“Did you get hurt?What happened?”
“Nothing serious.Mother Gingerbread called a retreat.”
“What?”That brought him upright with a groan.Pain be damned.“Why would she do that?”
“They’d overtaken the artillery.We had to destroy the guns to keep the mice from turning them on us.At that point, I was still shielding you and I —”
“Wait.That was you?”
She nodded, her voice trembling.“I — I was so scared.”
Clara had saved him yet again.Klaus shuffled closer so he could cup her head in his hands and thumb her tears away.“You’re amazing.”
“Your Highness!”Zelda Gingerbread approached them, her purple robes marred with smoke and mud.“You’re awake.”
He refused to take his eyes off Clara.“I am.”
“Remind me not to make your girl mad.”
The girl in question blushed and turned away.Klaus cocked his head at Mother Gingerbread, not questioning that she’d referred to Clara as his girl.“And why is that?”
Zelda put her hands on her hips and stared down at them.“When you got hit, she not only cast a shield around you, but she started pelting the enemy with missiles faster than I’ve ever seen.It takes a special mage to cast two spells at one time, and she was casting dozens simultaneously.”The elder mage shook her head.“I don’t understand how she’s a Waker.”
“She’s not.”At her confusion, he continued.“She was born there, but Uncle Ludwig knew her grandmother, who was a Dreamer.”
“Her grandmother?”
Clara nodded, then lifted her head to the head mage.“He said she was a Caster named Marie.”
“Well, no wonder!”Zelda threw her hands up in the air.“Wait, Marie Zuckerman died ages ago.How are you her granddaughter when she was never even married?”
“She left the realm and married a human named Stahlbaum.My grandfather.”
Mage Gingerbread chuckled.“I’ll be.You know, when I saw you in your battle braids, I thought youwereMarie for a second.But I figured I was just going senile.”
Klaus laughed despite the stabbing in his ribs.Zelda Gingerbread would never lose her faculties.She was too stubborn.
“It’s time for a debrief, Your Highness.And then we had better get back.”
“What of the tunnel?”
“It’s closed off again.They won’t be able to break that enchantment once we’re done reinforcing it.”
“Good.”He struggled to his feet, clenching his jaw at the sear of pain through his side.The Healers’ magic had fixed his more superficial wounds, but that rib shot would haunt him all day.
He took one last look at Clara.“Thank you, yet again, for saving me.”
“Anytime,” she whispered, then rose to her feet.“I’ll see if there’s anything I can do to help.See you when we ride out.”
“Of course.”He’d make sure of it, now.
He strode after Mother Gingerbread on her way to where the lieutenants were convening, and his chest tightened.All around him lay the sobering effects of the battle.Healers hovered over soldiers and mages alike, while the few uninjured, or the ones that weren’t too bad off, carried provisions to the rest.His people were smeared with dirt and blood.
Klaus’s steps grew heavy as the fatigue caught up on him.His first battle as leader and they’d been forced to retreat from what was supposed to be an ambush.He should have called the whole thing off when he realized no one was in the camp.The army of the Land of Sweets was in disarray.He had failed them.
The lieutenants saluted when he arrived, and he returned it, almost grudgingly.They had to be judging him for the way he tried to take down the mouse captain by himself.
“Glad to see you back on your feet, Your Highness.”