Chapter 66
My head spins, my body trembles, but all I can think is:
He gave up his throne.
“Are you alright?” Ash’s hands are running over me, pulling my tangled hair back from my face as I dry heave. Tears fill his voice. “I thought I’d lost you!”
I want a sappy reunion as much as he does, but there’s no time. The moment my brain stops whirling, I push to my feet, saying, “I’m fine! My head just hurts from that spell.” And my neck hurts from being choked, my whole body from being tossed around and banged into the walls of my temporary prison over and over again. That’s not important, though. Ash grabs my arm to steady me, and distantly, I realize I lost a sleeve at some point. That’s also not important. “Ash! You gave up your throne! Faradir might be going to reclaim it even now!”
I dive toward the burned remains of Listhra’s door, only for Ash to catch me around the waist and haul me back. He sticks his own head out first, checks to ensure there’s no one ready to blast us to pieces, and then the moment he turns his face to tell me it’s safe, I’m bolting out again.
“Faradir cannot reclaim the throne, not unless he intends to conquer all twelve of the Courts, which he will certainly try to—”
I stop, turn toward him, grab him by the front of his shirt, and yank him into a fierce kiss. He seems stunned at first, not reacting except in shock. Then his arms are around me, his hand in my hair, his mouth moving even fiercer against mine.
“I will sacrifice a hundred thrones, a thousand crowns for you,” Ash whispers. “And I won’t regret it for an instant.”
I let myself enjoy those pretty words, let myself bask in the warmth of his affection, the sincerity of his earlier apology for sending me away, the brilliance of his maneuvers.
Then it’s time to face the throne room, and the chaos that has broken loose with a rogue former king and a throne that no one can sit in. Ash and I quickly pick our way through the rubble of the smashed door and enter a room full of turmoil.
Faradir hunkers like a cornered animal at the steps of his throne, a spear in one hand and a crossbow in the other. His fangs break through his glamours as he snarls at the last people I hoped to see right now: Lord and Lady Nothril. They stand at the front of the shrieking crowd, shouting at Faradir.
“Give me the crown,” Lady Nothril demands.
“It will not accept you!” Faradir snarls back. The crown lies on the second stair beside the throne. When Lord Nothril reaches for it while Lady Nothril argues with Faradir, it sparks an angry red, and he pulls back with a sharp hiss.
“I told you!” shrieks Faradir.
Ash shoves to the front of the crowd. He picks up his fallen sword on the way, and my heart triples its rhythm as it becomes clear what he intends to do.
Rahk stops him, grabbing him by the arm and hissing under his breath: “You lost your throne? This was the one thing you were not supposed to do! What have you done to our people?”
Suddenly, something tugs at me. I turn, looking for who touched me. But no one is close enough. Despite the madness, the fae give Ash and I a wide berth. They view the two of us with a mingle of horror, curiosity, shock, and awe.
The tugging returns.
I frown. It’s not physical. It’s . . .
I lift my eyes. Tilt my head to one side. The cacophony around me fades to a soft hum. My awareness focuses on the source of that tugging: the throne itself.
I step away from Ash. All I see is that large, golden throne, the discarded crown beside it. It strikes me suddenly how lonely that throne and crown are by themselves. My heart twists in my chest, wringing at their pain of separation. Of loss.
Certainty builds inside me as I keep approaching. I can ease that pain, that loss. Because I am what is lost. Something in my blood calls to the throne before me.
I bend to pick up the crown. Immediately, it glows, as though with joy. Wear me, the crown seems to beg. Please, you must bring harmony to me again.
So I do. I place the crown on my head. It adjusts to fit me, and a rush of rightness, of joy and . . . and power courses through me in a torrent.
The throne pulses, aching, calling me to sit in it. Begging me to make all of us one again.
So I sit.
And it is like a symphony plays in perfect harmony. Like birdsong and forest rain, the beauty of flowers and the flap of hummingbird wings. A golden well opens up from the throne, rushing into me, but not overwhelming. I am merely a channel, one that can reach into this tremendous well and spread it to all the worlds.
Now I understand why they say humans are nothing but a cycle of death. There is such abundant life in this flood of magic.
What a heartbreaking shame it is that Faradir wasted all this life and goodness.
Faradir.
Ash!
I open my eyes. Before me is a throne room full of slack-jawed, utterly silent fae. There is Lord and Lady Nothril, looking like they were just blasted in the face by Faradir’s magic. Beside them, still with that knife in his shoulder, is Prince Rahk, who for once cannot disguise the shock on his face. Faradir has gone white as a sheet, restrained by Ash—as though he tried to attack me.
Wait.
Am I . . . sitting on the throne of all Faerieland? Did I just put this crown on my head? What am I even doing?
