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

24. Guinevere

24

GUINEVERE

She’d stared at the map for so long, the shorelines and mountains had become indistinguishable from one another. The words blurred together, the tiny characters fracturing and then fading. The feeling was too familiar.

She sat curled in the wingback chair, all the lights in the palace doused except for the one candle at her side. Reading, again. If she read it enough times, she’d find out what was so damned important it had been worth dying for… he’d only left the safety of the library to find her, to share this text with her… it had to be important…

Gwen snapped back to the present, her spine crackling as she jerked upright. Spilt tea marred the southeastern corner of the map, obscuring the entrance to Wolf Bay. It was too far away to figure into any of her calculations anyway. She pressed her palm into her eye, trying to rub away the exhaustion.

Movement flickered in her periphery. Gwen reached for the knife she’d left on the table by rote, even though she doubted that any of the humans lodged in the house would even imagine harming her. They were all too busy being scared shitless.

“I beg your pardon,” Sylva said from the doorway. Her thin night rail billowed around her, catching the breeze from the window Gwen had left open. The mug in her hand steamed with freshly brewed tea. She arched one gray eyebrow at Gwen. “The solar is usually deserted at this hour.”

The house was packed to bursting with humans whose homes had been destroyed in the earthquake. Any structure still standing had been converted to housing, the business of shops and eateries happening around stowed bedrolls and piles of salvaged belongings.

The fae refugee camp was even worse.

As a village elder, Sylva had been among the first to offer her home. Gwen had accepted a bed in the pantry at the back of Sylva’s kitchen.

She’d considered lodging at the elemental camp. But while she’d become a familiar presence among the elemental courtiers who’d resided in the goldstone palace, to the commoners she was a strange, polarizing figure. A terrestrial—the one who had been in command of their city when it fell to the succubus.

It was all torture. She might as well be close to Sylva so she could seek her counsel in bringing the humans together.

Elora had left earlier in the day, her small band of elemental soldiers at her back. There were no more communication crystals to pass around. She would either return through the rift with the remains of the elemental army or she would disappear into the dunes along with their hopes.

Gwen had barely seen Sylva. The woman had been busy organizing space for the elementals, arranging food to be shared, and then eventually distributing the limited store of amorite that Veyka had promised in return for giving her subjects refuge.

The elderly woman looked tired, the age lines around her eyes carved even deeper than usual. But she did not retreat. She took her tea and circled the table where Gwen had spread the map, coming to stand beside her.

“I did not mean to wake you,” Gwen said. Though if she’d thought of it, she might have, instead of puzzling over this alone.

She constantly had to remind herself that humans exhausted easier and needed more time to recuperate. Sylva was running the village essentially on her own, for all the help that the two remaining members of her Council of Elders seemed to provide.

“The older I get, the less sleep I need.” Sylva sipped her steaming tea. “By the time I’m as old as you, I’ll have plenty of time for it.” Because she’d be dead, her life snuffed out by her mortal lifespan. If the succubus did not come for her first.

Sylva chuckled over her mug.

Gwen did not.

“You must have memorized that map by now.” The woman’s gray brows arched in question.

“Yes.” Gwen nodded. “But memorizing it is not helpful without context.” She’d learned that much from Parys’ book, The Travelers .

Flashes of the nightmare clawed at the edge of her mind. Gwen pushed them back resolutely. They already haunted her in sleep. She could not allow them to find purchase in waking as well.

Sylva matched her nod. “Then it is a good thing I am here.”

Gwen could not concern herself with the woman’s wellbeing. If she insisted on spending her only free hours consulting instead of sleeping, then so be it. She turned her attention back to the map, forcing her eyes to refocus through sheer power of will. “There are six human villages within range, that fae messengers could reasonably reach and return in time.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a deadline.”

“Every minute is borrowed.” Gwen had already done the calculations, but she verbalized them anyway for the human’s sake. “It will take the Queen and King a week to reach Cayltay. Perhaps another week to muster the terrestrial army and get it moving. Add another week for things to go awry. Any longer than that and I expect this thing will start talking to me.” She motioned to the white communication crystal, acting as a paperweight to hold down the curling edge of the map.

“So, whoever we seek to rally, we must reach them, convince them, and assemble them within three weeks’ time,” Sylva summarized.

“Assemble them here,” Gwen clarified. “If what Arran said is true and the succubus are attracted to Veyka, then this is where she will end up.”

The woman’s dark gray brow furrowed. “Why here?”

“Baylaur is her home,” Gwen said simply.

Veyka’s memories of the goldstone palace and the city below might be mixed; the Ancestors’ knew that Gwen’s feelings about her own home in Wolf Bay were complex. But it was the place that had made her. No matter how far she went, she’d always feel drawn back to where it had all begun. And in her warrior’s gut, Gwen knew that the same was true for Veyka.

She cleared her throat. “It also makes sense from a tactical perspective. The queen’s ability to open portal rifts is new. If it fails, or is exhausted, we need to have our forces assembled near an existing rift so that we can move freely between realms and meet the succubus on whichever battlefield will end this war.”

This would not be a war of endless battles. Gwen had fought alongside Arran in wars like that, waged on distant continents for gold and guts and glory. The succubus would not pause to regroup; they had no need. Their strategy would be to overwhelm. They gained nothing from surrender. If every battle must be fought until the absolute destruction of the enemy, there would not be many battles at all.

Sylva tugged a stool over to the edge of the table, settling herself as she examined the map over the rim of her steaming cup of tea. Several minutes of silence passed while she considered. Gwen held her silence. She’d learned patience early in her quest for queenship.

“Wraithwood, Emberhaven, and Thornbriar are all close enough that you could send a human envoy along with your fae representative. It will make the alliance easier to swallow. The other three are too far for anyone but your soldiers.”

Gwen picked the villages out on the map easily, considering the damn thing was burned into her brain. “Then we concentrate our energy on those three.”

“Ferndale is the largest.” Sylva pointed to the city on the far western coast of the continent. “They are the closest thing the human realm has to a city—and proud of it. They will expect to be treated with due respect and dignity.”

A larger village meant more soldiers.

It was also the farthest.

“I can’t waste an entire delegation to appease them in the hope they will join us. One fae warrior is worth at least twenty humans when facing the succubus in battle. Maybe more.”

Sylva did not argue. She took another sip of her tea.

Gwen mulled it over in her mind again. No, she would not waste valuable fae warriors on a fruitless mission. Her stomach twisted, but she held firm. Arran and Veyka had left her in charge once, and she’d lost Parys and Baylaur.

She would not fail them again.

“A fae messenger will have to be enough. They will accept our invitation, or they will die.”