Page 36 of The Crown the Fae Forgot
She'd prepared the ritual that freed me, but notforme. For this. She'd warned me that there would be a price to pay for what she did today, that her gift to me was not done out of kindness, but out of her own selfish desire. And now I saw why.
It wasn't out of fear for Icarus, or for the crown of Luxia to pass to another court.
It wasn't because she had no ambitions of her own.
It was because she clung so desperately to what she already had that I was simply the closest thing to keeping the peace, to keeping an even greater change from sweeping Luxia, that she was willing to doanythingto maintain the illusion of her own power over her own court.
Even if that meant sentencing a boy to death for little more than trying to quell his own hunger.
"There's a reason there are no prisons in the Southern court," Lady Phyrra announced, that sugary sweetness in her voice hardening to something more like iron as she stood. As she did, the soldiers holding the boy straightened too, until he was no longer standing on his own two feet. The tips of his feet barely touched the ground, swinging out beneath himself as he wriggled in the arms of the men hoisting him up. But no matter how much he writhed and kicked, they only held him tighter.
Lady Phyrra pulled back her shoulders and straightened her chin.
"The glamour is not to be challenged. It is not to be distracted from. Let this day, this boy, be a reminder of that. Your choices,large and small, each one of you, can determine the path of fate that our great court and country take over the coming years. Even an action as simple as stealing bread, as creating a commotion, is enough to bring even the greatest kingdoms to their knees."
Without having to request it, one of Lady Phyrra's many advisors stepped up to her side with a sword suddenly in his hands. It was a small thing, shorter than any of the swords I'd seen Shiel, Zev, or Finch wearing at their sides. It was hardly longer than a dagger, really, but even from where I stood I could see the deal edge glittering in the light. It might look like a toy, but it was nothing to be played with.
And Lady Phyrra was not playing.
She lifted the sword from its place on the pillow, and in that moment, even the birds above stopped singing. I might have imagined it, it might have been another one of her many illusions, or perhaps the very court did hold its breath for the judgement of its lady, but in that utter silence, I heard the very blood inside my veins begin to once more rush. That instinct in me strengthened again. It began to tug at something in the center of my chest, tightened the muscles in my throat, made it feel as if there was something half choking me, trying to force its way out of me as the very outer corners of my vision began to blacken--darkening and tunneling until all I could see was Lady Phyrra, her sword, and the terrified face of the boy now kicking at only air beneath his dangling feet.
"I, Lady of the Southern Court, do sentence you to death for crimes against the glamour itself, our most sacred treasure, and I, it's sacred protector."
The two guards finally set the boy down enough, if only to steady his swinging figure. His eyes went wide as Lady Phyrra raised her hand, the sword glittering like a holy icon of unholy justice.
My vision tunneled further.
By breathing quickened.
For a second, it wasn't Lady Phyrra I saw, it wasn't a boy, it wasn't a sword.
I wasn't even in the square of the Southern Court, amongst the fae that I was now supposed to belong to.
I stood alone in a cabin at the edge of a worn road. A man, red-faced and hulking, lifted his hand to strike a small, scared girl before him. There was no knife, but the terror in her eyes was all the same.
I didn't command Lady Phyrra not to kill the boy. What I did was not a selfless act.
When my voice rang out, a single word so drenched in the glamour raging alongside the furious beating of my heart, it was not with the intention of saving a stranger. It was saving me.
"Stop!"
A single word.
A single command.
And the entire world went still.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I thoughtI knew what silence was before, but I was wrong.
For a moment, I thought time itself had stopped.
Or, perhaps, only I had. Perhaps resisting that urge, that instinct, inside me had finally been too much. I'd felt my own heart racing as if ready to burst, felt the pressure building in my veins, felt the instinct clawing at my insides like it was a creature prepared to rip me to shreds if I refused to obey.
But I also felt the moment I stopped resisting the creature. I felt the moment I stopped choking on the command that had been rising up inside me and let it free. I'd fought the instinct inside me, and I'd lost.
And it had an unintended consequence.
