Chapter 43 - Ravens Flight
The twelfth Duke of Lycaster laid at my feet on the floor of his study.
I shut my eyes and used every bit of my concentration to keep Derrick asleep, but the monster in his mind was running free.
Alastar rammed his horns into the magical barrier of dreams I placed in Derrick’s mind. My tether over him shook.
“Brietta,” I bit out as I struggled to keep my hold over Derrick’s mind. “There is a portrait of three pink roses on the far wall…that is our way out.”
Brietta’s footsteps pattered to the wall then hinges creaked.
“How long will he be asleep?” she asked.
My muscles ached as my power drained little by little, but I gritted my teeth and held on. “Not long. We have to get Anna.”
She quickly grabbed my hands and guided me through the portrait hole into the inner walls of the palace. I could only focus on maintaining the fading light of my magical tether as Alastar rammed into my magic over and over.
We had minutes before I lost control.
Brietta popped open a panel in the wall and low light from sconces filtered through my eyelids. The smell of perfume and old wood of the royal family’s chambers filled my nose. My feet stepped onto the plush carpet as I followed Brietta’s lead.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
My eyes snapped open as soon as Grigory’s voice hit my ears. My white flame roared, filling every inch of my body with a furious heat—enough to incinerate a giant again.
The power was too great to ignore. I had to make a choice.
In a heartbeat, I let Alastar loose and focused on a different monster.
“Grigory, please, ” Annalisa cried. “I am trying to protect you.”
I yanked out of Brietta’s grip and flung open Annalisa’s bedroom door just as an agonized scream filled the air.
Grigory stared with wide eyes at his trembling hand. His palm flared red like he had just grabbed molten iron. Annalisa had her back to the wall and her arm in front of her like a shield—frozen in place from when Grigory had grabbed her wrist.
Grigory looked from his burned palm to Annalisa. “What did you do?”
My arms were shaking with rage as I lifted my hands. “Not enough.”
His wide eyes met mine and my power flared. The tears in the water bowl on Annalisa’s dressing table braided themselves into a rope of fire.
Grigory was a different kind of giant, but he would suffer just the same.
“ Burn. ”
The rope wrapped around his neck and he screamed. His hands flew up to his throat but he tore them away when they touched my flames.
My heart pounded. I could not kill him without killing Annalisa, but I would make him pay for what he did to her.
Annalisa’s palms pressed into the wall behind her. She looked down at Grigory speechless, her eyes brimming with fear and pity.
“Come on, Anna!” Brietta cried. “The lionesses run together!”
Annalisa closed her eyes and pushed off the wall. She ran past Brietta and I, screaming her sisters’ names in the hallway.
Grigory was on his knees and screaming when I released the rope.
Brietta pulled me out of the doorway and slammed the bedroom door shut with both hands. “How do we run? Where do we go?”
I took her hand and pulled her along the hallway. “Through the walls. Follow my lead.”
Annalisa burst out of a bedroom door. “I cannot find any of my sisters!”
Brietta snagged Annalisa’s hand as we ran past her. “We cannot wait! We have to go now!”
I had just turned the iron sconce to open the panel in the wall when a scream filled the halls. It was not the pained groans of Grigory as he nursed his wounds, but the broken, anguished cry of a man who had lost everything.
Derrick had just awoken into his worst nightmare…and now Alastar was fully in control.
I gritted my teeth and pulled Brietta and Annalisa through the wall. I led us through the dark halls, following the sparkles of magic I had left on the bricks until we saw moonlight.
Annalisa tore through the tight wooden door first, sprinting through the grass faster than I had ever seen her run. Brietta and I huffed as we struggled to keep up with her.
Tears streamed down Annalisa’s face as she panted, her blonde curls flying out behind her as she ran into the night.
She ran so fast I swore she grew wings.
Annalisa ran right to the stables. I followed and the strong scent of hay hit my nose. Brietta caught up to me as soon as we were in the darkness of the stable.
“I…hate…running,” Brietta panted.
“I hope you are ready to ride then,” Annalisa said. She led a white horse out of its stall, it had already been reined and saddled.
“Sera, ride with me.” She pointed to Brietta. “Brie, take Derrick’s horse.”
Merri led another white horse out of its stall. Her eyes glistened as she held out her hand.
“Here, Your Excellency,” she whispered. “Let me help you up.”
A warm hand pushed on my shoulder. “You too, Serafina.”
I turned. Rosaline was waiting with an outstretched hand.
I accepted her help and seated myself on the back of the horse. I wanted to tell Rosaline where I was going and what I was about to do…but I could not let Annalisa and Brietta hear me.
I could not poison their first sip of freedom with the knowledge I was about to give mine away.
“In case I may never see you again…” I said. “Thank you for everything you showed me.”
Rosaline’s eyes shone and her soft cheeks rose with a somber smile. “Thank you, for saving him.”
I swallowed all else I wanted to say, letting her read the truth I would never write down.
Rosaline nodded toward Merri, who guided Brietta onto the other horse. “Daigen is going to get us out, but he will be at the fortress when you arrive.”
Why would Merri help us commit treason? Before I could ask, I had my answer as Annalisa ran into Merri’s waiting arms. Merri stroked her curls before kissing her on the cheek.
“Run,” Merri said, a single tear rolling down her face. “Run because your mother couldn’t. Run because Ilsa couldn’t.”
Annalisa set her jaw and raced back to her horse. She had tied her garters around her skirt to form makeshift pants. She leaped onto the saddle behind me and swung her leg on the other side of her horse.
