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

30. Guinevere

30

GUINEVERE

There were no festival celebrations to mark the approach of spring. Celebrations spoke of hope—an emotion in short supply in both the human and fae sections of Eldermist.

Winter showed no sign of loosening its grip on Eldermist, though a thin layer of frost and occasional dusting of snow was nothing compared to the feet and feet of it that still buried the terrestrial kingdom. Still, neither the humans nor the elementals were used to prolonged cold. At least they did not have to worry about fuel. Now pierced with amorite and no longer under constant guard, the human men of Eldermist had made short work of the buildings damaged by the earthquake. What could be salvaged was set aside for rebuilding. What could not be was broken down for firewood. The elementals, of course, need only flick their wrists to start a magical fire.

But even the slums of Baylaur were superior to the camp they’d constructed on the edge of the Eldermist. The slums, at least, were their home. Here, the fae could not take a step without having it marked by the humans.

Gwen told herself she was accustomed to it. She’d come with Arran to Baylaur for his Offering. She’d felt the heavy threat of hatred and violence from the eyes of every elemental courtier.

At least a dozen sets of eyes watched her as she walked through the village from Sylva’s home to the central square and her destination beyond, the makeshift elemental camp. Gwen forced herself to keep her own eyes forward.

The envoys and messengers had been sent out. Elora had not returned. The communication crystal that Gwen carried with her everywhere was silent. But she’d be damned if she’d sit and wait for something to happen.

Despite their raggedy camp, there were able-bodies among the fae refugees from Baylaur. And now that the male half of Eldermist had been returned to safety, the women no longer required to shoulder every burden on their own, there were fighters available from that quarter as well.

If all that remained to her were weeks, Gwen would use them. She’d organize a fighting force to join up with the terrestrial army—and the elemental, if any part of it had survived. If Elora ever returned. Too many ‘ifs’ to linger on them. There was a task before her now, and she’d accomplish it. Execute one task and move on to the next. Just. Keep. Moving.

Being alone with her thoughts and emotions was where the true danger lurked.

The sounds of the village changed as she moved through the streets. The sun’s progress toward the horizon marked the time as late afternoon. The sky would turn to the gray of evening soon. But instead of the sighs of a work day drawing to a close, there were urgent whispers. Doors clicking shut and latches scraping across wood.

Gwen let her eyes stray.

A curtain whipped over the window of the house to her left, hiding the occupants from view. On her other side, a woman stumbled in her urgency to get into her half-ruined house, a man gripping her upper arm and dragging her the last couple of feet.

She knew the humans were wary of their new fae neighbors, even fearful.

This was outright terror .

It followed her the last dozen yards to the village square, where a command station was set up. Sylva had overseen its staffing with half a dozen of the village’s warriors, those not on patrol with the contingent of fae guards that Elora had left behind. Not with , Gwen corrected. Separate patrols.

The purpose of the stall was to organize offerings of food and supplies from the humans and redistribute them as needed to the fae refugee camp. Gwen hoped that once the elementals were settled and could turn their attention to tasks such as hunting and gathering, the trade of supplies would begin to flow both ways.

But that was na?ve.

The command was deserted.

The ground was compacted and frozen over with frost, tracks difficult to make out. But that wasn’t the only sense at her disposal. Even in her fae form, she maintained the dark lioness’ sense of smell. Blood stained the air, coppery but not thick. Human blood. And those were drag marks.

Gwen drew her sword as she turned, following them around the command stall and to the other side of the square. Shallow, close together… something—or someone—small.

The scent of blood intensified. She was close, the trail ended—in a closed door.

Blood was not the only scent that hung in the air. The tang of terror was so thick Gwen could nearly taste it. She was a terrestrial, more animal than fae, from the pointed tips of her elongated canines to the rising roar she could feel building in her chest. The elementals were cunning, indeed. But terrestrials were beasts in fae skins.

Gwen knocked on the door.

Silence.

She knocked again.

Furniture shifted inside, followed by a sharp cry. Someone running into something. Even with her sharp hearing, she could not discern precisely who and what. But she caught whispers—frantic ones.

She knocked a third time. “I want to help.”

More whispers. An argument. Two females.

Gwen did not want to break down the door. It would only worsen the fear that poisoned the air. She did not need the humans to like her. But if they would not trust her, they would not follow her commands. And if they hesitated at the wrong moment they might die.

She lifted her hand to knock a fourth time, flattening the planes of her face into the calm mask of composure she’d perfected when she’d believed she would one day rule all of Annwyn.

But before her knuckles hit wood, the door creaked open, no more than the width of a finger. A single brown eye seated in a pale face appeared.

“What happened—

“My son didn’t do anything wrong,” the voice belonging to the eye rushed out. “Please, just leave us alone.”

The woman tried to close the door but Gwen was faster. She slid her fingers into the gap, just enough to keep it from closing. The woman inside flinched, the door slipping from her grasp, gaping wider, and then slamming shut again as she realized.

