Page 3 of Knight's End
I leaned to the side to stare at my other knights. Ryan looked horrified. Declan had tears in his eyes and he clasped his hands in front of his chest—as though Quinn’s sadness was too heartbreaking for him to bear. Connor looked pensive. I turned to Blue, the first knight to somehow notice Quinn’s behavior.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as I pulled Quinn into me for a hug. His cold, wet arms enveloped me. My poor silent knight clutched at me desperately and I tried to reassure him by running my hand up and down his spine.
Blue’s deep brown eyes were solemn as he gazed down on me. “I think I may have been wrong. At least about some things. I think Quinn somehow came back with djinni powers. I think what he and Ryan wished for came true.”
My mind felt as though it had been dropped like one of the black boulders that had transformed in front of me. My brain felt as though it had smashed into the ground at high speed. Everything I’d thought was true … wasn’t. The new reality I’d started to accept, that my knights had no powers … was that wrong?
I stared beyond Quinn’s shoulders at the massive gargoyles. They blinked, but otherwise stood still and silent, as though they were awaiting orders. But whose? Were they waiting to attack? Or was Blue right?
Cerena cleared her throat. “Might as well test that theory, no?”
Ryan was the first to act, his military training sending him out of our huddle to stand in front of the foremost gargoyle. “By order of the General of her Majesty, Queen Bloss of Evaness, you will stand at attention.”
The gargoyles’ wings snapped into his sides and he straightened. But he must have been standing off balance, because that tipped the beast forward and he face-planted in the mud. Ryan barely jumped out of the way in time. The gargoyle scrambled back up to standing.
Sard it all. My jaw dropped. My eyes scanned the stone beasts. There had to be at least a hundred of them. A hundred stone giants who could repel most spells, fly without getting tired, who could use their bodies to break down castle walls.
We’d gone from hopeless to fierce in a single instant. Evaness had a chance. We had a chance. I gave a sigh that was half disbelief and half relief. Tears filled my eyes and I hugged Quinn tighter to me. But he didn’t share my joy. In my arms, Quinn still shuddered, his face buried in my neck. I stroked his hair and glanced back at Blue.
“His price is a living nightmare,” my new knight reminded me.
Horror flashed like lightning through me.
I put my hands on either side of Quinn’s face and pulled him up to meet my gaze. His red-rimmed eyes stared at me.
Quinn?I asked in my mind.
He didn’t answer.
I imagined a little squirrel on his shoulder, shaking its tail in his face.
He didn’t respond.
I gave a sob and smashed Quinn back into my chest, wrapping myself around him.
My knight. My poor silent knight.
He’d given us a chance in this war. But he’d lost the only means of communication he’d ever had. Even the magic beads from Donaloo couldn’t overcome the price of wish magic.
Quinn was stuck inside his own head. Alone.
