Page 209 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

Chapter 69

Kat

ThelastthingIexpect to find awaiting us on the border of Harbright is an army.

Armed soldiers are arrayed in three directions, surrounding us completely. I freeze, stepping backward against Rahk’s chest. His hands come up, closing around my arms. His grip tightens, then he moves me behind him.

Agatha has already started running straight toward the army, shrieking for help at the top of her lungs.

“Agatha!” I cry, suddenly afraid she will be struck down.

But she makes it to the edge of the army. It swallows her up. Presumably without killing her.

“What is going on?” I whisper to Rahk.

“They might have been waiting for me in case I came back,” he replies grimly. “Queen Vivienne requires my head now that I have kidnapped her son. No matter how brief or necessary the kidnapping, or how unharmed he was.”

“I’mfine,Lord Oliver! Really—ahh!”

I turn toward Mary just as she crumples. Oliver, worn and ragged as he is, has never looked more determined than when he ignores her stubborn protests and scoops her up into his arms. “With all respect, my lady,” he tells her, “quit being an idiot.” He turns toward Rahk and I. “I can take her up the hill, right? They won’t harm us?”

“You should all be fine,” I reply. “Take Becky. I think Rahk, Pavi, and I are the only ones at risk.”

Oliver nods, sweat streaking through the dirt caked across his face. He looks down at Mary in his arms, her red hair splayed across his shoulder. Becky scuttles to his side and he gives her a smile. “Ready to go home?”

“Are you alright, Mary?” I ask, before they leave. “I am so sorry that you got tangled up in this.”

Mary’s face is tight, but she offers me a smile. “I’m fine. I’m sure the leg is very treatable. I have a renewed respect for what you do. Also, I never would have let you go into Faerieland if I knew what you faced there. Oh yes, and I won’t be letting you go back. Ever.”

I give a mirthless chuckle. “Fair enough.”

The three of them leave and safely make it to the army after picking their way across abandoned magicked farmland.

“What do we do?” Pavi asks.

“Do you think I can convince them to not kill you?” I ask Rahk, holding onto his broad elbow.

He studies the force against us. “I don’t know, Kat. I do not want to risk anything happening to you.”

“Last I checked, the queen still liked me. It is our only chance. I will approach and explain what happened. Maybe I can convince them to take you captive instead of killing you. Then I can meet with the queen and try to convince her to pardon you.”

Suddenly, a pummeling force from behind us—from the Wood—drives all three of us to our knees in an instant. My hair blasts in my face, preventing me from seeing anything. The magic enhanced crops are swept away. Even the army buckles, retreating from the force of the rush. Screaming begins.

It is Rahk’s voice that cuts through the din. “Get back! Get back!”

Somehow, I manage to turn around.

The giant form of Lady Nothril rises above the treetops of Caphryl Wood. Screaming from all around the valley reaches a crescendo. I fall backward in my attempt to scramble away. My heart nearly stops right then and there.

Lady Nothril is a fluid form that only seems to grow greater, more terrible, as she leans over the valley.

“Give back my daughter!” she screams in an unearthly voice that shakes the world at its foundations. “Or else I will destroy these lands!”

Blindly, I grab Pavi and drag her as fast as I can away from her reach.

Rahk draws his two swords, long and bloodied in each hand, as he braces against the wind and bellows: “No fae ruler may cross this border!”

Pavi and I scramble further back. Rahk, who has always looked like a mountain to me, now looks miniscule, standing as the lone figure between my entire world and a roaring fae queen filling the sky.

---