, more ancient entity who spoke.
“Yes.”
Something burned around her neck—the most pain Ravenna had ever felt—but in a moment, it was gone.
The magic reeled back, rushing home to Leita. It left nothing but a few dust motes whirling through the air, and yet its impact was so profound, it left Ravenna altered. Reshaped.
She sat there for a long moment, unable even to blink.
“You’ve sworn to it,” Leita intoned. “Should this not come to pass, your life is forfeit.”
Air rushed into Ravenna’s lungs, and she sucked in great gulps to fill her chest. She touched her throat to feel the phantomburn of their bargain.
Fates, she didn’t know fae coulddo that.
Perhaps only Queens could.
Meeting Leita’s gaze, not quite so terrible now, Ravenna nodded. Very well. Her life was forfeit anyway.
“Then so be it,” Leita whispered, sealing their pact.
Ravenna’s tears came rushing back, her relief exquisite and agonizing. She thanked Leita in burbling sobs before her face fell to the woman’s lap. There she cried, her heart overwhelmed by new, excruciating hope.
The congealed, dried blood on Vallek’s chest and arms itched something fierce. In his darker moments, he would’ve traded his kingdom for someone to scratch the brown flakes off and bring him some relief.
Of course, there was no relief in this dark place.
Even in the daylight, the citadel of Fallorian was shrouded in shadow. Ancient banners hung by threadbare ropes, and moldering curtains spanned the tall, narrow windows. Dust and decay was the only scent, a carpet of muzzy gray obscuring the inlay pattern on the marble floor.
From his place in one of the many niches of the citadel, chained and with his back to the pedestal where a statue had once been, Vallek could clearly see how the great bastion was crumbling away. If he cared to see, at least. Which he didn’t.
There was nothing in this dead place save for him—and sometimes a cruel shadow.
“Your people send word.”
Vallek didn’t bother looking up to witness the Fae Queen’s theatrics. She was fond of dissolving in and out of shadows, throwing her voice from across the room, and using her magic to make floorboards creak or curtains flutter somewhere she wasn’t. She meant to frighten him, unnerve him, and Vallek took great delight in being neither.
No better than an untamed onager throwing a fit, she had tried for the better part of a day to scare him, break him. For now, she played nice, no doubt aware that too much malice would push them both past the brink of war.
Of course, she was prone to losing her temper. Hence the first set of claw marks.
A cold rush of air battered his face. Vallek sneezed from the dust that rushed up his nose.
“She will trade herself for you.”
Damn you, sprite.
