Chapter 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

I don't know how they heard of it, from Gertrude, perhaps, but Daphne and Shari came thundering down another hallway, nearly colliding into me as I burst from the great hall, the grizzly bear bellowing at my back.

"He's beating her," the mare cried.

"Move over," I told the porcupine, and Shari jumped back, holding on to Daphne's tail as I swung myself onto the mare's shoulders. Gripping the mare's mane in one hand, I reached for the porcupine with the other. "Go, Daphne!"

She surged forward, the echo of her hooves clattering against the stone floor like the cascading roar of an avalanche. Shari's claws stabbed through my dress and pinched into my back as the mare took a sharp right turn at the foyer. A dash under the raised portcullis led us out into the main courtyard and the bridge beyond.

The ruined tailgate added splinters to the shards of terra-cotta pottery, black soil, and flowers strewn across the gray stone. In front of the carnage was the honey badger, tears leaking from her glossy black eyes, and the fae king and his second standing over her.

"P-please," Flora whimpered, one paw still raised in supplication. "I don't know what happened. I brought you the exact same order as before, just as you requested."

" Liar! " the fae king raged. "If that were true, Meadow's core would be free and I'd be going home tonight. I will not suffer your churlish behavior or your undermining tongue any longer! Alec, I am still displeased. Do something about that."

Alec hefted his club even higher, but it never struck.

Thorny green vines wrapped around his wrist, yanking him clean off his feet and hurling him into the back of the wagon. Then they seized the fae king, wrenching him so violently he crashed to the ground.

The King of Beasts was on his bare feet and snarling when I slid off of Daphne's back, green magic whipping around me.

"How dare you touch her," I seethed.

"I am correcting an egregious mistake," he fired back. "Do not interfere!"

"I will always stand between my friends and those who terrorize them." It took only a second to bond with my oak tree this time, its wooden pulse pounding like a war drum. I sank into it, becoming it, until there was no distinction between where I ended and it began. Though constricted by the chain mail net smothering the canopy, I felt no pain from its presence. While it curbed my power, I had enough for what was to come.

"Flora." My voice resonated in a strange, two-octave tone. "Come here!"

Slinking on her belly, the honey badger made to scurry over to us, but the fae king was not going to let her go so easily. He did when I lashed him across the face with my vines, drawing a thin line of blood across one cheek. Incredulous, he pressed a palm against the wound and hissed when it came away red and wet.

Exactly like the trail Flora left behind as she finished crossing the bridge to the safety of our friends. Blood from an unseen wound sank into the seams between the stones. It took every ounce of my self-control not to strike him again, to bleed him like he had the honey badger.

"Is this the fae way, Ossian?" I demanded. "Is this what I can expect in Elfame? You're supposed to be a king, not a tyrant!"

"A queen shouldn't fight her king, Meadow."

"You are no king of mine! Go back to Elfame alone, Ossian. I will summon your portal, and you will leave. But Redbud and its citizens are mine ."

The fae king squared his shoulders, more than half the gemstones on his necklace twinkling madly. Copper magic bloomed at his hands, growing brighter with every second. "Stand down, Meadow. You don't have the strength to fight me."

"You don't think so? Then you should've never taught me the technique to defeat you!"

I didn't even need to reach for the potted plants and flowers. Their green life energy sprang to my summons, channeling into me. Into us .

And not just theirs.

At my back, I felt the will of my friends. Nurturing Daphne, gentle Shari, bold Flora. Faithful Sawyer. I saw their power—their magic—as clearly as I saw my own, though that had to be impossible. Yet it was reaching for me, a strand each of white, of red, of green, even a honey amber from the little tomcat hidden in my foraging bag. It was all coming to my aid, bolstering the shield I was determined to become.

I seized hold of those strands, a memory of an outcropping deep in the Tussock woods springing free from the maelstrom guarding my memories. We had united like this before.

All four strands wrapped around my wrist, like threads twisting together to form a single thicker strand of yarn, and channeled their power into my heart. It swirled around the green life energy given by the plants, creating a new rope of magic that coiled up and up around the trunk of the oak tree. In its passage, my magic bloomed. The blue veins and green roots and red heart I'd seen from Violet's demonstration returned, the white leaves shuddering under the restrains of the chain mail net.

Until the magic donated to me shot straight upwards.

The net exploded in a shower of white sparks, the branches of the oak tree stretching like they had just shed an entire winter's worth of snow.

I was free .

My perception snapped to the physical realm, to the copper-wreathed fist streaking for my face.

Battle magic roused without me even striking my cuffs, leatherbound or not, and I caught that fist within an inch of my cheek.

