Page 127 of Wilds of Wonder
His eyes widened at that.
She scoffed. “I figured it out recently. Thought maybe you were moonlighting as him to catch the white rabbit. Clever, really. Except you never caught her, did you?”
Annalee whimpered from beside her brother.
“Enough talking,” the frost queen said. “Time to see what the axe will do.” She raised it high, ready to cleave it down into the earth when a buzzing sound hit the air.
The queen stiffened, axe hovering above her head. “What is that?”
Before any of us could answer, the blood beetles raced through the opened border, past us, and swarmed the frost queen. She screamed over the sounds of flesh tearing, blood squelching, and bones crunching. The axe dropped to the ground with a resounding thud, a crackle of blue light and shimmers spreading from its sharpened edge.
“We have to get the axe before the magic spreads!” I yelled. “Iron. We need iron to stop it.”
Did iron even stop divine magic? I had no idea. Also, we were all still chained to trees. The beetles continued to eat the queen as her screams filled the air. I looked away, unable to watch, until the squelching sounds finally died down and the beetles lifted in the air. Bile rose in my throat at the sight they left behind: the frost queen’s dress was torn to shreds, nothing but organs, bones, and blood painting the ground.
The axe’s magic sizzled in a zigzag line, icy blue with shimmering blue dust flying up in the air in big swaths. The ground cracked in two, a thunderous fissure splitting the air between us so that I was on one side with the white wolf and the axe, while Annalee, Maverick, and Driscoll were on the other side, all of us getting farther and farther apart as the chasm in the ground grew.
“What do we do?” I screamed over the noise.
By now, the beetles had lowered to the ground, feasting on the bloody remains of the frost queen. My stomach twisted as I struggled against the chains, watching the magic continuing on its war path toward the Wilds, the blue light continuing to cleave the ground in half. I had no idea what the frost queen had intended with this magic, what she instructed it to do. Maybe this time it wouldn’t just be the star court that got destroyed. Maybe the magic wouldn’t stop until the entire world was broken in half by it, everything in its path destroyed.
“Annalee!’ I screamed as loud as I could over the sound of the earth cracking between us. “The beetles! Can you get the beetles to eat through my chains?”
Her eyes widened, but she must’ve been able to read my lips because she nodded, a fierce determination settling in her drawn brows and raised chin.
She clucked her tongue, and the beetles stopped their feasting as they turned and saw her. She mouthed something. Maybe she wasspeaking, but I couldn’t hear her over the crunching and splitting and roaring. Whatever she said, the beetles must’ve heard, because they flew straight toward me.
Maverick shouted over the hum of their buzzing, probably telling Annalee to call them off, and I prayed to Spirit Frost that the beetles didn’t devour me like they had the queen. I just needed to get loose and get to that axe and somehow undo whatever the frost queen had done. Clearly this magic was beyond powerful, beyond unpredictable. None of us had the capacity to wield it.
The beetles surrounded me, and now all I could see were their blue and black bodies, feel their sticky small feet on me, the flutter of their paper-thin wings against my skin. Oh, this was a bad idea. Bad, bad, bad. I faintly heard a crunching sound, but the world was literally busting open, so I couldn’t be sure where it was coming from.
All of a sudden, the beetles flew backward, and the chains fell from my chest. I stared in disbelief. They’d done it. They’d listened to Annalee and freed me. The swarm returned to their feast.
I didn’t waste any time, grabbing a piece of the iron chain and running with it toward the axe. I reached out to lift the axe from the ground, but blue dust swirled up and formed a mighty jaw that snapped at me.
I jumped back, and the blue dust dropped to the axe. The magic continued on its warpath behind me, sawing the ground in half. So many innocent creatures would die if we didn’t stop this soon. The entire star court would be beyond saving.
The white wolf stirred, and my heart skipped a beat. I ran to him, snow kicking up behind me. I didn’t know what my plan was, but maybe the wolf could help in some way.
I grabbed a fistful of his fur, falling to my knees, and the wolf reacted immediately, red eyes snapping open, canines bared, a low growl rumbling from his throat. He gnashed his teeth at me, but I didn’t back away. The wolf looked down as if just realizing he was chained to a tree. He growled again, this time, shoving forward. The iron blasted into pieces that flew in every direction as the white wolf freed himself. I ducked to avoid getting hit, shielding my face.
“Run!”
I didn’t know who yelled it, but I was guessing it was my husband.
“Run!” the voice boomed again.
I looked across what was now a canyon at Driscoll, still chained to the tree. He gave a firm nod, and I nodded back.
“Listen, Aron,” I said, turning and staring the wolf in its red eyes. “I know you’re in there somewhere, and I know you can come back to us because we need you right now. I think you might be the only one who can pick up that axe and stop this.”
He’d been immune to all our magic. Immune to that wall. Maybe he was immune to this magic as well.
The wolf growled again, backing me toward the edge of the canyon. I fell onto my butt, looking up at him as saliva dripped down onto my cheek.
“I know what it’s like to feel trapped,” I said, voice trembling. “I know what it’s like to feel like there’s no way out. But when I was at my lowest, you know what I did? I persisted. I couldn’t leave my marriage. Just like you can’t leave the wolf behind. But I could still be me. I could still carve out the life I wanted for myself, even if it wasn’t what I imagined. And by doing that, it led to me being fully free.”
The wolf’s red eyes flashed, and he lowered his head, mouth inches from my neck. His warm breath puffed onto my face.
