Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

7. Guinevere

7

GUINEVERE

She climbed the familiar spiral staircases of Eilean Gayl without a downward glance, nor a hand raised to steady herself on the jagged stone wall. There was no regaining the internal balance that had crumbled weeks ago.

Gwen could pinpoint the moment it had happened. It had not been after the devastation of Parys’ death. Nor when the succubus, as she now named the darkness, overwhelmed the guards and she’d made the decision to retreat into the abandoned quarters in the oldest section of the goldstone palace, abandoning anyone beyond the apartment doors to their fate.

It was the Ancestors’-damned book. Even as she stomped up yet another flight of punishing stone stairs, her fingers curled for the tome. She’d left it in Baylaur. But even a continent away, the words of The Travelers haunted her.

Gwen could recite the entire damn book. When she’d snapped it closed for the tenth time, that was when everything changed. It was when she truly understood her powerlessness. Terrestrial heir, Goldstone Guard, Knight of the Round Table—it all meant nothing. She still did not know why Parys had carried the book right up to the moment of his death. She’d failed her friend, and in doing so her kingdom and Arran and Veyka.

She reached the top floor. No more staircases appeared to extend her retreat. But there was an attic. In her fae form, it was beyond her. So she shifted.

Her lioness disappeared into the darkness with one bound, into the most isolated, forgotten corner of Eilean Gayl that Gwen knew.

She shifted back to her fae form. Wedged herself tight against the bare stone wall. Sleep was a waste of time. Tears were a weakness. But Gwen could not be strong a moment longer.