Page 114 of The Beast King's Bride

This time when he flicks his fingers at the guards and they reach for me, I let them take my arms and lead me away, my vision blurry, my feet leaden.

It’s for the best, I tell myself. I did tell Jassin that I was putting everyone in danger by staying, provoking the Empress’s anger, causing her to throw more monsters at them, making the attacks more vicious.

I should have left on my own already. This is for the best.

I’m given a thick dress to wear, boots, and I’m bundled inside a thick woolen cape. It occurs to me that these are the clothes I’d chosen to run away in, and the irony isn’t lost on me.

Maybe he put them there, in that closet. Maybe he’d planned on sending me away all along, once he got tired of me.

Maybe the dragon’s attack showed him just how much of a liability I am—and obviously not important enough to keep around at such a risk.

I understand.

It doesn’t make it hurt any less. He didn’t have to lie to me all this time, lie so well, telling me he loved me, showing me he cared.

I thought the Fae couldn’t lie.

Which has turned out to be a lie in itself. They may not lie outright but their half-truths and cryptic comments are even worse. And what had Jassin said—that the common Fae cannot lie… Does that mean that the Fae kings can?

Wait until I tell the folks back home about it, about how so much we believe of the Fae is wrong.

Only… I don’t want to share with anyone what I know, what I experienced. I don’t want what I had—what I thought I had—with Talen to be common knowledge, to be woven into yet another tale, distorted and twisted until it serves as another warning against the Fae.

Though it should. It really should. I knew the stories about the Fae stealing your heart and then smashing it to bits, not caring, cruel and unfeeling, and I thought I’d seen right through it, that I’d seen the truth.

But it hadn’t been the truth at all. It was an elaborate game. Such an elaborate ruse, just to use me and destroy me.

I’m barely holding on to the shreds of my sanity as I’m helped onto a horse, four guards falling into formation around me on gray horses. I almost break down when I realize the horse I’m riding is Embar, the same horse I entered Faerie on.

Another cruel joke, though Embar turns his head and whinnies softly at me as if recognizing me. I pat his neck with a trembling hand.

The Seneschal is waiting by the palace gates as I’m led to them, his finely wrinkled face grave. “Fare thee well,” he says. “The king should not have sent you away. I have lived a long time. If the Decay and its monsters take me now, I will accept it, but he is giving up the fight altogether.”

I have to look away, my face crumpling. “Fare thee well, Seneschal. Don’t let the monsters take you. Share your knowledge with him, advise him. The Gods know he needs all the advice he can get.”

The grand gates of the palace grate open and the horses puff clouds of white in the frigid air. The guards ram their helmets on, not looking at me as they nudge their horses forward.

Embar follows without needing my lead as if he knows where we’re going.

And after all, he knows the way. As we trot out of the palace and start down the snowed main road, I let my tears flow. Nobody is going to notice, witness them. They roll down my cheeks and dry instantly, leaving tracks of snow crystals.

Striped like the tyger into which the king turned, striped with sorrow and grief, marked forever. How do you come back from something like this—from giving yourself over completely to ending up smashing against a wall of stone and indifference, against a mask you thought was gone?

We take a different route from the one we took almost a month ago, and I wonder if the Decay has swallowed Fertune, the city built on top of the giant tortoise, the pink and white meadows we crossed, the white towns on the hills.

We canter through narrow passages between steep standing rocks of black basalt, skirt small villages, and galop down winding roads among fields and pastures.

I keep glancing back while the palace is still visible, black against the cloudy sky, its roof capped with snow.

Talen.

Despite his cold dismissal, I can’t stop thinking about him, wondering if his wounds are healing, if the monsters will attack again, if his men will fight to the end at his side.

Despite everything, I love him. I can’t quite muster up enough anger to stop the fresh tears welling in my eyes. Can’t muster anything. I’m numb. I don’t want revenge. I want him to call me back.

But we keep cantering, moving away from the palace. Away from him.

It takes us most of the day to reach the lake that seems to be the gate to the human world. It had all happened too fast to realize last time, Talen’s arm around me as we’d leaped out of the water on Embar’s back.

---