Oh Mountains of Ildrid.
I nearly slide off the throne in my shock. But all around me, there is a brilliant, almost blinding light. Vines shoot from the floor, from the throne, from the ceiling, from the walls, twisting around the marble pillars, bursting into an overwhelming rainbow of iridescent blossoms. They wrap around the throne until I am sitting amid a chorus of sweet fragrance and hundreds of flowers.
The water in the stream around the throne shoots high into the air as flocks of doves appear out of nowhere and fill the throne room, their wings a beating choir of magnificence. At once, the water spirals in a mesmerizing dance, rising to the ceiling and then splashing back down in a shower of thousands of tiny droplets.
A loud, ear-splitting holler of triumph slices through the silence left behind after the water and the doves.
It’s Ash. He wears the most dazzling grin I have ever seen and throws punches into empty air—as if he is made of pure elation and cannot contain it. He hollers again, his crystalline voice carrying through the vast chamber. “All hail High Queen Stella!”
High what?
“But how?” Faradir, still pale, clutches the stump of his arm. “She is not of the bloodline!”
A slow, triumphant grin spreads across Ash’s face as he climbs over the absolute forest of vines surrounding the throne, until he reaches the steps. “She carries my blood. My blood from before I broke a law and disqualified myself from the throne.”
I think I’m going to pass out. And yet, the moment I have that thought, strength surges into me from the throne, fortifying my limbs, clearing my vision, until I am not sure where the magic ends and where I begin.
“All hail High Queen Stella!” Ash cries once more. He drops where he is on the steps, kneeling before me.
“Ash!” I breathe. I cannot be High Queen! There’s no version of reality where they will accept me as their ruler!
He is too busy kneeling before me to respond.
Shuffling rips my attention from my husband to the masses before me. My breath catches in my lungs.
Prince Rahk sinks into a deep bow. Then one by one, shock shifts to awe, and each fae in the room bends their knee and bows. To me.
I don’t know what to do or say. More fae come streaming in through the open doors, and each one joins in suit. Even Lord and Lady Nothril bow, until the entire room is on their knees before me.
Except one.
Faradir remains standing where he is, murderous hatred twisting his beautiful face, contorting his broad shoulders. Ash gets to his feet and draws his sword. Faradir’s gaze shifts from me to him, and that hatred only redoubles. Ash points the blade at his father’s neck. His voice rings out: “Bow to your High Queen.”
“I bow to no one,” Faradir snarls.
Ash takes another step, presses the blade against Faradir’s throat. “Bow. To. Your. Queen. Now.”
A shift takes place in my mind. The shock melts away. The denial follows. There is still a strong feeling of inadequacy—though I’m not sure anyone can sit on the throne of all Faerieland and feel adequate—but there’s also necessity.
I’m not the High Queen of Faerieland because I want to be, or because I’m the best candidate.
I’m the High Queen of Faerieland because Ash paid in blood for his people to be free.
It is not for me that I open my mouth and issue my first order. It is for Ash, for his mother, for Hylath, for Dottie, for Edvear, for Oleria, for Rahk, for Mama Bagogs, for the Small Cities, and everyone who has suffered under the wrath of Faradir.
I lift my chin, narrow my eyes, and let the well of power rush through me as I say to Faradir: “Bow.”
Surprise rolls through his shoulders. He looks at me—really looks at me. He doesn’t see the human girl his son brought home to spite him. He doesn’t see the pawn, or the girl who learned to stand before him without shrinking.
He sees the woman I truly am. The woman Ash fell in love with. The woman who sits on his throne.
And he bows.
Uproar bursts around the room, a mingling of alarm to see the former monarch brought so low, and something that sounds almost like cheering. Lord and Lady Nothril protest with vocal shouts, while others dance in celebration.
It distracts me.
I miss the way Faradir gathers magic in a glowing ball in his one good hand, hidden by the bloody stump of the other.
“No!” Ash arcs his sword downward, but not fast enough.
Faradir shoots the blast of magic. It hurtles toward me like a shooting star.
I don’t even know what I do. I’m not sure it’s me that does anything. I throw up a hand toward the ball of light, and energy rushes through me. Pulsing energy from the throne, from the deep wellspring of magic now available to me.
One minute, a ball of light is about to incinerate me.
The next, a blackened spot of cracked marble is all that is left of Faradir.
Ash turns saucer-wide eyes at me. “Did you just do that?”
My eyes are equally wide. “I think I might have?”
Ash lets out another holler, so out of place with the increasing number of kneeling fae, protesting fae, and the fact that I just killed his father. He runs up the steps to me, catches my face in both hands.
“You, my darling, are magnificent beyond anything I could have ever imagined,” he tells me, and then kisses me in front of all my new subjects.