Keeper of Storms (The Fallen Fae #3) - Jenna Wolfhart Page 0,4

heart. Not anymore.

“I’m going back to Findius, Thane,” she said quietly. “And I’ll do it without your help if I must.”

Thane rustled by her side. When she turned to gaze up at him, his own face was screwed up in pain. Confusion tore through his golden eyes. “You can’t go alone.”

“I can and I will.”

“You’d be charging straight to your death, Reyna,” he argued, though his tone was soft.

“I have Seelie’s power rushing through my veins,” she said, ignoring an insistent reminder in the back of her mind. Seelie’s power wasn’t the only thing she had. The pulsing magic of the Ruin twitched beneath her skin, itching to get out and storm across the lands. Itching to ruin her before she had a chance to fulfill the prophecy and destroy the world. “You know I have to do this, Thane. I can’t leave him there to fight this alone. I have to go to him. Even if it’s only to die by his side.”

2

Lorcan

“Your Grace, you must rethink this.” Priest Tighe knelt before Lorcan, his robes pooling on the floor like a black sea. An ancient leather tome was tucked beneath one arm. Lorcan had not seen the male without that thing for days.

Lorcan sighed, leaning against the sturdy table set inside the Meeting Hall behind the Throne Room, the small space ancient Shadow Court kings and queens had used to confer with their Grand Aldermans and advisors. Only two flickering candles lit the windowless space, flaring orange hues against the grey tapestries that lined the wall. He did not quite understand how he had gotten here. Born in the grasslands, he’d had no ambition but to survive the next Beltane. And now Beltane was quickly approaching once again, and he was to be the High King of the Shadow Court.

“I appreciate your concerns, Priest Tighe,” Lorcan said gently. He understood why it was difficult for the priest to accept his decision to alter the rites of the coronation. It had been a very long time since a shadow High King had taken the blessings of a Druid rather than a Priest. “But I have made my decision. Druid Aric will oversee my coronation.”

Priest Tighe’s narrow shoulders slumped beneath his thick robes. “Unseelie will not be pleased, Your Grace.”

“Which is precisely why I’ve chosen Druid Aric.” Lorcan nodded at the quiet man who stood beside the priest. It had been difficult to rustle up a follower of the Dagda inside the Shadow Court.

Aric was unlike most of the druids that Lorcan had met inside the Air Court. He wore the familiar drab brown robes and went barefoot, to signify a connection with the soil. But he had not shaved his head in keeping with the traditions up north. Instead, his long hair was a curtain around his long face.

“I mean to begin my reign as I mean to go on, and we will not bow before Unseelie in my court.” Lorcan’s strong and commanding voice sounded alien to his own ears. Kingly, almost. “My father made too many mistakes based on his unyielding belief in Unseelie. He sacrificed thousands of our own warriors in the hope of gaining even more power. I will not follow in his footsteps.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nollaig nodded, the hood of her ever-present cloak rustling around her hidden face. She and Commander Segonax, his two closest advisors, had agreed with his decision, even as undesirable as it might be to the shadow fae nobility. The low fae, the ones who called the city home, were less likely to raise their brows. They were the ones who had suffered most under Bolg Rothach’s cruel reign.

Priest Tighe sighed and pushed up from the floor on shaky legs. He clutched the book tight against his chest, his long hair draping across his forehead. “Your Grace, you know best of course. I just…worry.”

Lorcan frowned. “Worry about what, exactly?”

“Unseelie could retaliate.”

“Well, that is a risk I’m willing to take.” Lorcan turned to Druid Aric. “Are we ready?”

Aric gave a nod. “The Throne Room is packed, Your Grace. It seems the fae of Findius are eager to meet their new king.”

A heavy sense of duty settled onto Lorcan’s shoulders. He had never wanted to be king. He was a bastard, raised in a tiny village in an enemy court’s grasslands where he’d been surrounded by honest, hard-working fae with dirt-caked faces and calloused hands. And yet the black stone throne that once belonged to his father now squatted