I registered the shocked look in Ossian's jewel-bright eyes for only a second before every gemstone on his necklace burst with a blast of blinding copper light.

I reeled back as if I'd been head-butted by a rhinoceros. The pain shot through my skull and into my mind, raking through my brain like the clawed paw of some monstrous creature. I couldn't think, couldn't hear—I definitely couldn't see—but oh my Green Mother could I feel .

The pain was indescribable. It made me shrink, cower, retreat into the deepest depths of the oak tree and wail for deliverance.

And as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

Blinking away the copper stars bursting across my vision, I found myself with my arms thrown up over my head and my knees bent like I was preparing to receiving a crushing blow from above. But there was nothing there. Still wary of an attack, I straightened and lowed my arms slowly, hands balling into fists.

I was greeted with applause.

What?

The fae king stood only a few paces away, the biggest grin I'd ever seen on his face, clapping for me. At his throat, every gemstone twinkled on their golden wire strands in their own kind of celebration.

Wait, weren't we just fighting? His fist was coming for my face, he'd been beating Flora—

"Three cheers for the cider witch!"

I snapped around at the sound of Flora's voice to find my friends also clapping and cheering. They were happy, unwounded, and there was no blood trail anywhere on the bridge. The planters and flowers weren't dashed upon the ground either, all healthy and whole in the back of the unruined wagon.

"What the—?"

"You did it, love," Ossian cried, reaching for me.

I flinched back, lifting my glowing fists, and he backed up a pace, raising his hands with a soft chuckle.

"I understand how this all can be confusing, love, but it was just a trick," the fae king explained in a soothing voice. "It was actually Flora's idea. Isn't that right?"

"Yep!" the honey badger agreed, a little too brightly in my opinion, but then again, nothing in the last few seconds was making any sense.

"What was?" I asked, starting to shake. Thistle thorns, I felt so confused, the phantom pain of those claws dragging through my brain making me clutch my head. Sure I hadn't just imagined all that! The golden haze of our fated mate bond insisted I was.

"A trial by fire," Ossian said. "One more strategic than the one Alec gave you."

Sitting on the wagon tailgate, the one-armed man simply shrugged, obviously having no remorse at locking me inside the great hall with the unchained grizzly bear.

"How did you…?"

"I'm the King of Beasts, Meadow. A master of illusion and mimicry." The fae king's voice softened as he continued, "You needed a push, love. I started to doubt that the plants would ever grant us the results we needed, and when I confronted Flora about it, she suggested this little ruse. Your friends all agreed. They knew you would do anything for them and perhaps that was the incentive you needed. It seemed so."

I whirled back to my friends, tears welling like someone has just sledgehammered a hole straight into a watermain. "Is this true?"

In eerie unison, all three nodded.

"How… how could you do this to me?" I sobbed, shuddering. "I thought— Thistle thorns, I thought—"

I covered my face with my hands, trying to keep the tears back, but they just flooded down my cheeks in anguish-filled waves. By the Green Mother, I'd thought Ossian was going to kill Flora. I'd put myself between them, prepared to do whatever necessary to protect her. It'd been so real. My fingernails raked against my scalp, leaving trails of fiery pain in their wake, but that was okay. I had to feel something that was true, something that was undeniable.

"Love, don't do that." Ossian gripped my wrists, his touch warm and gentle.

"Get away from me!" I screamed, shoving him away. I skirted around my friends then, the honey badger, porcupine, and white mare all turning with unnerving synchronization, worry etched on their faces. "Stay away from me," I told them all, sprinting for the castle and the sanctuary of the east wing.

Huddled in my bed, the covers thrown over my head like I was seven again and hiding in a blanket fort, I fought to get a grip on reality. Sawyer wormed his way out of the foraging bag and wiggled himself under my shaking fingers, his purrs coaxing my rapid heartbeat to slow.

"Sawyer," I whispered, "what was that? Was it all a lie? An illusion like Ossian said? Oh Green Mother, I'm so lost." My hands pawed at his fur. "I can't feel you inside anymore, not like before. The cat silhouette on my core, it's gone."

"Fae magic," the cat muttered, tensing. Then he forced himself to relax. "It wasn't permanent," he soothed me, though there was an ache in his voice.

He snuggled closer, wedging his head under my chin and purring even louder than before. He licked my throat, the swipe of his coarse tongue startling. "But this is. This is real, Meadow. This is always real."

Fresh tears slid down my cheeks, but this time, they were filled with gratitude. I buried my face into his warm little body and wept with abandon, truly knowing that the little cat would watch over me as long as I needed him to.