Page 68 of Knight's End
Chapter Seventeen
Ihad Pony knock out Princess Corinna by smacking her across the face with a closed paw.
I considered that merciful.
Shiter thought differently. The little lavender rabbit launched himself at me from underneath a chair. I hadn’t noticed him hiding there, but I did notice when Pony’s wings suddenly unfurled and I heard athunk. Shiter had smacked to the ground but he bared his naughty little bunny teeth at me before leaving a pile of pellets on the floor.
“Hello to you, too,” I told the enchanted bunny as he hopped forward to check on his mistress. I noted he didn’t shite on her. That rump-faced hopper!
I grabbed Shiter by the ears and had one of the gargoyles take Corinna carefully in his claws.
Then we flew the princess and her loyal, shitey little bunny back to Evaness.
Connor helped me dismount and immediately encompassed me in pink light as I sagged against him. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been running on a combination of Donaloo’s tablets and adrenaline. But my head lolled against his chest and my knees nearly buckled once it was all over.
I dropped Shiter, who scrambled to get away from us. I assume the overdose of healing magic made him feel sick. Blue snatched up his enchanted brother by the ears. “Harsh,” he greeted him.
I didn’t even have the energy to laugh when Shiter shited in response.
I looked around for Ryan and Declan, but they were still mounted, discussing things. Quinn took Princess Corinna from the gargoyle that had carried her. He shouldered her and dragged her inside. She moaned dully and put her hand to the goose egg that had formed on her forehead.
I tapped on Connor. “Follow,” I ordered, because I didn’t have the strength yet to walk on my own. He half-carried me to the green parlor, the pink light of his magic offsetting my blood loss. By the time Connor helped me into a chair, I was feeling a bit better. Less light-headed. He brought me water, and a soldier tossed over an apple he’d been about to eat on his watch. After I ate, I felt much better.
Connor spent a few minutes healing Corinna while I ate. That’s when I noticed a frozen courtier in the corner of the room. I pointed and asked Quinn to take the frozen woman over to the ballroom with the others.
He gave a sigh of discontent but complied.We’re really going to need to figure out how to unfreeze these people.
Add it to the endless list of things to do,I replied.
I turned back to Rasle’s princess. “What the hell were you thinking?” I asked the freckle-faced, raven-haired Corinna. She was nearly six years older than me, in her mid-twenties—and already married to some schmucks her mother had chosen. Corinna, out of all the crown princesses in the kingdom of Kenmare, was the one I’d least expect to commit matricide. It threw everything I thought I knew about her into question. Sickly, shy, a pawn and simply a mouthpiece for her four husbands—that was the reputation that followed her like a shadow.
“I thought it would be more merciful to kill her myself than let you torture her first,” Corinna’s voice was calm and collected. She held eye contact with me.
“And you were willing to do that?”
"If anyone else had done it, it would be treason. It would’ve been unfair to ask them."
I leaned back in my chair and studied Corinna. She was thin and her eyes were over-sized for her face. But she didn’t look as weak as the rumors made her out to be. "I think the reports of your illness may have been overstated," I told her.
"I think the reports of your death may have been overstated," she replied.
Behind me, Connor chuckled. "It's so hard to get good information these days."
Admiration lit inside me. A mercy killing for her own mother. I couldn’t begin to imagine how hard such a thing might be. Of course, my mother hadn’t been Isla. Still, I didn’t think I could do something like that. She was right though. Her mother’s end had been much kinder than I’d planned.
I smiled thinly at her. “You guessed correctly.”
“I suppose I have a trip to the dungeons in order?” Corinna asked, folding her hands on her lap. She was quite calm about it.
I leaned back in my chair and evaluated her. Then I glanced at Blue.
What’s she thinking?I mentally asked him.
He furrowed his brow.She’s pissed at us for taking her, pissed at her mother for this whole stupid war, pissed at her husbands for backing her mother, pissed that she was left behind again—
So, pissed.
Pretty much.
