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

61. Guinevere

61

GUINEVERE

“Here.” Something warm appeared in the vicinity of her hand—the one that was not occupied rubbing at her temple. Her gaze dropped, but she struggled to comprehend.

Gwen stared into the steaming cup of tea that Sylva slid in front of her for long enough that the old woman added, “For the headache.”

It was going to take more than tea to sort this lot out.

They were in the Sylva’s small parlor. It had seemed like a good idea when the woman posed it. With the guild hall long since destroyed, there were limited places in Eldermist to convene a large group of people.

This group wasn’t even that large. But with all of them shoved into Sylva’s house, the noise was intense. And only growing.

Gwen expected something similar to the way the Knights of the Round Table conducted themselves. Even the bloody terrestrial Pit would have been preferable to this… disaster. Complete and utter disaster.

Six representatives crowded the room, if Sylva and Gwen were included. It was a better response than Gwen had hoped for. All three of the villages where she’d sent paired human and fae delegations had returned with a force of human soldiers in tow. Gwen did not stretch to call them warriors, but at least they were willing. Sort of. Although Wraithwood, Emberhaven, and Thornbriar had all sent soldiers, only the delegates from Emberhaven had actually agreed to join the fight.

The representative from Ferndale, the largest of the human villages, located on the far western coast, said their troops were a week behind. But again, he was unwilling to commit them to a fight.

The humans had been squabbling for the better part of an hour.

“We have enough troops to overpower them. We take the amorite to protect our males and supply our warriors, and then we retreat further into the mountains.”

“Only to have a horde of succubus-infested fae pursue us?”

“You’ve heard the reports. The fae here will be called away to purge the succubus from Annwyn. We would be perfectly safe.”

It took Gwen several seconds to even comprehend what they’d proposed.

“You do not have the troops to overpower us,” Gwen ground out, a feline hiss slipping out between her words. She was just barely keeping her lioness under control. “If any of you are stupid enough to believe that, then you have no place in this discussion.”

That stunned them into silence for a solid minute. But then they dissolved into arguing again. The citizens at large were still avoiding Gwen as if she carried an infectious parasite. But their leaders, apparently, had gained too much familiarity. To their detriment.

“It might be faster to dispose of these ones and see who the remaining humans offer up in their places,” Gwen grumbled under her breath.

Sylva did not disagree with her. The old woman merely sipped her tea.

She should have asked Elora to join them. She’d at least earned the respect of the Emberhaven leader. From the long glances Gwen had observed between the two, she’d also invited the woman to her bed. At this juncture, Gwen was not inclined to quibble over the how so long as it served the when .

“If it were just the refugees, perhaps you would be correct, Helene. But we marched with the fae army for more than half the journey here. They are well-trained and absolutely lethal without even needing to touch a weapon. We would need to outnumber them ten to one to have a chance—which we do not,” Elora’s bedmate said, calling the leader of Thornbriar to account. “Emberhaven will fight.”

“And ask for nothing in return?” the grizzled gray man from Wraithwood spoke.

“In return, you get to live to see the summer,” Gwen growled.

“On the contrary, Lady Guinevere,” he just barely contained his sneer. “If we wait for the succubus to come, some of us will die. If we fight for your queen and king, all of our soldiers will.”

“Maybe,” Sylva finally interjected. “But those who have volunteered to fight would die first. If we await the succubus, it will be your women and children who die, massacred at the hands of their own husbands and fathers.”

“They could give us amorite,” Helene countered. The woman who’d proposed stripping the fae of their protection and hiding in the mountains.

“There is no more amorite,” Gwen said. “Not now, at least. All that we brought to Eldermist has been distributed, and it will not be taken back because you have decided to be greedy. The humans of Eldermist gave our citizens refuge, and the amorite was a gift from the High Queen.”

She was going to do it. Shift, eat the two loud ones for a snack, and give the man from Ferndale one last chance to decide if he wanted to cooperate or become dessert.

“Then you’ll leave us to die,” the Wraithwood man sneered openly.

The Emberhaven woman across the table sighed dramatically. “You are doing this to yourself. Join the fae or scurry back to your village and wait to die. You are a man. The succubus will come for you eventually.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. Gwen had anticipated they would hate her. What she hadn’t counted on was the distrust the humans bore for each other. There were no kingdoms or unity in the human realm. Only scattered villages too caught up in their own self-preservation to realize they hobbled themselves with their idiotic refusal to develop any sort of inter-dependence.

“Perhaps you should show us that knife in your belt. Not all of us have used our sexual wiles to secure an amorite weapon,” he sneered. “Fae-fucker.”

The woman surged across the table, her hands around the man’s throat before he could get out another insult. Gwen was inclined to let her at it; one less human to convince. But Sylva intervened.

“Release him, Tally. His brother will not forgive the loss,” Sylva said.

For a moment, Gwen thought the woman from Emberhaven—Tally—would ignore the older woman’s appeal. But what Sylva said must be true, and Tally must have realized it. Gwen could not even remember all of their names. Meanwhile, Sylva understood the political machinations from a decade serving on the village’s Council of Elders.

Tally slid back across the table, but she kicked her chair out from behind her instead of resuming her seat.

“Say it again, and I will slit your throat,” she promised, addressing the table at large, before storming out. The force of the door slamming shook the entire house.

Bruises were already forming around the Wraithwood man’s throat.

“Come. Hot tea and a poultice, or you won’t speak again for days.” Sylva left the room without waiting for the man. He glared at Gwen, but eventually followed, as did his Thornbriar counterpart.

Which left Gwen and the Ferndale delegate, who’d yet to say a single word.

“If we do not fight, we will die,” Gwen said. She did not have any fancy words or promises to give. She didn’t even have any more amorite to bargain away. Maybe she’d been wrong to stay behind in the human realm, to even think this was a possibility.

A minute later, the delegate from Ferndale stood without speaking and returned upstairs to the room he’d been given.

Gwen’s forehead dropped to the table. She owed Arran and Veyka a report. But only one word repeated steadily in her mind.

Failure .