Keeper of Storms (The Fallen Fae #3) - Jenna Wolfhart Page 0,109

this burden is yours and yours alone, but it isn’t. It’s ours. So, if you’re going to go down fighting, so will I.”

40

Reyna

After freeing Duana from her bonds, Lorcan lifted Reyna into his arms and rushed down the wooden stairs. Wingallock had awoken, almost as though he’d gotten a sudden burst of second wind. He perched on Lorcan’s shoulder, hooting in agitation each time an arrow whistled past them. The fighting raged on around them, wood fae against shadow fae. She hated leaving them to fight for themselves, but they had an entire army by their side.

And she had a duty to fulfill once and for all.

Duana’s words had resonated with Reyna in a way that had caught her off guard. She’d begun to piece the visions together in a different order, one that transformed the puzzle into an entirely different image. The Namhaid. The ice princess. She’d been in the visions because she was meant to be there, at the end of everything. She was a part of this, but she was not the Namhaid.

She was the one who would either stop him or fail.

Of course, that didn’t explain her dreams. In them, she was the one who wielded the axe, the ice princess with a deep-seated rage. But perhaps those had been nothing more than figments of her own imagination, or ways for the Ruin to trick her into believing his mistaken beliefs.

Whatever it was, she’d moved past it now. She knew what she had to do.

Two streets past the battle, Lorcan finally lowered Reyna back onto her feet. She took a few unsteady breaths, her head spinning. Somehow, her heart still beat. She still breathed. She could still move her legs. In truth, she should have been dead by now.

Footsteps thundered through the city. By now, the wood fae army would have been alerted of the battle raging in the square. Soon, warriors would stream through the streets, blocking the path to the castle. If she and Lorcan were going to make it there alive, they would have to be quick.

“I don’t like this,” he murmured as he pulled her into the shadows of a nearby alley. Reyna knew he did not mean the fighting.

“I can’t say I like it either, Lorcan, but it’s what I have to do.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I think it’s what I’ve been meant to do my entire life.”

There had to be a reason the Ruin had dogged her all her life, a reason it had locked its gaze on her instead of on anyone else. It had interpreted the visions poorly, same as she had. Now, she knew the truth of it all. She had a role to fulfill.

“There must be something else we can do.” He pulled her to his armored chest, and she could feel the steady thump of his heart against her cheek. She breathed him in. Leather. Smoke. Steel. It was her favorite scent in the entire world. “This feels too much like the end of everything.”

“Not everything,” she whispered as a tear slipped down her cheek. Just her.

Suddenly, her deal with Seelie made horrible, twisted sense. The god of light had been testing her, just like she’d always thought. But for a different reason than she’d ever anticipated. Seelie had wanted to know if she would do the right thing when the time came for her to finally face the Namhaid. Would she cower away from her fate or would she embrace it? Could she find it within herself to do the one thing she knew would destroy her if it meant the world could be saved?

Seelie hadn’t forced her to part with Lorcan. He’d never been controlling their separation. None of it had been a punishment for accepting his power. It was the result of it. This was always going to lead her down one path: the day she had to use the Ruin against the wood king.

It would be the thing that would part them forever. Because she didn’t think she would survive it.

Shut up, the Ruin hissed. Stop thinking these things. You are the Namhaid, Reyna Darragh. You’re the destroyer, not the savior. You are meant to end the world, not save it like you think. You’re terrible and wicked and cruel. You are—

“Except I’m not,” she said out loud, no longer concerned if Lorcan heard her talking to herself. She pulled herself out of his arms and stood a little straighter, fighting tooth and nail against the weariness trying