Page 40 of Wickedly Ever After
Across the field, Ida raised her wand.
At the last second Alistair turned, lunging toward Hector. His spell hit the princess right in the chest.
“Oh!” She tumbled backward.
Ida’s spell caught Alistair in the shoulder.
“Shit!” His voice sounded high-pitched, frighteningly human. He doubled over in pain.
Ten knights charged onto the field from the corner where they’d gone over the fence. But they weren’t wearing the ceremonial togs normally donned for the festivities. Led by Caedan, they wore traditional armor. A few sweaty and panicked pages backed away from the fence, carrying everything from feathered helmets to decorative lances. In the middle of the group charged Prince Archie, similarly attired, except for the visor and helmet. He carried a large, less-than-ceremonial sword, the enchanted sword his father had used when he’d gone on his quest to save Annabeth. Hector prepared for the worst—a stab to Alistair’s gut and then a decapitation. He’d never be able to face the Flamelord again.
The princess jumped in front of Alistair and took up a fighting stance. “Run! Or fly! Or whatever it is you do!”
Alistair shook his wings out, desperately trying to regain his form, but it took dragons longer to change from human to reptile than it did the other way around.
“Will you get going?”
“What about you?” Alistair bared his dragon fangs at the oncoming knights and cast about for the amputated poleax.
“Don’t worry about me. It’s you they want to kill. Get out of here!”
“Wrong!” Alistair shook the last of his form free and rose into the air. “They’ll kill you too. It’ll just take longer.” With a blast of flame in the direction of the knights, he grabbed the princess in his claws and took off. In a short time, her screams faded into the distance, and Alistair became a black spot against a wall of clouds, darkening the blue sky as they rolled in.
The prince panted up. “That was something else! I have to hand it to you witches, you really outdid yourself this year.”
Caedan stared after the disappearing spot on the horizon. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Was he—was that really a dragon?”
“Illusion,” Hector muttered. Amber’s screams echoed in his ears, but not as loudly as Alistair’s words.They’ll kill you too. It’ll just take longer. What on earth had Ida hit him with? It sounded almost like an empathy spell—something intended to give a person deep, abiding insight into someone’s soul.
Thunder rolled. Lightning flickered in the distance.
Ida, red hair falling into her eyes, glared at him, but she looked as worried as she was angry. She was probably thinking the same thing he was. What happens when a Good Witch’s spell hits a dragon? And what happens when a Wicked Witch’s spell hits a princess? Nothing good, that was certain.
“What did you do?” she hissed when the prince moved off to congratulate his knights, clapping them all on the backs. “Why did your dragon take human form? They’re not supposed to do that.”
“Who gave the princess a weapon? She wasn’t supposed to fight! What game are you playing here?”
“I didn’t give her a weapon. Anyway, your dragon set the whole place on fire. They’re not supposed to do that either, and she was only trying to defend herself—”
“There’s no reason for her to even want to do that! Dragons never harm the princesses!”
Lightning cracked the sky, and the roar of the thunder shook the ground. Rain began to pelt Hector in the face, great, heavy drops, plunking down like hailstones. A blast of wind as freezingas snowfall enveloped him in an icy embrace, whipping his robes around like smoke. Ida’s too.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh, for Gods’ sakes, what are you trying to prove, Hector? Turn it off.”
“You think I did—” He glanced at the clouds roiling overhead, suddenly horrified. It was his province—storms and other natural disasters, to be distributed fairly and equitably over the kingdom—but this was nothing he’d done. Something was very wrong here. He glanced at Ida, into her violet eyes, shimmering with fury. She couldn’t know. She’d roast him if she knew he was responsible for Alistair’s interference with her magic. It was his job to keep his monsters in line after all.
He drew himself up, as tall and regal as he could make himself given that sleet was freckling his clothes and the wind had turned his hair into a badly disheveled eagle’s nest. “I had to do something,” he said in lofty tones. “You’ve turned this whole thing into some kind of publicity stunt for yourself after all.”
“What?”
“First the Prince’s Dinner and now the Happily-Ever-After itself—if this is another one of your ‘let’s let the people participate’ schemes, I can assure you, I won’t be supporting it!”
Ida gaped. “Of all the—your dragon burned down the stadium and you say I’m the one who made this into a publicity stunt?”
“He didn’t burn down the stadium!” He glanced at the ruin. “Only…part of it.”
“Now the whole kingdom is going to think dragons are out there walking around like ordinary people, setting things on fire whenever they feel like it. Good job, Hector. How do you plan to hush that up?”
