“You will not take my crown,” she growls, and the color in her irises is smothered by a tide of black ink, until her eyes are fully black. “It is mine. As these lands are mine.”
She forces herself to her feet, and that inky color steals through her cheeks until her face is mottled with black veins.
I can’t help taking a step back.
This isn’t my mother.
It’s a monster in fae flesh, driven purely by vengeance.
How did I not see it?
“From the moment I felt you kicking in my womb, I knew you were a seed that should never have been given root. Everything about your begetting was a lie, and your birth ruined me. You were born to betray me, and I did not listen to my instincts,” she hisses. “I told myself there must be some good in you. There must be some half of you that belonged to me, but all I can see is your father. You are a monster I should have drowned at birth.”
For a second, I can’t breathe.
It isn’t true. I know it isn’t true, and yet those words flay me from within.
Curling her fingers into claws, she spits a curse, and then thorns rupture from the ground, stabbing for my throat.
I scream, but something sweeps the thorns out of the way. They wither and die, even as new ones keep stabbing through the soil, until I’m surrounded by a thicket of dry, brittle branches, poison still dripping from those inch-long thorns.
Adaia slowly lowers her hands, and this is the first time I’ve seen her fear.
The winds swirl again, but this time they carry his scent upon them. A dark shadow falls from the sky, landing with a thud in front of me.
And then Thiago is there, enormous feathered wings tucking in tightly against his body. His eyes are as black as hers are, and the barest hint of one of his darkyn tattoos creeps up his throat.
“Adaia.” He slowly straightens. “I promised you a reckoning the last time we met.”
“So you did.” Her gaze slides to his wings. “No longer trying to hide your filthy nature, I see.”
“Why pretend I care what you think of me?”
Little whispers stir through the grass. Thorns creeping like vines. She’s trying to distract him.
“Watch out!” I call.
Thiago’s lip curls, and then he flicks his hand and the thorns wither and die, crumbling into dust.
My mother stills. “You dare walk into my castle. You dare try and steal from me—”
“You had something I wanted.”
A scream of rage escapes her. “You filthy, wretched thief. I will see you die for this!” Her fingers curling into claws, she strides toward him. Thorns rupture through the grass, reaching for him, but he’s in the air, his massive wings thrusting down.
And that’s when the world explodes.
Both of us are flung apart, and I hit the grass and roll to my feet, drawing my dagger. There’s a ringing in my ears as my eyes fight to make sense of the world.
Fire rains down through the trees. Little sparks of ash streak through the sky like shooting stars. Somewhere to the right there’s a bonfire—
“No!” my mother screams, pushing to her feet, her face stricken. “My oak. My oak!”
The queen’s oak is burning, enormous flames licking toward the skies.
How did that—?
There’s no time to lose in gaping.
“Run,” Thiago says, shoving me into the trees. “There are hundreds of guards swarming out of the castle, and we need to get out of these woods!”
I sprint through the trees.
Thiago materializes out of the darkness, grabbing my arm. He’s vanished his wings and looks completely seelie again. “This way!”
I told him not to use his magic here. Not to draw attention. “You set her oak on fire?” She’s as bound to that tree as she is to the land.
“Not me!”
“Then who—?”
“I don’t know. And we don’t have time to find out. We need to—"
“I can’t leave yet! She must have hidden the crown somewhere. She knew we were coming and she—”
“There’ll be other chances, Vi.” He shakes his head, glancing tersely at the fire. “We have to go. Now.”
To leave without the crown makes my stomach knot. My mother knows what we want now, and she’ll lock that crown away so fiercely that even the light will never get so much as another glimpse at it.
And without it….
I can’t breathe. My feet won’t move.
But they have to.
I let Thiago tug me into the forest, every step feeling as though my boots are made of lead. Torches flare through the trees, and he catches a glimpse of them and then draws me the other way. Toward the east.
Mother knows we need to get to the Hallow if we’re to have any chance at escaping.
But torches gleam through the trees ahead of us too. More guards. They’re coming from every direction.
“Do you trust me, Vi?” He wraps his arms around me.
“Of course, I do.”
Darkness shrouds us both, and I wrap my arms beneath his and hug his shoulder blades as I recognize the whispers in the air around us. Something strokes my skin—
“Such a pretty girl,” it whispers. “So sssoft and fleshy…. So delicioussss…”
Our eyes meet.
“I’m angry, and they call to me strongly when I give in to my emotions,” he admits. And then his jaw locks and the whispers die away. “We’ll have to fly.”
“Can you even carry me?”
Wings appear beneath my hands, and then he spreads them as wide as he can. “Do you doubt me, my love?”
A soft gasp echoes behind us.
My head whips toward the sound, and there’s Andraste, her mouth falling open in shock as she sees his wings.
“You,” he says coldly, stepping toward her and dragging me with him.
“Stop!”
Thiago glances at me, his eyes completely black, but it’s not
