Chapter 17

Sorrel stood at the altar on the wedding podium with the impression that a black hole had managed to slip its way inside him overnight. He was dressed in a white tuxedo with a black tie and shoes, and although many people had complimented him this day, he felt like an imposter.

He'd tried so damn hard to be cheerful, but he didn't realise just how easy it had been to smile until he'd completely lost his spark for it.

"Oh, you look so handsome!" Cindy told him. "Sally will be so pleased. You know... once she gets a closer look at you."

He brought his eyes away from her with shame, wishing he could share in her glee, when all he felt was disappointment and despondency. It didn't help that his fondness for Cindy had died upon the realisation she was turning a blind eye to what was really happening to him.

He wondered if Miss Mole had done something to blackmail Cindy into aiding her cruel plan. That was what he was choosing to believe, at least. It made him feel better about being in her presence.

The wedding chapel he was in was made of glass shards. His gaze followed a small beam of sunlight that was allowed to come in so it could make the colourful glass glitter and shine. The building was beautiful, even if it meant his doom.

Some of the glass on the walls reflected his own face like mirrors, and he brought his eyes away from them constantly, hating how dismayed he appeared. He looked tired and depressed, to the point even his hair looked lifeless.

Bells began to chime, and his blood raced in his veins. I don't want to do this.

And yet he turned to look to the entryway door with a forced smile, watching Sally being walked down the aisle in a white dress by a groundhog who could see for her. Her white veil no doubt made her near-sightedness even worse.

Two little mouse sprite children carelessly threw ripped pieces of white petals, making the room smell of daisies and other floral scents. At least it hides the smell of dirt.

Rows upon rows of people observed him standing there as her groom to be, happily grinning. It felt as though all of Burrow City had come to witness the event.

He didn't miss the stares of a few men who appeared jealous as they glared at him, but they wouldn't know Sorrel would do anything to trade places with them.

Cindy was in the front row, and she was crying, waving a hanky in greeting when his eyes met hers. His smile grew more broken at her joy.

Then Miss Mole's feet met the bottom step of the podium on which he stood, and fear like he'd never known clutched at him. His breaths sawed in and out quietly as he watched her climb the steps, and he worried he'd start having a panic attack at any moment.

I can do this. Think of Greta. This is for her. His hands shook as he lifted them so he could push back the white veil covering her mixture of mole and human features, wishing it was a different face he revealed rather than the one he saw. Although he wanted it to be covered in hair, he didn't want it to be a feminine face of fur.

Even now, despite his heartache, he still wished it was Cypress by his side. He swiftly pushed down the rising thoughts of him when he remembered the prince was marrying someone else in the spring next week.

He still didn't know who, and he was glad he didn't. A prince or a princess from a neighbouring kingdom? How did Sorrel ever allow himself to believe he would be worthy of a prince in the first place?

He was as valuable as the dirt that would bury him for the rest of his life, at least to something like a flower fairy. To the burrowing animal sprites, he was like a chunk of gold, but that didn't bring him pride or joy, like it might have someone else.

He didn't realise he hadn't been paying attention to the ceremony until the vows were to be exchanged. It made sense he'd come to his senses right at the most devastating part, where all he wanted was to back away from this room. He would have much rather he signed his name away to this woman in a daze than remember agreeing to this.

Sorrel clenched his eyes and wished he was somewhere else. He wished he would disappear. His stomach was so tight with tension he felt nauseous, and he clenched his eyes harder when he wished someone, anyone, would come save him.

He'd told Greta he'd be a knight in shining armour for the world, but where was his knight when he needed one?

"And do you, Sorrel Maclarren," the mouse sprite said up to him from his little book, forcing Sorrel to open his eyes to look at his furry face, "take Sally Molethrum, to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

His vow clogged in his throat. I don't. He wanted to say no. It was all he could think.

"I..." he stuttered, before giving her a pleading look. Please, stop this. Please don't make me do this.

Her joyful face instantly hardened, and her black eyes narrowed on him, her pink spiky nose twitching in his direction with irritation. Make the vow, was what her eyes demanded.

"I..."

"Stop!" A familiar voice rang through the chapel.

Sorrel looked towards the door with hope as it bashed against the wall before that hope was instantly swallowed with terrible despair. A different furred sprite had entered with a sword.

Even though the voice sounded familiar, all Sorrel knew was that someone else wanted him. A stranger. He was tired of being chased by sprites. First Mr Toad, then Jeffers the beetle, Miss Mole, and now this other random sprite.

It was too much. His heart couldn't take much more.

"I can't do this anymore," he whispered to himself.

"What did you say?" Sally snapped, making him look back at her as she gave him a sneer.

"I won't marry you." Then he pointed to the sprite who had interrupted the wedding. "I won't marry any of you! I don't care who you are – all I want is to go the fuck home!"

"I will destroy your mother's farm!" she yelled as Sorrel ran down the steps she'd just climbed.

"Not if I make sure she calls the exterminator before you and your rodents arrive!" It was the only hope he had that maybe he could warn Greta before they caused too much devastation to the farm. "You bring all your rodents, and I'll make sure they die."

Before he got too far, she grabbed his arm and yanked him back. "If you do that, you'd be breaking the treaty with the animal sprites."

Hatred filled his expression as he turned to her.

"I'm not a fucking flower fairy!" He shoved her until she stumbled backwards and landed on her arse. "The damn alliance between your kinds has nothing to do with me. I'm not a fairy, just a wingless, magicless freak who is sick and tired of all you people!"

She looked up at him with shock, but there was nothing she could say to refute what he'd publicly admitted. His words rang true, and everyone in this room had witnessed it.

For the first time in months, his heart was calm despite the quiet rage that simmered beneath his skin.

Sorrel headed towards the stranger who tried to block his path.

People were pushing the stranger back to prevent him from approaching the podium and interrupting the wedding further, but he clawed his way through them. The stranger put his hands up like he was intending to grab Sorrel when he was close.

Sprites dressed similarly to him entered the room, but instantly ran into a wall of burrow sprites.

"Get the hell out of my way," he muttered under his breath with a determined glare.

He dodged the stranger's reaching arms, but someone else grabbed his long hair and tugged him back. He cried out as he clutched his scalp, especially when a few strands were ripped out. Dragged across the ground backwards, he was unable to get to his feet.

He'd never known betrayal like this as he stared up at Cindy while she pulled and yanked on his hair as if it were rope.

"You will marry her! She won't pay me if you don't."

I am so tired of people touching my hair!

He patted the dirt, desperately searching. He needed something sharp. A rock or a piece of glass, it didn't matter.

He heard a ring of shocked gasps in the background.

One moment he was tugging to free himself, and in the next, the tension and pressure on his scalp disappeared. Before he could finish climbing to his feet to make a run for it, someone bashed their shoulder against his hips and lifted until he lay hanging down their back. Then they sprinted off with him.

"Time to go!" a male sprite yelled.

Sorrel beat on his captor's furry back with all his might, kicking his knees into his chest. He tried anything and everything to be let go, to be free.

No! Not again!Not another damn kidnapping!

Sorrel was tired of doing what everyone else wanted him to, and he was done being nice and obedient. The world was warming, and the winter wasteland outside was fading. Tomorrow brought the first day of spring.

He would be going home.