Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) by Skye Malone, Megan Joel Peterson

die.”
    “But were they… did they threaten her or something?” he asked desperately, knowing he was defending the girl he remembered from the farm more than anything.
    His father studied him. “How much do you know about the young Merlin queen?”
    Cole couldn’t respond. Suddenly, all the hours of restless sleep and the pathetic excuses for food were making themselves known on his aching head. What did he know about her? Nothing, apparently. Or at least the tip of an iceberg he really didn’t want to see.
    He’d left Lily with this girl.
    Swallowing hard, he shoved down the panic. Ashe would protect Lily. At what cost, he didn’t know, but that wasn’t the point. Lily’s safety was more than guaranteed.
    Everything else was just information to help him figure out where to go from here.
    He gave his father a small shrug.
    “I think it is difficult to describe how truly relieved I was to see you, Cole. And not just because of the years the council kept us apart. Queen Ashe , as she has rather appropriately renamed herself… I thought she had killed you when she pulled you through that portal. And even if through the use of that staff she had somehow managed to keep you alive…”
    Victor’s mouth tightened. “She feeds on your kind, Cole. To strengthen her power. Queen Ashe, upon taking the Merlin throne, led a campaign of destruction against cripples the likes of which our world had never seen. No one knows how many died, though those who escaped to join us estimate hundreds, if not more. But ‘Bloody Queen Ashe’, as she’s now known, summoned men, women, even little children to her side, all under the pretense of fighting us . And then she killed them. Brutally. Systematically. And without any but her fellow murderers the wiser. It wasn’t until people began to question why they never heard from their friends that the ruse came to light, and even though the surviving cripples have fled…” He shook his head. “There’s no guarantee she’s stopped killing.
    “I’m sorry,” Victor finished. “I know she can make herself look like just a girl.”
    Cole didn’t move, though he knew his father had fallen silent. It was all he could do to just take in the words.
    She’d watched him ever since they found her again. What did she think? He’d turn her sister against her? Or that she couldn’t kill him while Lily was there?
    He saw her face again, bloodlessly pale and huddled over her little sister as he drove them away from their farm.
    He wanted to be sick.
    “Cole?”
    Drawing a rough breath, he fought to push the horrific accusations aside. It was all just information. Just information to help him figure out how to deal with the situation. Or something. But it couldn’t be the focus. Not right now.
    Blinking, he dragged his gaze up to his dad.
    “Why did you…” he swallowed. “Your men. Keller. I heard him. They tried to kill… on the farm, they tried…”
    “We didn’t want to hurt them. We just had to stop their father. He was…” Victor paused. “He wouldn’t have ever given up the war. But we did not go there to harm his girls.”
    “You shot her!” Cole protested. He threw a glance to the rest of the room, trying to keep his voice down. “I mean, your people. They said they only needed one and they shot Ashley. And me.”
    Silence answered him and he looked over to find his father frozen still.
    “What?” Victor asked quietly.
    “One of them. I don’t know who. They shot Ashley and me and…” He shook his head, his shock fading, though it was doing little for the clouds fogging his brain. “Lily saved me.”
    “Lily?”
    He cursed himself, but there was nothing for it. And it didn’t really matter anyway. “Yeah. Ashe’s sister. She did something. She didn’t know what. But she saved my life.”
    Victor seemed to remember how to breathe. “Then I owe her. Tremendously.”
    His dad paused, and then visibly drove the possibilities from his mind. “I don’t know