Chapter 17 River #3
could do this all day. “Sightseeing not going like you imagined?”
“Help!” he begged. “Help!”
River pulled herself up and over the branch until she was in a front support atop it. “This is what happens when you use a
power you don’t understand. You end up in danger.”
His fingers began to slip. His pleading intensified as he mentioned his new girlfriend, his recent promotion. The venomous
sledgeling he’d captured that he hoped to keep as a pet.
“I don’t care who you love or all you haven’t accomplished. We’re done playing teleportation tourist. I decide where we go next.”
River hooked her leg around his torso, closing her eyes and sending them away from the waterfall. But the mimic, in his infinite
ignorance, intercepted this attempt, trying to teleport in the middle of River’s teleportation.
The result of the double teleportation placed them firmly in the sky, right below the clouds and falling fast. All River could make out below them was the uniform grass of the horseball field and the tiniest moving specks in the surrounding
seats—the exiting audience.
“Tell me who runs the guild now!” River shouted. She stretched out her arms, attempting to grab hold of his shirt.
“I would rather die!” he shouted back as the wind pulled his cheeks up into his eyes.
“Farewell, then!” River said, teleporting out of the sky right as the man crashed at full speed into the horseball field.
River landed back in the tunnels, where the Farmount Falcons were making their way to their changing room, expressing their
shock at what Galwell had done. Judging by their chatter, they had no idea Galwell himself was somewhere within these same
tunnels, so River tiptoed past them and farther into the bowels of the stadium, until she found him and Celine.
She was dismayed to see that they had been apprehended by two security guards.
The guards were laughing, exchanging jokes as one restrained Galwell and the other had his arm wrapped around Celine’s torso.
Celine thrashed about, her face purple with barely contained anger.
River fought the urge to charge. With two princes potentially dead from his actions on the horseball pitch, a handful of guards
dead in the tunnels, and the mimic dropped to his death on the field, carnage currently followed Galwell, and they needed
to be very careful not to make him look any guiltier.
River had to do what Celine would, under normal circumstances—be the calm, collected scribe, here to gather information.
“What’s happened?” she asked, stepping into view.
The guard who held Galwell looked over, smacking on a chewing leaf with loud, aggressive thwacks. “What’s it to you?”
River straightened her spine. “I’m a . . . member of Queen Thessia’s undercover guard. She’s sent me here on her behalf.”
“Your queen knows perfectly well what this monster did,” said the leaf-chewing guard. “He killed our prince. And he’s killed
these other guards, too.”
“Not us, though,” the second guard said. “We’re too smart for him. He doesn’t stand a chance. And this pretty lady—” He put his mouth right up to Celine’s ear. “She was down here with him, looting their bodies for coins.”
“I was checking their pulses,” Celine said. Ill-concealed venom coated her tongue.
“I think I’d like to check your pulse.” The guard licked Celine’s cheek. “Maybe we will keep you for ourselves.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” said the other guard.
“Apologize!” Galwell commanded. “Or I will report your disgraceful conduct to your superior.”
River clenched her jaw to keep from turning feral. She hated seeing these grimy men touch Celine like that, and if she didn’t
need to preserve Galwell’s reputation, she was quite sure she would rip them limb from limb. “Unhand them both at once!” she
commanded. “On the order of the queen of Mythria!”
The guards laughed.
“Please. As if your queen means anything to us,” said the leaf-chewing one. “Nice body, though,” he told Galwell. “I could see why
you’d come back from the dead for that.”
River wanted to strangle both these men with her bare hands. Charging forward, she looked to Galwell, who gave her a nod,
seeming to agree. Forget the consequences. Forget civility. Together, they could do away with these disgusting, hapless guards
without breaking a sweat.
River threw herself atop the guard who held Celine. The leaf-chewing guard let go of Galwell, and before Galwell could get
a hand on him, the guard rushed over to throw aimless punches at River and Celine.
These guards were disastrous at combat, but their reckless, chaotic swings made it impossible for her or Galwell to get a steady hand on the fight. It was a tangled, writhing mess of bodies. If River wasn’t so angry, she’d have been horrified by the sloppiness of it all.
Suddenly, Celine screamed—a guttural, consuming sound, like a flock of carcass hawks collectively attacking their prey. Her boot connected with River’s
stomach, knocking all the air out of her chest.
River flopped back on her rear, dazed, gasping for breath. Galwell, stunned by the sound, backed up, too. Was Celine turning
on them?
Was Celine the evil one?
The veins in Celine’s neck had stretched so taut they looked like ropes. At once, she stopped screaming, and her face calmed
into a perfect portrait of peace. River was so transfixed by this shift, she almost missed the flames.
Orange-red fire shot out of Celine’s hands the same as it flowed from a welder’s torch, fast and powerful, scorching a clean
hole through each guard’s chest.
But Celine’s magical gift was everlasting memory.
So what in the Ghosts was that?
River tried to stand but fell over twice before she regained her footing, unable to reconnect her mind to her body. She looked
around for something—a respite, an answer, a sense of understanding. All she saw were more guards rounding the corner.
All three of them were utterly fucked.
River rushed over to Galwell.
“We need to get you out of here,” she said, her hands shaking so terribly she could barely grab hold of him to teleport.
“No,” Galwell told her. “Take Celine. Not me. I need to clear my name.”
River started to protest. Celine was not who anyone thought she was. She’d been lying to them all in more ways than River had even imagined. But an image flashed in her mind—Celine alone with more guards, taunting her and touching her and doing whatever they pleased.
She rushed over to Celine, who’d crumpled into a ball on the ground, shaking and crying.
“Leave me be!” Celine cried.
“I’m afraid I won’t be doing that.” River placed a hand on Celine’s arm and teleported them away.