Guinevere's Grail | ✓ [BOOK 2]

~ 37 ~

TITANIA KNEW SHE HAD no way of killing Mab, not for good. But she could slow her down, and, to Mab's dismay, it was exactly what she did. She was there on the balcony, chained to the ground in iron beside Atla's lifeless body. Her skin burned away against the metal, but it was a pain she was used to by now. Titania moved so much faster than her, and her heart ached too much to remember what the other Queen had even done to her.

It was a hit to the ego that Titania beat her in her own home, but she knew if she was not grieving, this would all be different. Maybe the Seelie had the right idea, not to get attached to anyone. The iron felt like nothing next to the gut-wrenching agony keeping her on the ground, and for the first time in millennia, she felt weak.

This would be easier if she never loved, like a Queen was supposed to.

"But how dull life would be," Mab cried as she inched closer to Atla, pulling her into her lap. "If I had no love to make it better?"

She kissed the young Queen's head, pushed her eyes closed, and stroked her hair. She was always so cold to the touch, but never this cold. There was no life there, nothing Mab could use to bring her back. This was simply a vessel, Atla was already a star in the sky, like she'd yearned for death so long already.

"I created the bean-sídhe for you, my love, I created those creatures from my own bone because I knew this day would come." She wept, and released the most painful cry she'd ever let out. It was the kind of cries that echoed through kingdoms, the cry her mournful children could only hope to mimic. It freed her from her chains, and called forth her army. When the Unseelie Queen finally cried, no amount of iron could stop her.

* * *

Giselle was focused only on Morgana, whose shoulders now shook with silent sobs. "He's suffering," she observed. "When a Queen dies, all her people feel it. This is a pain no one should ever have to feel."

Morgana was fighting tears and losing, and it took three of them to keep on his feet. Kit gave in and scooped him up into his arms while he heaved.

"We need to get out of here," said Selene. "Find somewhere safe."

"Weapons hall," Eurion suggested. "At least we'll stay protected if we have something to fight with."

With that, they hurried through the palace, navigating the maze of the hallways. Kit struggled to keep up, but he didn't dare put Morgana in the care of anyone else. He was crying out now, back arching in his agony. It hurt to watch almost as much as it hurt to listen to. Kit murmured calming nothings into his ear, and he couldn't fully tell who he was really saying them to.

The ground was shaking now. Pieces of the ceiling were cracking and falling around them, forcing them to pick up the pace. One large chunk fell and blocked off the hallway they were heading for, and they would be trapped soon if they didn't move right away.

"Outside," Chalice said, rushing to the nearest door and narrowly avoiding a hit. Kit and Morgana were the last to make it out, but only barely. He hugged the faery close as debris fell their way, slipping through the door within a second of their lives and falling into Selene's arms.

Morgana slipped from his hold, instead clinging to his side and doing his best to stand. "Where are we going?"

Kit's eyes frantically searched the area, until they landed on a door across the yard. "There," he urged, but he froze when he felt that familiar pit in his stomach, and he snapped his head to the center of the small field.

It was Titania, and Mab was nowhere to be found. The Queen was kneeling, hands buried in the ground, and despite her concentration, she gave them a wicked look.