Page 129 of Oath of Revenge

The chairs and silverware lunged toward Scarlet, and she slammed her shoulder against the kitchen door, but it wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, she peered behind her into the small window. A row of stools barricaded the entrance, each one with several sharp knives standing upright on them.

With a low growl, Scarlet turned her back on the door and faced the more immediate threat of the chairs, forks, and spoons. She lunged forward and grabbed hold of the closest chair, lifting it and hurling it to the side. The wooden chair shattered on impact, sending shards flying in all directions.

But there were more marching toward her. With a flurry of movement, Scarlet dodged a flying fork aimed at her head and grabbed another chair. She swung it with all her might at the oncoming chair army. More stools and chairs broke in half, the sound of splintering wood filling the air.

Still they kept coming, relentless in their attack. The chairs bumped into each other but the forks and spoons flew through the air. She reached for another chair, but when she turned away from the door, it opened a crack, allowing the stools to push inside.

Trapped between the chairs and the stools, she leaped onto the seat of one, kicking the utensils as a barrage of knives flew towards her. She used part of a chair to block as many as she could, but the knicks and slashes—tiny thought they were—hurt like hell.

Dodging and weaving on the backs of chairs, Scarlet picked up one and hurled it towards the door, shattering stools and several of the attacking utensils. But more were coming, closing in on her. She desperately wished Wulfric was here with her. Fighting with him side-by-side was so much better than doing this alone.

Scarlet took a deep breath and lashed out at everything in her path, determined to break free from this deadly trap and find him. She gritted her teeth and reached for the nearest animated chair. The buffet table drawers flew open and napkins swirled through the air straight at her. They wrapped around her arms, hands, legs, and neck.

Clawing at the one on her neck, her vision turning splotchy as it choked her. Her nails shifted into Growler claws, and finally she began to shred the fiendish napkins.

Her reflexes sharpened with the partial shift, and she caught the next fork as it sailed toward her. She threw it at the wall, pinning a napkin. One down, and a hundred to go. Hopefully the chairs and stools lasted long enough to be used against the army of silverware. With every movement, she prayed to the gods that Wulfric wasn’t facing a similar fight.

Bella fled up the stairs, her feet not touching the ground although she still ran like she had a body. Try as she might, she just did not like floating or going through walls. She stumbled on a landing and collapsed to the floor, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them.

She swiped at her cheeks, her chest tight as anger and grief swirled within her, threatening to burst. Her magic was so volatile the past few months of being trapped here. And it wasn’t Scarlet’s fault, she knew that. She may not have a brain or a body, but she wasn’t stupid.

It was the mirror’s fault. But everything in the past six months? The pain of the two servants who had been left behind in the castle? The trans-mutated cat-table and the horse-pitchfork?

Those were all her fault. She rocked on the marble floor, holding her knees. She’d made so many mistakes in the past year, starting with trusting Gastone after years of warnings from Eirwyn. Eirwyn had been her friend, regardless of how many awful chores Bella had given her in those early years. Not for the first time, she wondered if Eirwyn had escaped the curse blast.

That stupid curse blast. Light faded through window as the sun set. She couldn’t see out from this angle on the floor, but there was nothing to see. Nothing but rubble lay between the castle and the forest now, just a desolate, lonely place where she’d been alone for months.

So alone except for the shadow monster that kept her trapped here. How had Scarlet gotten through it?

Poor Scarlet, battling her chair army. If she could just control her emotions, maybe her magic would be easier to control too.

A clattering behind her made her glance at the stairs down to the lower level. A fork and spoon jumped up each stair.

“Gus, Jaq, you didn’t have to follow me,” she said softly, picking them up and crossing her legs to hold them on her lap.

That in itself didn’t make sense. She was a spirit, incorporeal. But somehow she could interact with those things she’d animated. Nothing else, though. She couldn’t even pick up books in the library unless she animated them, and that risked changing the contents of the books themselves. If she did that, the information inside would be useless, so she’d long since stopped trying.

She slipped into her room and ran to the pot by the window where the rose lay in full bloom. There wasn’t much time left, especially now the servants were gone. She’d had to animate the dresser and break the window just to let water in so it wouldn’t die faster.

But every day, she felt her spirit growing more chaotic and volatile. Her emotions were growing out of control and her magic was unpredictable—which was why Gus and Jaq’s animation change seemed to be permanent. They even had personalities and a semi-language of clicks and tings. They clicked at her from her lap, and she pulled them out with a frown.

“Yes, I know, but she’s a Hunter. Surely she can handle a few chairs. She’ll be alright.”

The metal tongues of the fork clinked together, and she sighed. “Fine, I’ll go stop the spell.”

With one last look at her rose, she turned and went down the stairs. It should be fine now. She felt much more in control. Perhaps she just needed more conversation. Perhaps she’d just been so long with no outside interaction that she was out of practice.

Yes, she just needed to remember her humanity and act like the queen she was now.

She passed the library on the way to the dining room, but saw a light glowing from inside. She frowned and stepped inside.

A hairy man stood flipping through the books she’d been studying in one corner of the room. She walked around him, keeping him at a distance but drawing inexplicably closer. Her movement must have alerted him to her presence, because he looked up.

Golden eyes, heavy brows, firm jaw, crooked nose. Wolf ears poked through his black and silvery mane. The way he hunched his shoulders and held the book, holding it close and tilting his head just so…

She blinked as the book dropped from his hands, and he turned to face her fully. The light from the lantern caught his features, and she gasped.

Magic flared around her, and bookshelves rattled on the wall. Books flew off the shelves. Shelves flew off the cases, and cases flew off the wall, crashing everywhere.

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