Keeper of Storms (The Fallen Fae #3) - Jenna Wolfhart Page 0,106

escape this brutal fate.

“Princess Reyna Darragh of the Ice Court.” A pair of boots appeared before her eyes. She craned her head to glare up at the wood fae towering over her. He was nothing more than one of Ulaid Molt’s many guards, his face hidden behind a thick shadowsteel helmet, a curving sword in his hands.

“Where’s your king?” she hissed around a throat that felt as though it had been scraped by a thousand swords. “Is he too cowardly to take care of me himself?”

“Our High King has better things to do than stand watch over a meaningless execution,” the guard hissed back. “You’re lucky you even get a chance to voice your final words.”

Reyna’s mouth felt dry. She stared out at the crowd, flinching at the whimpering cries of Duana drifting toward her from where she knelt halfway down the platform. Her fading green hair hung in her eyes, frazzled and soaked with mud. This would be her end. Not in the glory of battle but here, like this. An axe against the hope of all these shadow fae.

She would die here in this place. The entire city would be destroyed. And then the wood king would turn his gleaming gaze north, killing everyone in his path. Tir Na Nog would become the very thing the Dagda had feared.

Her heart thumped. Maybe the Ruin truly had been wrong all this time. The visions had gotten twisted. Or the prophecy had been wrong.

I am not wrong, the Ruin hissed into her ears. You’re just desperate to find a way to live.

She closed her eyes, images of the past and her imagined future flashing in her mind. A reel of memories that twisted together with dreams. None of that would ever come to pass, but maybe she could save the future of everyone here. Maybe Duana was right. Reyna had been too frightened to use the Ruin all this time, but if she could keep control of it just long enough to stop these wood fae, to kill the king…

The Ruin might be the only thing that could stop him.

Suddenly, the noose slid around her neck. The wood fae flashed her a wicked smile, signalling to the guard just behind her. “You have one moment to speak your last words, Princess Reyna Darragh of the Ice Court. And then you shall die.”

39

Lorcan

Lorcan rushed through the streets with his sword raised high. Up ahead, he heard the distinctive sound of screams. Nollaig and Lord Maddox flanked his sides while the army from the twins hacked at the wood fae who had been guarding the gates. He’d managed to convince them to rush on the city at once.

He left them behind, fighting his way toward the square just ahead. He spotted several figures clustered together on a raised platform. As he drew closer, his feet pounding the ground, his heart ripped out of his chest. That was no mere platform. Ropes hung from wooden crosses, swinging in the misty wind. It was a gallows.

And there was Reyna, her knees pressed against the floor, her head bowed. Her long hair fell across her face, stringy and faded green. Caked in mud. She looked nothing like the wild, fierce Shieldmaiden he’d fallen so deeply in love with, but he would have recognized her anywhere. His heart twisted at the sight of her poor owl lying motionless beside her.

He roared, his feet picking up speed.

A shadowsteel-clad wood fae stood behind her and dropped a noose over her head. The rope tightened around her neck. Lorcan saw her mouth move, but he couldn’t hear her words over the chaotic clamor of the battle, the pounding of his own feet, and the brutal ripping of his heart.

They were going to kill her.

“Reyna!” he shouted, throwing out his words with a ferocity that left behind shards of ice in his throat. “Guards! Stop this now!”

Reyna’s head jerked up, her gaze sweeping across the square. She found him within an instant, and every single part of him lit with inexplicable fire. His breath shuddered from his lungs; his hand tightened like a vice around his sword. Something passed between them then. A sorrow so profound that Lorcan could scarcely stand beneath the weight of it.

He took a step forward, determined to reach her before the platform swallowed her whole. Hundreds of shadow fae were clustered together beneath the gallows, watching, sobbing. Reyna’s lips flattened into a grim line. She mouthed something to him, but he could not make out