Page 28 of The Crowned Fae Queen
On silent footsteps, the man sprints across the room, poised to land against my bed. Slick and wet, I rip the knife from her flesh, standing and stretching my arm in one swift movement to shred the material that canopies above me. Ripping it down from its decorative home, I throw myself forward, unapologetic as my foot lands and pushes off from the women’s leg.
Light from the pile reflects off the metal that brushes by my face. A stinging cut forming along my cheekbone, shallow and already healing.
With a grunt, I wrap the material around my assailant’s arm and point the blade of the stolen knife at his face. “If you promise not to scream, I’ll make this painless.” I hiss the mockery of the women’s words.
The girl, her face hidden in the dark of the night, stands leaning heavily on her right leg. “I knew she wouldn’t be as easy as your guards.” She points to her friend. “You owe me my talkens.”
“Are you stupid?” The question is hardly finished as pain radiates from my jaw and pounds inside my head. My brain throbs from the whiplash as my head snaps to the side. The pain tastes metallic.
This is starting to feel personal. And personal it will get.
Pulling the material tight, I manage not to stumble too far back from the momentum of the man’s fist. I yank the sword from his hand and plunge it in and up his diaphragm. He moans, his hands pressing into the edges of the blade as if he means to pull it out. I do him the honors.
His body drops to the floor with a loud thud that covers the sound of the woman approaching me. She clings to my back, wrapping her legs around my waist and her forearm around my throat. Together, we fall backward. The tighter she flexes her arm and pulls, the harder it is to catch any breath, until I almost can’t breathe at all.
With my left hand I’m fighting her free hand, knowing how this ends if she’s able to slip it behind my head. With my right hand, I reach for her face. I rake my nails across her forehead, skin curling under my fingernails. Eyelashes rip away from her eye, the soft bubble of the organ seemingly slithering back inside her skull from the pressure, while I do my best to shove my finger inside her head. She screams, letting go of her hold and letting me roll away.
The door bursts open as Rigs and another guard bustle forward. They pull their swords. But I’m faster. I grip the sword that had fallen from our tussle and point it at the girl’s throat. She holds her eye.
I can’t help but examine this person. A woman I clearly had never seen before. Hazel eyes, well,eye,and black, braided hair. She lifts her chin, welcoming the steel under her jaw. Her chest heaving while she speaks.
“Get it over with. The king will have my head on a spike anyway.”
“I told you not to scream,” I snarl, waving at Rigs and the other man to stand back.
Boots shuffle into the doorway. “Syren!” Iri calls, maneuvering into the room. “Are you okay?”
The snarl on my lips doesn’t change as I look him in the eye. Blood pools in my mouth, and I spit silver across the guard’s feet. “You’re late.”
“I came to save you.” He laughs under his breath, crossing his arms. His gaze turns to the remainder of my room. Bedding shredded across the floor, blood staining the sheets, the man belly down in a puddle of his own blood. I wonder what I look like to him. A busted lip, blood dotting my cheek and sporadically soaking through my gown so that the material clings against my body. My breasts peaked from the cold under the thick blood of lowly murderers. “But I see you don’t need saving.”
I press the sword into the assassin's toffee skin. She winces, still holding her eye.
“I don’t want her head on a stick. I want her to burn.” I look out my window then back to my husband. He shakes his head at the notion, a plea to smother the burning rage that consumes me.
“I want her to burn!” I shriek, throwing the sword behind me and grabbing the woman's collar. She hardly fights as she stumbles forward, a grimace souring her features. The guards follow behind us, swords still drawn, mouths parted in awe.
“Syren, you're not thinking clearly.” Bear glares down at the woman, visions of all the choices he would make bouncing around like an untold story of horror. He would slit her wrists and watch her die in a bath of her own blood. He would torture her, peeling away her nails and layers of skin. He would unleash his magic upon her until her body became nothing but ash floating in the breeze.
“You want to know what I think.” I jerk the woman forward. “I think this bitch and her pathetic boyfriend tried to kill me in my own fucking bed.”
The hallways are still, my bellowing causing guards to shift from their position, to follow the unnatural noise. They turn away when they see the blood on my hands. A tangy copper taste still sticks to the creases of my lips.
Quietly, the woman stumbles to gain traction and stand, though she doesn’t resist the direction. She doesn’t cry out like I expect her too, like I really want her to. One dark eye, red-rimmed and glassy, watches me. Blood trickles out from under her hand.
Guards sprint to open the doors that lead out to the courtyard. Some guards hold their composure, others gape with open jaws.
Starlight trickles across the frost-covered grass. An orange hue blankets the east corner. Not a soul is outside to witness the assassin’s death—no one but the few guards out on patrol. With King Iri at my side, they do nothing but stare down from their faraway perches.
My feet stop as I feel the heat radiating off the flickering flames. Rotten and overwhelming, the scent of burning flesh fills my nose. Vomit waits in a lump at the base of my throat above the rolling nausea in my stomach.
“Syren,” Iri sings, his eyes glazed over with boredom, his tone devoid of empathy. Despite his outward appearance for everyone else, I can sense his true concern. “Toss her onto the flame. She deserves to burn alive.”
Don’t be that Queen. It’s my job to be hated for my swift cruelty. The look doesn’t suit you.
I laugh, throwing the girl on her knees. The sheen of sweat on her forehead shines in the light of the blazing pile. “You think cruelty doesn’t suit me? That living through everything that I have doesn’t give me the right to be?”
Don’t do this,Iri whispers.Look around you. Don’t rule through fear as I have.
