Fallen Queen (Lost Fae Book 2)

by May Dawson

From the pain etched across his face when he told me that story, I had a feeling every detail of that memory was sharp and clear.

  Perhaps Herrick hadn’t enchanted Faer. Perhaps somehow, he had possessed him.

  I just had to be sure.

  “Do you remember that time when we were kids,” I said slowly, “and I rescued you from the lake? I dove right in despite my gown?”

  “Mm,” he said briefly. “That still doesn’t make you a particularly good sister, Alisa.”

  No, but it makes you an imposter.

  “Why am I here?” I asked wearily. “What do you want from me?”

  “The Shadow Man is coming for you,” he said. “And I want to watch.”

  Just as he’d watched from the shadows when he forced me to break Duncan’s heart.

  The Shadow Man had said, I see no one but the king of summer here. Somehow, the Shadow Man didn’t see my twin, who had no more of a claim on the throne than I did; he saw Herrick himself, the king of summer.

  And then I knew how, even bound, I could beat the Shadow Man.

  My muscles spasmed as the vines pulled me even tighter against the marble floor, and I let all my pain and misery show across my face.

  Let my father see my pain before I caused him the pain he deserved himself.

  Chapter Fifty

  The Shadow Man materialized in the room, carrying that damned sword, his red eyes glowing eerily in that featureless face.

  “This again?” I demanded. Faer was watching me with excitement on his face, but I only had eyes for the Shadow Man. “I’m still just one of two unworthy heirs, Shadow. No reason to trouble yourself with me and not my twin.”

  “I see only the king of summer and the imposter,” he said in that rasping voice. He drew back the sword.

  “I know,” I said. “But no one else sees the king of summer. No one else sees Herrick as you do—everyone else sees Faer. My twin.”

  The vines suddenly wrapped around my throat as if they’d choke me. But it was too late; I’d already released my spell.

  Somehow, Herrick had made it so the Shadow Man still saw Herrick, even though the rest of the world saw Faer.

  The reveal spell swept over Herrick just as the Shadow Man turned that strange face toward him. Frantically, I worked my second spell, feeling my way into the tendrils of vine that wrapped around my wrists and throat and calves; slowly, they began to retreat. I lifted my head off the marble, drawing a breath, watching the Shadow Man as I tried to coax the last of the vines away.

  The Shadow Man saw Faer and hissed.

  “She’s tricking you,” Faer said calmly, but he rose from the couch, raising his hands placatingly. “Whatever you think you see is an illusion.”

  “Do you think I do not recognize summer magic?” The Shadow Man demanded. “Unbind me, princeling. Or I’ll kill you both myself.”

  “I am the king,” Faer said. “I am still Herrick. I’m in another vessel.”

  “That’s not a vessel,” I said. “It’s my brother. Part of you infected your own son.”

  “There is a time for every king,” the Shadow Man told him. “And your time has passed.”

  The Shadow Man glanced between the two of us and said, “You called me to destroy the imposter, and I am bound to do that. Both imposters.”

  He changed his grip on his sword as if he were about to raise it over his shoulder for that killing blow.

  Herrick threw his hand out toward me. The vines binding me suddenly exploded away in splinters of greenery.

  “We’re both dead if we don’t work together,” Herrick called over to me.

  I was already on my feet and glancing around me for a weapon. Maybe he’d learned from Raile, because there were no weapons in the room—except for the knife that lay on his tray of snacks, a bit of metal glinting between cheeses and berries.

  “Might be worth it to me as long as I get to see you go first.” But I didn’t really mean that. I had a lot to live for; maybe Duncan would grovel even more. “You raised him to this stupid task! Undo the spell!”

  “It’s not that easy!”

  “Of course it is!” I shot back.

  But then I put the missing pieces together. Just as he and I had suffered when he broke my magic on the dais and took away the illusion I was human, whoever broke the enchantment that had raised the Shadow Man would be weakened by the force of such powerful magic.

