grandmother’s chest?
This made no sense. Her loving heart holding her Fae-spark should be there. Instead, her heart was crushed and mutilated and lay next to her left shoulder on the dirt. Misplaced. It should be in her chest. Her chest shouldn’t have a fist-sized hole in it.
Her head shouldn’t be five feet away from her body.
I couldn’t…
This didn’t…
My grandmother…
I jerked to the side and lost everything in my stomach all over the trampled flowers under my feet.
Father didn’t look up from his mother, his form still kneeling on the ground, but he lifted his left hand and placed it gently on my left shoulder while I continued to be sick.
Hoofbeats could be heard in the distance.
I didn’t bother looking up as tears filled my eyes.
Javon, my father’s Fae-gifted pegasus and Penelope’s sire, was hurtling toward us, answering his daughter’s forlorn call.
I spat on the ground and gulped in much-needed oxygen, my emerald eyes slamming to my father’s profile. My agonized cry hurt my ears, “I don’t understand. She was fine when I left her.”
The king swallowed hard and turned his wet eyes toward me, pinning me with his gaze. “Look around you. She was attacked.”
I stood up straight on shaky legs, brushing Father’s hand off my shoulder, and tried to focus on our surroundings. Flowers upon flowers and the grass were flattened in a large circle around her body, the indented grass heading off toward one of our less fortified areas on the royal property.
“She didn’t fight, either,” Father said quietly, almost a mere breath of air. He hesitated before lifting her right hand from the ground, holding it reverently so that I could see, his caster-spelled ring twinkling in the moonlight from his middle finger. “There are no defensive marks anywhere that I can see.”
Hot tears slid down my face. “She knew.”
Father nodded once. “She knew it was her time.”
A shuddering breath flew past my lips, clarity slamming my thoughts, my stomach churning all over again. “And she wanted to protect me.”
“Yes.” Father looked up into my eyes. “She loved you with all she had, Trixie. She always did. Your grandmother is…was…always so proud of you.”
A torrent of tears blurred my vision. I choked, “She was proud of you, too, Father.”
“I know,” he whispered. The king placed her hand back onto the ground and squeezed it softly before releasing her. His jaw hardened suddenly, and his glistening emerald eyes slowly traveled the way the intruders had entered and fled. “It’s time for you to do as I said before. You must go back inside while I tend to business.”
My jaw clenched just as much as his. “If you think for one damn second that I’m not going with you to hunt these murderers down, then you really don’t know me at all—as I’ve always suspected.”
The king still stared ahead, his scan roaming over the crushed field. “I do know you, despite what you think. And I know you are not ready for this. You are only eighteen years old. You are not prepared for the vengeance that needs to happen.”
“They beheaded her,” I said through gritted teeth, my fists clenched at my sides. “There was no need for that. They crushed her Fae-spark. That was enough to kill her. But they removed her head too, to show us they could.”
The king ignored me.
So I stuck the dagger deep. “I will be there, right next to you, to exact justice for a woman who was more a parent to me than you ever were.”
Father’s head snapped around, his steady eyes assessing my features. Then he said quietly, “You truly believe that.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.
With my tears still tracking down my cheeks, I lifted my chin high into the air and peered down my small, regal nose at the king.
I hissed, “Yes.”
His emerald eyes narrowed slightly. “You are wrong. This proves what I said before. You are too young to go with me.”
I never argued with Father. Not only did his blood run through my veins...he was also my king. This time, though, there was no way to hold back my words, not with the one light in my life now burned out and lying dead at my feet.
I tipped my chin up even higher and lowered my voice to show how deadly serious I was. “Try to stop me. I know our land just as well as you. You won’t be able to keep me here.”
Our stare lasted forever, neither of us backing down.
I