She grabbed the reins and flicked them. “Go, Diana!”
The horse trotted out of the stable. Annalisa’s heartbeat pounded against my back as she shouted, “His name is Apollo, Brie! Just kick him and follow us!”
I gripped the horn of the saddle with both hands as Diana galloped through the palace courtyard toward the gate.
Guards shouted around us. I looked back—Brietta had a white-knuckled grip on Apollo’s reins as he caught up to us.
An arrow whizzed past my face.
“Not near the Duchess, moron!” a guard shouted. “Don’t let them leave!”
The iron palace gates started to swing closed.
I reached out my hand and only the smallest sparkles of magic in the air responded. My power was nearly exhausted and the iron held no water, no magic tears. They were going to trap us.
Suddenly the gates froze in place, leaving a wide gap between them, as a pained cry echoed from the gatehouse. “My eyes! It got my eyes!”
A flash of black flew out of the gatehouse. The sheen of dark feathers rippled in the moonlight. Only when we were a second away from the gates did I see the spot of pink on a beak.
Erik.
I counted the pounding of hooves against the gravel until we raced through the gap in the iron.
I let out a breath and smiled. Brietta laughed behind us.
We were free.
Erik dipped through the dark sky, flying in front of Annalisa and I as our horses raced through the city. His pink beak pointed the way through the streets of Hyton, past all the brick houses and shops, until we met the stillness of the countryside.
The moonlight sparkled on the waves of Odeneye lake and the river below as we approached the bridge into Bloodstone province.
More hooves thundered behind us. I dared to look past Annalisa to see the Lycaster cavalry chasing us down the hill to the bridge.
Derrick had sent the army to drag his Duchess back.
Diana’s and Apollo’s hooves clapped on the stone bridge as we raced across. I had to stop the cavalry somehow. I could destroy the bridge, but my magic could do nothing against stone.
I needed something with life. Something with water.
Diana galloped into the dirt on the Bloodstone side of the bridge.
“Stop!” I shouted. Annalisa pulled on the reins. “I have to take out the bridge!”
As soon as Diana was still, I slid off the horse and clumsily landed in the grass. My heart pounded as I scanned the moonlit bridge for any weakness, or maybe a tree I could enchant to fall and block the cavalry’s path.
But…what if trees had already fallen in their path?
Riyan had once told me he had used tree trunks to support the bridge as part of his punishment for snapping Grigory’s leg. My eyes went straight for the first two wooden pillars near the Hyton side of the river.
I threw out my magic. The tree trunks sparkled with tears and so did the river beneath them.
My Nordingaard crystal lit up as my feet tried to keep steady on the steep incline of the riverbank. I tried to focus on sparkling tears in the river, but the water was moving too fast. The tears passed by me before I could command them.
I had to get into the river.
I looked down at the rushing water. It was no magical healing spring nor a pool with defined limits. If I lost control over my magic, I was going to drown.
But if I let the cavalry cross the bridge, Riyan would be stuck in the place West of the Moon and East of the Sun forever.
I swallowed my fear and lowered my foot in the river. The cold water soaked my shoe and my stocking, the magic in the water kissing my skin like gentle embers.
Annalisa and Brietta gripped the back of my dress as I entered the river. I was up to my waist in the water, but magic was all around me.
As soon as the first horse came down the hill toward the bridge, I plunged my hands into the water, connecting with the last dreg of my power.
“ Burn! ”
The surface of the water was ablaze. I shielded my eyes from the blinding light and heat flashed across my cheeks.
A scream tore out of my throat as Brietta and Annalisa yanked me out of the water and onto the grassy riverbank.
Annalisa hit me in the stomach and I huffed out a breath. She screamed and cursed as she hit me and rolled me in the dirt.
Smoke singed my nose.
“She is good!” Brietta cried. “The fire is out.”
I coughed up dirt and grass, but then a loud rumbling sound made me snap my head toward the river. The stone bridge was crumbling into the flaming river—my fire had eaten the wooden supports.
The cavalry’s horses reared up and whinnied at the flames that danced on the surface of the water.
I let out a breath, the air from my lips cooling my smoldering body, and looked down—my skirt was soaked and my waist was singed.
The cavalrymen shouted on the other side of the river and I looked up. Pain filled my body, and not from the kiss of flames against my skin.
But I could not look south and grieve what I had left behind. My heart’s desire was north, where Riyan would soon walk the earth again.
Annalisa’s curls bounced as her head snapped toward Hyton. “I have to go back.” She raced toward the river as the flames were dying down. “I left Magnus! I have to go back for Magnus!”
Brietta shot me a look. We both knew she was not worried about the damn cat.
I picked up my sopping skirt and sprinted toward her before she could take a swim. She sat down at the riverbank and started to take off her shoes.
“Anna!” I shouted. “Do not go back to Grigory after what he did!”
She shot me a glare over her shoulder. “Your curse cannot stop true love.”
What was she saying? How could anyone love someone who had hurt them?
Before I could open my mouth, the rustle of wings swept past my ear and Erik flew to Annalisa. He pinched one of her curls with his beak and tugged her back.
She tried to shoo him away, but he dodged her hand and flew back to yank another curl. Annalisa screamed and picked up a nearby branch. She leaped to her feet and chased after Erik as he flew inland.
“I will knock you out of the sky, you rat with wings!” Annalisa shouted.
Erik flew right in front of her, just out of her reach, as she swung that branch over and over in her blind rage. He led her further down the path to Bloodstone Fortress until she was out of sight.
Safe and sound.