“There will be a funeral tonight for Enivyn,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s the way things are done here or not, but we are having one. You’ll take care of this, Cara.”
Cara nodded, and Rose turned to me. “There are wounded, Sebastian. Help them. I need time to rest.”
“Andryn, I am sure that you are in no mood to cook, but I need food, and everyone needs something to eat at the funeral tonight.”
“Yes, Lady,” he said with a bow.
“Kasia, gather whoever you need to build a pyre for the assassins. Build it far enough away from the village that we don’t need to see it during the funeral.”
My mother had been a Queen. The Queen. She’d always had an answer. She’d always had a plan. She’d been in battles, and she’d turned the tide in many of them. That had been nothing compared to this.
My mother had been the Dark Queen for a hundred years. The only one that many had ever known. She had been a wonderful Queen, but Rose was stronger than she ever was. I’d never heard of anyone who could kill like this.
I glanced back to where the mists had stood and saw piles of bones sticking out from under cloaks. Nothing on them as though they’d been picked clean by insects.
No one understood the power of a Queen until she sat on the throne, but I knew that I would rather fight Seraphina and every person in her guard at the same time than to fight Rose alone.
Somehow, that only made me want to protect her more. I glanced at her as she walked to our hut. There was nothing in the world that could make me leave her side ever again. Nothing.
I took a breath and let it out slowly. She needed time to come to grips with her emotions, and I had my orders.
Chapter 36
Sebastian
A pyre burned the remains of the entire Assassin’s Guild far to the north in the area that Kasia enjoyed running with her foals. The faint smell of burned flesh and hawthorn wood lingered in the air. That area would never be the same. It would be a haunted place, a place of evil in their minds.
For the ten years that this village had existed, they’d had peace. Now, they knew fear, and everything would change. Never again would they feel the same simple happiness. They would train as warriors from this day onward. They all knew that if Rose and I hadn’t been here, the entire village would have died to that assault. They now understood just how fragile their peace was.
I’d collected the obsidian daggers and their sheaths and put them in a bag. The Guild was gone, but the weapons were too valuable to destroy. These would be the weapons that the village would train with. A bag of weapons that was worth more than most palaces. Weapons that could kill Queens and Princes. Weapons that would pierce shields and put them on a much more even footing against more powerful enemies.
Andryn’s stew was cooking, and a second, much smaller pyre had been built just outside the village for Enivyn. His body had been cleaned, and he’d been dressed in the nicest outfit he’d owned, a simple foraging outfit covered in pockets. The gnome’s pockets had been filled with snacks by Sinivyn. All of his favorites. Honeyed walnuts, sugared berries, some small pieces of chocolate, and roasted seeds. He would go into the void with as many treats as he could carry.
The battle that had been his death had been strangely one-sided. There had been wounded, but none were life-threatening wounds. Mostly, they had been accidents while untrained Fae used powers in ways they weren’t used to. There were a few dagger wounds, but after the iron had been cleansed, they healed quickly.
Scraped hands and knees from tripping in their hurry. Bumps and bruises from running into each other. A few cut fingers from improperly handling weapons. The shifters had wounded mouths from biting hands that were wreathed in fire or were carrying blades.
All so minor in comparison to the atrocities of normal battle. There were no severed limbs or corpses that had been burned beyond recognition. There was no need to mercy kill anyone. It had taken less than an hour to decimate one of the strongest fighting forces in the world.
The fact that only one person in the village had died from an attack by the entire Assassin’s Guild was a miracle. A miracle in the form of a woman who was approaching the fire now.
She no longer wore the simple linen dress that she’d worn the past few weeks. Tonight, as both moons shown brightly in the night sky, she stepped down the pathway through the village in a black dress made of something that seemed to shimmer with darkness instead of moonlight.
As she approached the cookfire, I realized that her dress was the same pure blackness of her wings. It was magic made manifest. An extension of her power that flowed like any other dress, but as she stood near the fire, the light seemed to be repelled by it.
“John and Sinivyn, please carry your brother to the pyre.” Her words did not ask. They commanded. The girl that I’d stolen from the Mortal Realm was gone, and a Queen stood in her place.
They did as she bid, picking up the wooden board that held Enivyn’s body. Even in death, the gnome was smiling. There was a small gash across his forehead where the assassin had killed him, but otherwise, he seemed to be sleeping. Small sobs filled the air as many of the villagers began to cry.
Rose followed them with me behind her, and the rest of the village followed behind us. She didn’t even seem to notice me as I stood beside her while they lifted their brother onto the pyre using step
