Page 57 of Return of the Nutcracker Prince

Rose watched the door, wringing her tail between her hands.“We need to go!All the mice are in the throne room.”

“The throne room?”Galiena and Alaric looked at each other and nodded.“We’ll go around the back way.”

“What about me?”asked Klaus.

Alaric answered.“You’re our distraction.”

“What?No!”Clara cried.“They’ll kill him.”

“The soldiers don’t have their weapons at the party,” Rose squeaked.“The King doesn’t trust most of them.”

That was certainly interesting.The King clearly knew he had upset his own people.

“But I need to get back or someone will notice me missing.”

After checking for danger, Rose ushered them down the darkened hallway.Alaric and Galiena slipped into the war room as they passed it.“Don’t do anything until we contain the mages, Clara.”Galiena whispered to her as they disappeared.

Night had fallen, the twin moons shining through the windows.They crept along the wall, keeping to the shadows.Clara stumbled over Rose’s tail, who grabbed it in pain.

“I’m so sorry, Rose!Are you okay?”

Rose shuddered.“I know you didn’t mean it.It’s just, shoes are a mouse’s weakness.”

“Shoes?”Klaus looked at Clara, and the meaning dawned on them both.

“Yes.They say someone hit our King with a shoe many years ago, and he lost his magic.That’s why the Seers ruled in his stead for a long time.”

Clara’s pulse pounded in her ears.Now she knew what she had to do.

From her tour, the throne room had a balcony up above.That would give her the best chance of hitting her target.

“Klaus, how do I get to the gallery?”

Klaus crouched behind the door to his mother’s throne room as Rose, Clara’s mouse ally, ran back inside.She was going to grab her mate and baby, so no harm came to them.

He seethed inside to see the destruction at the hands of the mice.Despite knowing their Tinkerers could heal the damage, he hated it had ever come to this.They never should have been able to breach their walls, but the Mouse King had done so.This had to work, or Klaus would consider himself a complete failure.

Taking a deep breath, he raced into the throne room with a roar.“Ferdinand!”The eight-foot demon Mouse King turned on his heel, all seven faces spread in creepy, sharp-toothed grins.

“Prince Klaus!”they all hissed at once.“How did you escape?”

“Youdareto sit on my mother’s throne?”

“It’sminenow!”

“I challenge you!”An eerie laughing sound slithered from the Mouse King, and the rest of the mice in the room slowly picked it up.But not all.Most of them just looked uncomfortable.

“Very well, Prince.Since my soldiers failed, I shall crush you myself!”

Gingersnaps.

Klaus dodged as the king’s mighty tail flew into the air and crashed down to where he had been standing.Drawing his saber, he slashed at it, getting a howl of pain from the king in return.He kept one eye on the back of the dais, where the Seers stood cheering on their monarch.

Between evasive maneuvers and strikes of his sword, Klaus glimpsed Galiena and Alaric entering behind the Seers from the secret passage.Just as they had planned, his parents threw the anti-magic nets over the Seers.The king’s roars of frustration as Klaus continued to evade his wrath drowned out their cries for help.Then Alaric slit their throats one by one.

Once the last one was dead, it would all be up to his beloved Clara.

However, his distraction cost him dearly.Goddess, he failed at everything.A giant clawed paw reached out and grabbed him by the throat, raising him up to eye-level with the sneering, grotesque heads of the Mouse King.

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