  “We could stop him together,” I said. “Then neither of us will be weaker than the other.”

  “Sounds fair,” he said. “I’d rather take my chances he kills you first. You did kill a lot of Shadow Knights.”

  “You heard about that, huh? You feel no pride? I bet you’d be proud if it had been Faer.”

  The Shadow Man advanced on us. He did seem to be focused on me. Maybe he wanted to save Herrick for dessert.

  “I’m the Queen of Summer,” I called across the room. “And I bind you to my service.”

  “I already serve Summer.” His voice was like a rasp directly into my ear, and it sent a shiver down my spine.

  “How can you serve Summer when you’re trying to kill the heirs to the throne?” I demanded. “Herrick is dead. Faer and I are twins—and neither of us has completed the magic rituals to become the true king or queen. No matter how he styles himself.”

  The Shadow Man stared me down with those eerie red eyes.

  “You’re made of our magic,” I said. “You know that what I’m saying is true. Faer has no right to bind you, and neither do I. Neither of us are really king or queen. Not yet. Time to let it go.”

  Neither of us had proven ourselves worthy and taken the throne.

  “Killing you both would bring the kingdom peace,” he said. “Since I was bound wrongfully, I will serve out my vow—and serve the summer court itself. They’re better off without you.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Compelling argument. Or maybe we could just call the whole thing off.”

  He stared at me with that eerie face. “Neither of you might not have the power to command me, but perhaps you can release me.”

  “What are you going to do?” I hoped he wouldn’t rampage murdering everyone. I didn’t trust anything bound in the Fae world.

  He didn’t have a true face, but he still managed to fix me with a contemptuous look. “I’m going to sleep for another millennia until another arrogant child of light wakes me.”

  “Sold,” I said.

  Now if only I knew how to unbind him.

  But Azrael’s low calming voice was in my memory, repeating the words I’d found in the books in the library. It was funny that I heard his voice in my head: “According to the lore, the covenant was bound with royal blood. All you have to do is spill your own blood and say, I release you.”

  And I could just imagine his voice saying what I knew: “But Alisa… it will hurt. The breaking of an enchantment hurts. It leaves you weak.”

  I hadn’t forgotten the pain that Faer and I had both faced on the dais. I dreaded it.

  But that didn’t stop me.

  I snatched the knife from the table and dragged the tip of the blade across my forearm. The blade was so sharp that it hardly stung at first as it skated over my skin. Then the blood welled up, and with it came the pain.

  “I release you,” I said. “Go sleep.”

  I felt a tingle of summer magic across my skin, like when the sun was so hot it made one shiver strangely. I was about to say that wasn’t so bad when it turned into a burning that tingled through my skin, that swept through my veins. I felt as if I were on fire.

  My vision narrowed, fading black at the edges.

  “You said you could recognize summer magic. Do you feel my brother at all?” I managed to ask. My voice sounded distant to my own ears, and I frowned, trying to hang onto reality. “Do you feel any part of Faer still alive in him?”

  But the Shadow Man didn’t answer me.

  Through the pin-prick of my vision, the Shadow Man shimmered, then disappeared.
/>   I fell to my knees, and then the pain washed through me and was gone. I collapsed onto the ground, sprawling against the marble. My arms and legs were weak as jelly and I didn’t think I could push myself back up to my feet.

  My father leaned over me. I had no memories of him and yet somehow I realized now that the expressions on my brother’s face weren’t quite right, weren’t him.

  That evil grin was Herrick’s, not Faer’s.

  Somehow, if I could just hang on, I could figure out how to save my twin.

  But I couldn’t hang on. Even though I’d beaten the Shadow Man, I fell into the shadows myself.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Tiron

  Azrael and I knew that Faer would have guards at the rip in the woods where we’d first entered with Alisa, so we’d had to enter in autumn court territory. We’d made our way as quickly as we could up into summer court territory, moving stealthily so we wouldn’t be caught.

