Page 34 of The Crown the Fae Forgot
And my instinct in that moment was overwhelming, undeniable, and thanks to the incredible power I had no experience resisting, refused to be ignored. And it was telling me to do one thing.
The first time I tugged at Shiel’s hand, it only tightened again. He tried to catch my gaze, to hold it, but mine had already fixated on something far beyond, and it wouldn’t look away.
His fingers squeezed mine as he tried to lean in closer. He kept his voice low, but there was no space for privacy between us. The guards stood close enough to overhear anything he said, so he spoke carefully.
“Aurra, whatever is happening right now, we have to think it though,” he said, those eyes of his searching me, trying to read me.
I ignored him, trying to step around him, my face still turned towards that target that refused to be ignored.
"Aurra..." Shiel repeated again. "Aurra, I know this feeling. I know what it is to be a lord. It must be overwhelming right now, the need to satisfy whatever urge is driving you, but we have to be careful."
A strange feeling welled inside me, bubbling up the back of my throat until it spilled out in the most unexpected sound of all.
A laugh.
It was accompanied by a smile, though I didn't realize it until I spotted the uncomfortable shift in the guards standing before me. I still hadn't grown used to the muscles in this face, to know how it felt when the outer corners of my lips pulled up. I did know, however, that it was not the sort of smile that reached my eyes.
It was as if that predator instinct, the one now cementing me on solid footing to the living, breathing, river of glamour connecting me to Luxia and the world beyond, was taking over. It had lived in this body far longer than I had, and it was not ready to share.
"Careful?" I asked. "Careful of what?"
Something flickered in Shiel's eyes then that either he'd been very good at repressing, or that only then took hold. It was only there for a fraction of a second, so short a time that my non-fae eyes never would have noticed it, but it was long enough for me to pick up on. And in that moment, Shiel saw me the way the others saw me.
It was my turn to lean in to him. I rocked forward onto the balls of my feet, my face inching closer to his, so close that I could count the number of freckles on the bridge of his nose,so close that I could hear how measured his breaths were, how his teeth clicked together as his jaw clenched and his knuckles cracked as he kept himself steady.
"The time has passed for careful," I said. "Lady Phyrra might be the ruler of this court. But I am the ruler of this kingdom."
Once more that look fought past Shiel's careful gaze, and in that moment, I broke free of Shiel's grasp and fixed my gaze now on that bright, blinding light at the end of the hall. Adrenaline flooded through my veins as I heeded that predator's instinct screaming in my ears, refusing to be ignored as I stalked towards the murmurs of the crowd outside.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I couldn't believethis was what I'd been avoiding.
Thiswas what I feared?
Now that I felt it, truly felt this power, I couldn't remember what fear was. I wasn't sure if it was because this power was so great that I could no longer feel fear, or if it was because this powerwasfear.
Was this how all fae felt? Was this the power that drove Icarus to commit such heinous acts? Was Shiel always fighting this draw, this intenseneedto answer a call greater than himself? Was this the power he'd wrestled all those weeks he led me away from his own court towards this one, or perhaps it was the power he'd succumbed to.
Perhaps it was just the lords and ladies of the courts, their powers heightened and honed through blood and steel that felt the way I did now.
I wished Shiel had warned me of this draw. But either way, there wasn't exactly a way to prepare for it. There was no fighting it, not now, not like this.
There was only obeying.
This new instinct inside me led me to the end of the corridor, where I joined the throne of faces turned not towards the lady still seated on her throne, but into the crowd itself. Guards were pushing themselves through the fae faster than they could part, their shining forms following a much smaller figure that wove between the onlookers with surprising speed. I knew, before Shiel, Zev, and Finch had appeared at my shoulder to see what had drawn me away from the designated path, what it was that had caught my attention.
I didn't need to see the figure to know who it was.
The boy.
His antics from earlier had nearly cost me the power of the Midsummar solstice, something that it seemed Lady Phyrra hadn't missed, either. I couldn't see her face from where I stood, framed by that blinding sunlight in the doorway, but I didn't need to see that, either. I could tell from the rigid line of her shoulders and the tense faces of those guards closest to her that she was furious.
Out in the crowd, a small scuffle broke out. It seemed one of the guards was finally successful. He'd caught hold of the boy by the back of his stained and tattered tunic, the force of the motion half jerking the poor boy's body up into the air, pulling him violently backward. The crowd had begun to part already, forming a clear path back up to the throne where Lady Phyrra waited impatiently. A loaf of bread remained forgotten on the ground where the boy had dropped it in the tussle, his sorry prize left to picked apart by the first sharp-eyed bird that swooped overhead.
The guard dragged the boy up to face his lady, which he refused to do until a second guard, this one with a snarl and too-tight a grip, grabbed the boy by the hair on the back of his head and yanked it back to face the throne.
"This is the boy, my lady."