The wood tried to latch around Gwen’s fingers but was denied.

The woman inside whimpered, eyes growing at least two sizes as they filled with terrified tears, waiting for Gwen’s vengeance.

Gwen did not move an inch, not her fingers nor her face.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

Another door opened to her left, this one swinging wide on its hinges.

“You heard her. The boy didn’t do anything!” a gravelly voice aged by hardship admonished. Gwen jerked her head to the side, to the hunched woman glaring at her from the doorway of the next dwelling.

A matching old man appeared over her shoulder. “Agnes, stop.”

Then a younger man, middle-aged, his beard wild to match his eyes. He grabbed the older female by the shoulders, starting to lift her into compliance. “Mother, you’ll get yourself beaten like the boy, or kill—”

“Who.” The word reverberated through the square. Gwen turned back to the woman before her. Even open just a crack, she could smell the blood—the trail she’d followed ended here.

Tears spilled out of the woman’s eyes. Gwen forced the door open a few more inches. Just enough to see inside, to where another woman cradled a small boy in her lap. He was crying, but conscious. One arm was bent at an unnatural angle. His lip was split and blood leaked from his ear.

Gwen felt the ropes of control that held her composure in place begin to fray.

“Tell me who harmed your son.”

The woman did not move. Frosted ground crunched. New terror lit in the woman’s eyes—light brown, set into a face whose angles were softened by age and child-rearing. Terror not for herself, but for the child. The door slammed, and this time Gwen let it.

The elderly woman and her family had retreated as well.

But across the square, a trio of fae males loitered, their laughter echoing off the closed doors and deserted ground.

A thread of control snapped.

“Did you touch that child?”

She did not need to cross the square to command their attention. The three elemental males turned. She did not recognize them; unsurprising, as she’d spent almost no time in the city of Baylaur itself. But she saw the fire dancing at the fingertips of one, felt the unseasonably warm blast of air from another.

There was no telling how powerful they were. Unlike the terrestrial kingdom, where strength corresponded to status, in Baylaur bloodlines reigned. A strong elemental born to an undistinguished family would spend their life on the outside, regardless of the depth of their power.

Gwen crossed the square. All signs of elemental magic winked out, the trio assuming a casual air. They were dirty, sporting wounds of their own. Males who had been confined by their female elemental counterparts for the last several weeks since their escape from Baylaur. Amorite winked in each of their ears. They were free—and hunting a new sort of prey.

“Did you touch the child?”

The tallest of the three, whose fingers had flickered with flames, sneered. “The sniveling human?”

Another snap.

“The child.”

One of the other two shrugged. She could not be certain which had wielded wind, nor what the power of the third was. But it did not matter.

“He stole from the rations they’d assembled for us,” the third said, lifting a lazy hand in the direction of the abandoned command stall. “In Baylaur, the punishment for stealing is loss of a hand. I was merciful.”

I was merciful.

Gwen did not try to rationalize. That the child did not understand, that human customs were different than fae. More details that did not matter.

“We are not in Baylaur.” She resisted the urge to shift, drawing her sword instead.

The two who had not admitted guilt stepped back. They did not know her personally, but they knew of her. Guinevere the Graceful, for her grace and calm in combat. The terrestrial heir who had slaughtered dozens of other females to win her title. The dark lioness.

They understood punishment and retribution.

“Take his hand,” the fire-wielder suggested.

“His hand will regrow.” Gwen’s control snapped entirely. “But his head won’t.”

Ice shot from the male’s fingertip to impale her like blades. But she evaded them with feline grace as she swung her sword, cutting through bone and sinew in one single, brutal swipe.

The two remaining males stared at her, awaiting justice. The desire to dispense it hummed through her, the control she’d so famously cultivated laying in tattered shreds of rope and restraint at the bottom of her consciousness.

Someone coughed behind her.

Sylva stood in the center of the square beside the deserted stall. Three human warriors, all heavily armed, flanked her. They’d deserted their post to retrieve the village elder. Gwen had somehow missed them on her way into the village.

But that was another thing that did not matter. Her punishment would have been the same.

Gwen held her sword steady. “He—”

“I know what he did.”

“He had to be punished or more violence will follow.” But she lowered her sword. The two remaining elementals retreated, careful not to show her their backs as they scurried for the perceived safety of their camp. As if she could not find and execute them there.

Sylva remained. “You said it yourself—we need every able body to fight the succubus. Human and fae.”

Gwen stifled her sigh, internally tying knots and putting her restraints back into place. “You think I was wrong to distribute justice.”

“I think if you kill everyone who carries prejudice in their heart then we will not have much of an army left.”

Gwen did not have the heart to tell her that any group they hoped to assemble… human, fae, some tortured alliance of both… it was not an army. Not even close. Nor that killing was the only thing that gave her solace these days.

Over Sylva’s shoulder, Gwen watched as doors that had creaked open to watch the exchange closed. She marked the sound of heavy furniture being dragged across the floor to block the doors.