  We were almost to the palace when Azrael suddenly froze. The sun had risen just a little while earlier, and rays of golden light broke through the forest canopy, illuminating his chiseled features.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, as he looked over his shoulder at me, consternation written across his face.

  His lips parted to answer me but instead he crumpled toward the ground.

  I leapt forward to catch his shoulder, easing his weight down to the forest floor.

  “Az,” I said, but he clearly couldn’t hear me. His head lolled against the thick, fragrant grass which was covered in flower blossoms—a sure sign we’d entered summer territory. What the hell was wrong with him?

  “Sorry for the lack of warning,” Perin called, stepping into the clearing. The last of her icy magic flickered around her fingers, then died. “He’ll be fine. But I wanted to make sure he didn’t see my face.”

  “Perin.” I stared at her in horror for a moment.

  She looked at me with affection written across her face as she raised her arm toward me. It was always a relief to see her and Dala before; I worried about their safety whenever we were apart. They’d sheltered me and raised me, and if Faer knew who they were to me, he’d hunt them to the ends of the earth to string them up as he had so many other members of the winter court.

  I went to hug her, and she hugged me tightly, then cupped my cheek with her palm as she looked up at me fondly.

  “Dala will watch over him,” she promised me. “He’ll be safe and sound while you do what needs to be done.”

  “Where is Dala?”

  “Here.” Dala pushed through the last of the underbrush and emerged into the woods with us; her hair clung to her forehead with sweat and she had an exasperated look on her face. Having to be physically active within the summer court always made Dala look as if she were being tortured.

  She led a gray dappled horse, and she nodded to Azrael. “Help me get him up.”

  I looked down at Azrael’s still face, his eyes closed. “This is an unnecessary risk.”

  “No,” Perin said, “bringing the king of autumn into the court with you is an unnecessary risk. Alisa is getting married tonight.”

  “It’s our time.” Dala touched my arm, her eyes shining. I used to think she looked at me with nothing but love, but sometimes now I wondered if the adoration in her eyes was because of who I was—or because of what I could be: the High King, savior of the winter court.

  “Azrael is too likely to see through you,” Perin warned. “You need to be free to react to situations as they arise, to convince Alisa to change the words in the marriage binding spell so that she chooses you.”

  “She will see you as her hero, when really you are ours,” Dala added.

  Perin glanced at her quickly, then said, “And once it’s done, Azrael and Duncan will be safe. They’ll no longer have to dance at the end of Faer’s strings. You know eventually he’ll kill one of them.”

  I nodded. That was true. Faer’s games would eventually come to an end, and if Azrael and Duncan weren’t able to outwit him one more time, they would die. Faer would always play his game with weighted dice.

  Azrael knew it; when Faer summoned them back to court, he’d tried to leave Duncan behind at the front. Fighting monsters at the Rift had a lower mortality rate than attracting Faer’s attention. But Faer had insisted Duncan come as well; he knew Azrael’s weakness for those he loved.

  Duncan never talked about it. But Azrael, sometimes, when he’d been drinking with the Fae knights, because a little morose.

  I stared down at his face cradled by the vivid green grass, remembering one night when we were both too drunk to be playing darts. Azrael always threw them with perfect skill and grace, though, even though his philosophical side gave away how much he’d had to drink. I’d never forget the light-hearted way he talked about death as if it were an old friend he sometimes glimpsed at a distance.

  It was Duncan he worried about, not his own life. He’d been drunk enough to ask me to look after Duncan and Zora. And I’d been drunk enough to promise.

  My friends would feel betrayed if I married Alisa and became High King. They’d also live long enough to feel their feelings.

  I bent and grabbed Azrael’s wrist, yanking him up and over my shoulders. My knees buckled at his weight—how did the land Fae stand having bones so thick and heavy like bricks weighing them down? But I maneuvered him onto the back of the horse, and Dala helped me bind him there with magic.

  “Where are you taking him?” I started to ask Dala, and then shook my head. “Forget I asked. I worry about him.”

