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

47. Veyka

47

VEYKA

Void.

Rift.

Portal.

I went through the void. I brought others through a rift. I created a portal.

I was the darkness of the void between realms and the light that waited on the other side. I was infinite, spinning through the darkness and then commanding it, bending the realms to my will to create safe passage not for one, but for thousands.

I was power.

The first portal I’d opened in Eilean Gayl was difficult—painful, even. I’d felt the weight of each body that passed through. But it became easier each time.

The cost has already been paid. Arthur had died for me to have this power. I would not waste it.

Arran did not hold any of our forces back. All twenty-some thousand terrestrial troops came through the portal rift I opened on the hillside above the eastern end of the Crossing. I did not ask his reasoning because I did not want to hear the words spoken aloud. If we were defeated here, there would be no second battle.

But if this war ended with our loss—our deaths—at least it would be in defense of life.

The female who’d raged against the humans, who’d tried to murder a messenger in her own throne room, was gone. The queen who’d taken her place… I was still not sure that I truly knew her and all her facets. But she loved and was loved in return—a reality I could not have fathomed even a year ago.

If I died defending the humans, then so be it.

But I wanted to live.

As the last line of terrestrials stepped through, I let the portal close behind them. Only Lyrena and I remained in the deserted war camp.

She lifted one golden eyebrow. “Fancy a nap?”

I burst out laughing. Only my golden knight could have managed such a thing, with the tension coming off of me in waves. “Maybe later,” I smiled.

She took my hand without hesitation, and I brought us to the Crossing. Arran’s army was already in motion below us. We were familiar with the terrain from having crossed it ourselves months before in our quest for Avalon. Arran and his lieutenants had gone on about the high ground and waves of attack and strategic advantage.

I was not a commander. A queen, yes. I’d accepted that. And a warrior. My place was on the battlefield, not trying to command it.

I expected to hear Arran in my mind, but it was eerily quiet. The golden thread of our mating bond was strong, the connection taut but not strained. He was not far. But his attention was elsewhere, as it should be. Worrying about me would only distract him—and I was more than capable of taking care of myself.

Lyrena and I stood above the army on the tiered bluff that eventually gave way to the thick, jungle-like forest where we’d been attacked by the succubus ourselves and then saved by Isolde.

I sent up a silent prayer to the Ancestors to protect the faerie. She was back in the war camp, convening with the terrestrial healers and preparing for the injured. She’d tried to come with us; I’d refused. Leaving her with the terrestrials, healers but also strangers, made my heart twist uncomfortably.

She’ll use those claws if she needs to , I consoled myself. The Faeries of the Fen had survived for thousands of years without help from the fae. Despite them. Isolde would be fine. She had to be. I did not know if I could stand the loss of another loved one.

Lyrena’s voice pulled me back to the reality unfolding before our eyes.

“It doesn’t seem real.” Her sword hung limp at her side, all the humor drained from her lovely face. “I’ve imagined it… but never as bad as this.”

I was not the only one who had nightmares about the succubus.

I followed her gaze down the graduated tiers of sheared off rock, past the mass of terrestrials clad in browns and greens. Most of the fauna-gifted among them had shifted. Wings and claws and gaping maws surged forward—forward and forward and forward towards the black mass that had overrun the narrow land bridge the connected the two sides of the continent.

It seemed impossible that we’d been here only months before.

What had once been a thriving human festival was now a wave of black death. Even staying awake through the night, refusing to sleep or let their minds become vulnerable, the succubus had eventually found them. If only we’d known about the amorite then…

And what would I have done? We’d carried none with us. Nor would I have been willing to spare it to protect humans .

Yet here I stood, ready to die for them.

I imagined I could see the spot where I’d stood in Arran’s arms, kissing him while colorful fireworks burst overhead. My fingers curled into fists, remembering the way we’d painted each other’s skin. For a brief moment, we’d been free.

Ancestors, I had not yet told him I loved him when we were here before.

The colorful tents were barely visible through the churning waves of black. Where before there had been music, now screams competed with the clash of metal. The latter was losing.

Lyrena exhaled slowly beside me. I recognized the careful, measured way she released the breath and then drew in the next. She was trying—failing—to steady herself. My heart rate increased, pounding wildly in my chest.

I drew Excalibur from across my back. I would not risk losing the precious amorite-swirled daggers by throwing them, and the great sword would allow me to kill the succubus while keeping as much distance as I could.

Lyrena’s grip on her own weapon tightened. “Where do we even begin?”

“The village.” We’d carefully avoided it when we made our way over the Crossing the first time all those months ago. But if it was still standing, then that was our first task. “We clear the village so that the survivors have somewhere to retreat.”

Lyrena was good enough not to question whether there would be any survivors.

She extended her hand, her golden rings winking up at me. I knew that by the end of this day, no matter what happened, they would be coated in black.

There were survivors in the village.

Their screams told us that there would not be for long.

It was smaller than Eldermist. Even once cleared, it would not provide much shelter. I counted no more than two dozen buildings and only half of those were residences. If we could fill all of those with human survivors it would be nothing short of a miracle.

Lyrena swung her sword in a circle, loosening her wrist. “Stay close—”

“Never farther than an arm’s reach,” I finished for her.

She thought it was for my protection. I knew it was for hers.

There was no village square, only a single wide road and haphazard alleys crisscrossing off of it. The first alley was empty. The road was not. Four women tried to fight off a single succubus—a male, recently turned from the fact that most of his body was still intact. One of the women was crying, sobbing, begging the others to stop.

One word cut through the melee. Husband .

I ended him with a single swipe of my sword. Not him— it .

The woman collapsed on the ground. Lyrena kicked open the nearest door, shoved the group of women inside, and slammed it behind her. More screams beckoned a few doors down.

We turned the corner—a group of them, more succubus than I could easily count, surged up the alleyway. A few broke off to feed. We could not help those humans. But we could try to stop the advancing pack.

Lyrena and I developed a rhythm. Her sword could not finish the succubus, but her fire slowed them enough that I could slice their heads off with Excalibur.

We cleared the alley. I grabbed Lyrena’s arm and took us through the void to the next one, parallel, leaving the handful of human survivors to find their own refuge.

Alley after alley. If we cleared the alleys, they could not make it to the main road where all of the doors were. Behind the doors hid most of the humans.

Until we followed screams through a door, where a mother stood at the stairway to an upper floor, fighting off a succubus by herself with a frying pan while her children cried behind her on the landing.

She died. At least the children lived.

I told myself that we were making a difference. That this mattered. If Lyrena and I were able to clear the village, then surely the army down on the land bridge was able to defeat the horde of succubus. But my brain knew what my heart protested—the reason we were able to fight so effectively was because the horde had not yet reached the village. We were not facing a wave of black death, but a stream. A stream we could manage without drowning.

Arran .

I did not want to distract him. I just needed to know that he was uninjured, still in command and fighting.

The connection remained silent.

I could not afford to close my eyes, but as I swung again and again, the motion becoming almost routine, I let a small piece of my consciousness seek out the bond between us. I found it quickly—golden bright and shining.

Arran might be too distracted to hear me, but he was more than alive. He was fighting.

I breathed a little sigh of relief.

Lyrena had finished shoving the last of the surviving humans into one of the structures. I did not pause long enough to examine whether it was a house or something else.

“Separate your men; choose the strongest among you to guard them,” she advised. With a grim nod, she added, “Protect your children from your husbands and fathers and prepare for the arrival or survivors.”

Then she slipped her hand into mine. We needed no words between us.

There was only one place for us to go now.