Page 69 of The Beast King's Bride

Our races intermingled, and that helped us to look more like them, maybe be more like them, but then the lands of Faerie sank and our people saw each other less and less.

Maybe we’re wrong to think of the Lesser Fae as that—as lesser. Maybe we’re just terrified that deep inside we are just like them. They’re older than us. We Fae always abhor the old.

And of course, that’s another reason why everyone in this ballroom stares at me in anger. I have horns. I have been turned into a Lesser Fae, reverting, regressing to an older form, losing control over my appearance and obviously my magic, so how is it that I’m still sitting on the throne?

Not for long, I think, fear not. Not for long now. I have been made into an aberrance. A freak. And I’m almost at end of my endurance.

The Lesser Faeries don’t evaporate like the insects and animals, of course. They’re only her forerunners, her harbingers. Her vanguard. They stroll inside, their mounts snarling at the guests, widening the corridor for her to pass. The perfume of the flowers is overrun by that of wet fur and animal musk.

The fireflies vanish, though, and an expectant hush falls as four ogres enter wielding clubs, their tusks tipped in silver. They’re followed by goblins with faces like mantises and folded bat wings on their backs.

I fight my impatience and frustration, the rising anger matched by the pain in my body. This is verging on the ridiculous and yet it makes my blood run cold. I hate it.

I hate her.

But I won’t show any emotion to anyone. My mask is firmly in place, my expression schooled to display boredom. I stretch out my wounded leg, doing my best to present the very picture of nonchalance and insouciance.

Ash hasn’t come.

No, don’t think about that, I tell myself. This is bad enough as it is. Don’t let the Empress read you.

The horns blare again as the Empress finally enters on a litter, white and fashioned in the shape of a river boat, gleaming pale wood with eyes painted in crimson and white on the sides, carried on the back of a griffin of the northern plains.

The crowd jerks back this time as the monster stalks inside, spreading its feathered wings, eagle talons scratching grooves on the marble floors, its hind lion paws silent. Its beak opens again for another screech, then it lowers its wings and the Empress is revealed, seated inside the litter, a pallid ghost.

The face is pretty, the features fine. In my memory, her face isn’t different from that of any other Fae—but now that I take a good look, it seems to have changed since I last saw her, as if the colors leeched out of it, as if the lines became starker, more pronounced.

White hair, pale skin, and black on black eyes. Cheekbones that are a little too sharp, a mouth that is a little too wide. The body of a starved waif, hands like spiders, tipped with black claws for nails.

I understand now why some say that she’s not from our world, not a Fae. That there are more worlds underneath ours and she crawled out of a well in the ground and decided to take over.

It’s possible. Things that seemed impossible when I was a child seem inescapable now. But she might be one of us. Most often, I have found, the danger comes from within, not from without. We want to think that one of us would never desire to take over the world and the worlds next to it, but we’re wrong.

Everyone craves power. And some of us would do anything to get it.

Her tall silver crown casts a long shadow, just like her magic that pulses around her in sickening waves, sending everyone to their knees. I struggle to get out of the throne, to stand on my feet as her mount, the white griffin, stops and kneels. She lifts a pale, black-tipped hand, and the litter rolls down the creature’s back to the ground. It keeps moving, a boat on a gentle stream, passing between the goblins and the orcs, between the rows of her Lesser Faeries and the kneeling, prostrate guests, all the way to me.

Clenching my hands into fists, locking my knees, I keep back what magic I have left and fight the instinctive urge to step away as that gleaming white vessel docks at my feet, the prow jutting over my head.

All I can hear is my heavy breathing.

“Ruler of the Sapphire Court,” she calls out, her voice clear like a crystal spring, and Maab, how I detest it. “Did I scare you?”

“Remove this creature from my ballroom,” I grind out instead of a reply.

“Didn’t you like my grand entrance? Oh, Talensar of Imre Jerah, King Who Never Cried. I worked so hard on every element of my arrival. I thought it came together nicely. Wasn’t it spectacular?”

Deep breaths, in and out. She will have my life once this is over. But not today. “Of course.”

“There is the handsome and polite Fae I know and admire.” Her voice has turned from crystal water to oozing syrup. “Now will you not help me down? Be a good host to your Empress, the eternal light of the world, if only for the sake of old times.”

Forcing myself not to limp, I walk around the litter and face her.

“Oh, look at you. Such a menacing look but such a wan, sickly complexion underneath the glare. Don’t you eat well? Or sleep well? Have you been unwell?”

Telling her to go fuck herself with a rusty knife probably isn’t a good idea. I settle for, “I am fine.” My preferred response these days. “Allow me, Eminence.”

She offers me her clawed hands and I take them, not allowing myself to wince when the claws rake over my fingers. “You are definitely unwell. If only your father could see you.”

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