39. Long may she reluctantly reign
LONG MAY SHE RELUCTANTLY REIGN
Enora
“Take her to a medic, now!” I barked at a bewildered archer standing near us as I dumped Sasha onto them. She swore, they swore and then apologized, but I was already running for the closest tower.
My bargain mark burned so badly, my left hand had cramped into a fist, and I couldn’t parse how many things were causing tears to build in my eyes.
I wiped roughly at my face, even though I was covered in Sasha’s blood, as I bolted down the tower stairs and broke out into a sprint across the camp.
The once neatly organized formations to my left had lost their containment as soldiers traded panicked words and wide eyes and their commanders fought to keep them at attention with barked orders.
Between my gasping and the furious rushing of my blood, it was nigh impossible to make out many words, but I didn’t need to.
Something had gone horribly wrong.
Whatever the squads thought their orders were, they had not involved Maksym being shot out of the sky.
I had to dodge bodies left and right as I ran, trading apologies and curses, until Jasper materialized at my side through a wisp of darkness, and I yelped in surprise. “What the fuck did he just—”
“No time. Come with me.” Jasper grabbed my arm, unsettling tension fully seizing his face, and my senses shuddered into a dark blur.
We stumbled outside a sprawling tent at the furthest reach of the camp, and Jasper pushed me through the flaps with a highly uncalled for shove. I was ready to spin back and lay into him, but the sight inside the tent had me going stiff.
Not that a planning tent was anything out of the ordinary—but the gathered Elixia and lords with their piercing stares had my hackles raised.
It was a mix of faces I knew from the barracks and the Keep, and ones I didn’t recognize at all: Umbrites, shifters, and other dark fae races all spread around a hastily constructed table, draped with maps and a plethora of markers.
But they were all looking at me, and their gazes did not falter when Jasper stepped around me and joined the group. His stare might have been the most unsettling.
Jasper was the first to sink to one knee and dip his head.
Something icy flushed through my veins, and my mouth dried as half of the room followed suit, dipping down and bowing their heads as they muttered…
“Long may she reign.”
My knees knocked together, and I coughed out, “Excuse me?”
A couple of scoffs came from those still standing, and I rushed over to Jasper as he rose. He wore something painfully apologetic on his face that did nothing to ease my confusion.
I stared at him. “What the ever-loving fuck is going on?”
More annoyed sighs traveled through the group as my only anchor at the moment retrieved a rolled piece of parchment from the table. He motioned me over, and I was shocked my legs carried me there as the weight of dozens of eyes refused to lift from me.
Jasper handed me the scroll, and my fingers, crusted with Sasha’s dried blood, shook as I unrolled it over the surface of the table.
My eyes roved its contents once.
Twice.
An utterly disbelieving third time.
“No way… I did not sign this…” I breathed, even though my signature was scrawled right beside Maksym’s own at the bottom of a fucking marriage certificate—declaring me not only his wife, but his equal sovereign in life, death, and calamity. It was dated from weeks ago.
My eyes flickered up to Jasper, and he regarded me with a devastatingly sad smile. “Are you sure? That’s your hand, isn’t it?”
I tried to will some moisture back into my mouth, running my tongue over my bottom lip as I stared at the parchment.
It was my hand. The same blotch of ink I always left at the end of my last name.
The same shaky swoop at the start of Wynn that I had never mastered.
Even the E in my first name was the same ugly loop that tutors always berated me for.
But I hadn’t signed this. I would’ve remembered.
Unless…
“It’s not real.” My attention bounced from the paper to Jasper to the crowd and back. “One of Maksym’s illusions. I didn’t sign it.”
Jasper said nothing, just shook his head.
I hadn’t expected Malakai to speak up.
“An illusion that didn’t disappear when he was shot down? Like his other did?” A pitying look settled on the shifter lord’s face. “I can commiserate with a heat-of-the-moment decision, Your Majesty, but that ink is as real as we all are.”
My throat worked as I tried to swallow down the lump that was choking me.
It did not help that Malakai half-bowed and added, “You have the hand of the tribes as you need it. We serve our queen with the utmost pride and loyalty.”
All I could do was shake my head.
This was wrong. All of it.
There may have been many things I questioned my memory of since I’d arrived in Grimmoria, but I never signed a goddess-damned marriage certificate.
Maksym and I were not married. We had a fucking bargain marked into our flesh about it, after all, and the Agōn Ferr was far from over.
But the Elixia and Lords in the tent didn’t seem panicked that their king had just been shot down over the enemy, putting on a display I couldn’t fathom the purpose of.
“If those filthy Odessans want her, I say we fucking give her back,” a voice spat from across the table. “I’ll throw her over myself.”
Not just any voice. It was Soteris, who’d nearly killed me in our match.
“Yeah!” came another shout. “We don’t want half-breed scum for a queen.”
“Watch your fucking mouths,” Jasper barked.
Little good it did.
The tent broke out into a rumble of shouts and fingers pointed in every fucking direction—but mainly mine. The uneasy tension of old memories I’d been grappling with on and off for days was clawing its way up my spine again and had my palms damp.
I was not their queen.
And I wasn’t responsible for any of what was happening, despite the accusations being slung across the table with the viciousness of blades.
There was no part of this I had ever asked for, and I couldn’t even get reassurance from Jasper when he was too busy shouting profanities back across the table.
A gust of wind whipped at my back, sending loose hair kicking up around my face, and I glanced back to find Gallan striding into the tent with his hands full as some of the arguing settled.
Thank the goddess.
“You’ll be a voice of reason, won’t you?” I wasn’t above begging as he came to stand beside me, setting a jar and some cloth on the planning table. “I didn’t sign this.”
Despite my repeated tapping of the half-curled-up contract, Gallan said nothing. He didn’t even look at me, either. The Umbrite just nodded absently as he pulled a scarf up over his mouth and nose.
“Gallan…?”
Nothing.
He uncorked the jar he’d brought with clear liquid in it, set a bundle of cloth overtop, and tipped the jar to wet it. It looked like fucking water, and the preposterousness of him being occupied with cleaning anything had my jaw slack.
“Really?” I said as he sealed the jar again. “I’m fucking filthy too, Gallan. This blood isn’t even mine, but we’ve got—”
He moved so goddess-damned fast.
From beside me to at my back, faster than I blinked, Gallan’s arm banded around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides and crushing my body back against him. Panic flared in me as I noticed so critically late that everyone else had backed away.
Including Jasper.
“Someone tell me what the fuck is going on!” I shouted, squirming with all my might, but my oldest friend averted his gaze as Gallan clamped the cloth over my nose and mouth.
The bitter liquid flooded my senses and made my eyes burn, and I tried to hold my breath.
I threw my elbows back against the pillar of Gallan’s body too.
But he was so much stronger than me.
And I’d fucking trusted him.
Gallan squeezed me so tightly, all the air rushed from my lungs. I fought against breathing in until my vision darkened at the edges, and my body’s fight to live overrode my fear. I gasped down a lungful of tainted and acrid air, coughing violently against it.
Loftiness surged through my body.
My muscles lost their fight, and my knees buckled.
The ground came up to meet me in a controlled movement, and I struggled to keep my eyes open as I was set on my back, cloth still pressed to my face. Darkness washed over me in blurry waves until I lost hold of my final tether, and the undertow swept me away.
The last image seared into my mind was Gallan’s moon-silver eyes flooded with tears. “I’m so sorry, love.”