  “I know,” she said warmly.

  But the-winter-court-in-exile—and in rebellion—kept loose cells of information so that if one of us were tortured until we broke, we could only surrender a few others, a single hidden refugee city. If things went wrong at the castle, then Dala could protect Azrael—but the odds were good I’d be strung up in the dungeon, to be tortured before I was killed.

  Dala threw herself into my arms, wrapping her arm around my waist and hugging me tightly. I squeezed her.

  “When I see you again,” I promised her, “everything will be different.”

  “I know,” she said. “You’ll make us proud, Tiron. You’ll save them all.”

  When she and Azrael and the gray horse had disappeared into the forest, Perin turned to me. “You know he’ll be safe.”

  “I know,” I said. I’d do anything to protect my friends. Surely Alisa would be happier to be married to me than to Raile anyway; our relationship was developing slowly, because she didn’t even know who I really was, but what was between us felt true and real. “That’s what matters.”

  Perin had always planned to turn Faer and Alisa into statues in the garden, just as they’d done to my family. I glanced at Perin, at her close-cropped hair above a sharply featured face; she wanted revenge and she had a Fae’s lighthearted cruelty, but when I was High King, I could protect Alisa—even from my family. It would take time for them to see Alisa’s goodness, but she’d won over so much of the summer court.

  Unless I was lying to myself about what would happen. A king had to face the truth, no matter how ugly it was.

  Merlin’s words kept playing in my head, though, as if they were an earworm. Be the hero of your own story. You’re no longer that boy, being hidden by his people for the time when he will save them. You no longer have to play by their rules.

  Before I met Alisa, the plan had seemed so simple. So righteous. Now all roads led through darkness.

  “Let’s get going to the palace,” she said lightly. “You’ve got a wedding to prepare for.”

  Together, the two of us slipped into the forest, moving through the shadows toward the palace.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Alisa

  I woke to find Faer staring down at me.

  “You’ve always been so clever, Alisa,” he said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you figured me out.”

  “And here I thought the only worthwhile
thing about me was my looks.” I wasn’t sure if the words came out right; the world around me felt dull and muted. My mouth and throat were dry and my ears had popped when I unbound the Shadow Man; it felt as if I was being stabbed in the ear when I shifted my head.

  I reached for my magic desperately, hoping—but it was gone. Every shred of it.

  My magic would recharge, of course, but in the meantime I had to face Faer without it.

  “When did you take over Faer?” I asked.

  “At first, I thought enchanting him would be enough. But I had to change my plan once I learned I was sick,” he said, then snorted. “It was a long, slow process, transferring a little of my spirit to him at a time. And you forced me to speed it up when you discovered me. You figured out that I was dying—oh, you were actually sad about that—” He stuck his lower lip out, and the pout was disturbing on his face. Then he finished, “You put it all together from there.”

  My eyes widened, and he said, “Oh yes. You’ve thought you outsmarted me more than once—but I always had the last play, didn’t I?”

  He reached for me and I scrambled back, my fingers sliding across the marble floor. My body was still weak, my head reeling, but I didn’t want to find out what the next step of his plan was.

  He looked as if he expected me to run.

  Instead, I attacked.

  There was no sign of the knife I’d used to cut myself. I glanced around the blur of the room even as I gathered myself and launched toward him.

  I slammed into him, catching him around the waist, the two of us falling into his fancy futon. His mouth gaped in surprise. Maybe he’d become too accustomed to easy targets while I was in another world.

  The couch groaned under our weight as we struggled. He almost managed to break away, but I locked my arm around his throat. He choked out the word he’d been trying to say to work his spell, but it came out slurred.

  He heaved and the two of us slid off the couch.

  He tried to slip under my grip, and I wrapped my leg over his waist, pinning him. Faer was a little taller than me, but he was slender and bird-boned too, and my brother had never spent much time working out. I leaned back, feeling his jugular pound against my arm, then squeezed. I’d choke him out until he was unconscious.